This Friday, Tabcorp will communicate with newsagents about how it will handle POS barcodes for the pay-in-store digital wallet.
We are releasing the new POS Barcodes for the Pay-in-Store tickets on the terminal. Having spoken to you three POS providers and listening to the needs of many retailers, the decision has been made to have a separate POS Barcode for tickets that are purchased by a digital wallet with an actual dollar amount.
Pilot outlets will be from Friday 15 November 2019. If all goes well it will be rolled out to the whole network commencing Monday 18 November 2019.
This will be communicated to the network in What’s Hot @ the Lott Friday 15 November 2019.
While it is true that Tabcorp did speak with people from POS software companies, including mine, Tower Systems, they have gone with a request from a smaller company, an idea that results in, in my opinion, more work for retailers, more risk of mistakes. This is a dumb move by Tabcorp, a move that does not respect retailers, a move will have negative consequences in-store.
How do I know Tabcorp is acting on the request of a smaller POS software co? It’s in an email from Tabcorp, in which they name the company and detail their request to handle this the way Tabcorp has now decided on.
Rather than implement the right technical approach that respects retail counter workflow and data accuracy, Tabcorp has gone with an approach because, I think, of the need to work with inflexible (backward?) software. regardless of the reason, Tabcorp’s decision is wrong for retailers.
Newsagents are the losers in all this, again. At least they will know who to blame.
Footnote: the proposal from Tower was based on what the Tower COO know would support retail sales counter workflow and data accuracy and would work with all POS software. Tabcorp, does not support those goals, apparently.
I wonder why a giant like Tabcorp would bow down to the needs of a small software company rather than saying “this is how its going to be done, you need to do it our way” (they already tell newsagents “this is how its going to be done if you want to sell Lotto” and I can’t imagine this small software company would have any greater power or leverage over Tabcorp than the newsagents do)
Jonathan, at the start, Tabcorp didn’t see the need to do anything. Ultimately, they went down the easiest path for them.