Physical Mobile Interaction in Omni-Channel Retailing : Using the customers’ smartphone to interact with smart objects in a store

Abstract: While shopping in a retail store today the customers are often interacting with multiple sale channels when making a purchase. These channels can include in‑store terminals, the customers’ smartphone etc. This thesis looks at how physical mobile interaction can be implemented to enhance the experience when using different channels for a purchase. Physical mobile interaction is a way for a user to interact with real world objects using a mobile device. This thesis examines how some of these techniques can be used in a retail store using the customers’ own smartphone device. With todays smartphone market with several different operating systems available it is important to find find an implementation which suits the majority of the users. This paper details which technologies that are available to implement the physical mobile interaction on the major smartphone platforms. It also discusses important design decisions for it to work on these platforms. The paper concludes that it is possible to implement these techniques on todays major smartphone platforms. It also concludes that the best technology can not always be used because of limitations on one or more platforms.