> But you miss the real problem with the idea. System integration difficulties will prevent the system from achieving critical mass and broad coverage.
I don't think that would be impossible. Unlikely maybe, but if the Groupon approach was taken (huge sales teams) it could work.
The hardest part of this idea is not getting stores to use it[1], it's proving that the product has enough value to stores for them to put work into it. Look at Groupon, places are falling over themselves to get involved (or were) to their own detriment (see the stories of people selling $20k of product for $1k) and with the rise of the internet high street shops are having problems. A place in my hometown that had been around for 30 years shut down earlier in the year because their business was being taken by online alternatives; they would have jumped at the chance to take anything that would have improved the businesses prospects no matter the work involved. It's not the question of "should we have 100k profit this year of 101k?" it's "should we break even this year or shut down?"
If the product actually provided value to the stores (which I think it won't, it would harm them) then getting stores involved wouldn't be hard. Again, maybe it's England specific but a lot of high street stores here are losing business fast and I doubt any of them would be stupid enough to ignore an opportunity to increase their business, regardless of the work involved, I think that the OPs idea is the problem. Stores aren't big giant corporate machines with hundreds of different parts, if a system had a good sales team and a good product I don't believe it would be as hard as you state.
[1] Technically the hard part is getting stores to use it, yes, but that's a byproduct of showing there is enough value. If there is enough value I believe getting stores to switch to the system would not be as difficult as building a valuable product.
I don't think that would be impossible. Unlikely maybe, but if the Groupon approach was taken (huge sales teams) it could work.
The hardest part of this idea is not getting stores to use it[1], it's proving that the product has enough value to stores for them to put work into it. Look at Groupon, places are falling over themselves to get involved (or were) to their own detriment (see the stories of people selling $20k of product for $1k) and with the rise of the internet high street shops are having problems. A place in my hometown that had been around for 30 years shut down earlier in the year because their business was being taken by online alternatives; they would have jumped at the chance to take anything that would have improved the businesses prospects no matter the work involved. It's not the question of "should we have 100k profit this year of 101k?" it's "should we break even this year or shut down?"
If the product actually provided value to the stores (which I think it won't, it would harm them) then getting stores involved wouldn't be hard. Again, maybe it's England specific but a lot of high street stores here are losing business fast and I doubt any of them would be stupid enough to ignore an opportunity to increase their business, regardless of the work involved, I think that the OPs idea is the problem. Stores aren't big giant corporate machines with hundreds of different parts, if a system had a good sales team and a good product I don't believe it would be as hard as you state.
[1] Technically the hard part is getting stores to use it, yes, but that's a byproduct of showing there is enough value. If there is enough value I believe getting stores to switch to the system would not be as difficult as building a valuable product.