Using biometrics—fingerprint authentication technology–to speed up retail transactions was supposed to save companies time and money. But for some retailers, processing sales through fingerprints is turning into an effective marketing tool as well.
Just ask Kal Abhari, manager of the Arnold, MO, Express-Mart, who has seen an uptick in business since the store’s introduction of the new Biopay system a month ago generated widespread TV and print news coverage in the St. Louis market.
While media reports about the new technology have concentrated on retailers’ savings on credit-card fees and reduction in card fraud, Abhari has found a number of people actually prefer to pay via fingerprint identification instead of having to carry around checks or cards. And some like its speed; processing a sale takes only 20-30 seconds.
“We actually got customers because of the news coverage,” Abhari says. “People came in and signed up for it.”
Supermarket chain Piggly Wiggly has said it will roll out biometric technology from San Francisco-based Pay by Touch, the industry leader, at all 82 of its stores by summer’s end. Another supermarket chain, Farm Fresh, is in the midst of a four-month trial in its stores in Virginia.
Piggly Wiggly executives told trade publication “eWeek” last month that the adoption rates of 15%-20% had pleasantly surprised them. Customers “are buying more than they used to. It must be the ease of the purchasing process,” said Rich Farrell, the company’s director of information systems.
Privacy advocates have expressed concern about using fingerprints to pay the bills. The Electronic Privacy Foundation has noted that people whose prints get hacked are in trouble because even though the prints are stored on closed net servers, victims of a hack job can’t just get a new set of fingerprints the way they can replace their credit cards. But the system is voluntary: People can still use credit cards, and Abhari’s assistant manager Kevin Warttig insisted that biometrics was more secure than using plastic because it removes the threat of a clerk stealing a customer’s card numbers.
