Mobile Shopping / Self Scanning

The practice of visiting a shop or shops in order to examine a product before buying it online at a lower price has been populaised with the mobile phone. Customers have been able to look at the price in a competitor store before committing to a purchase. The popularisation of mobile use in store has meant a majority of large retailers now have dedicated mobile apps with some have developing capabilities that assist the customers shopping journey. Applications that allow a customer to pay for an item on their phone without having to queue are very compelling to customers and we would expect to see mainstream adoption. Lots of experiments with beacon and QR-code technology have so far not gained any real traction. In store navigation applications would be useful but so far there hasn't been an effective, low-cost way to accurately detect customers position when inside a building.