Mobility is a computing inevitability. Look around and you’re bound to see someone using a WiFi connection or sticking their nose in a smartphone. So why is adoption of mobile technology slower than expected at the point of sale?

Several recent research reports indicate merchants have been slow to implement mobile POS (mPOS) systems, and a Business Insider article even reports “some retailers are reverting back to legacy solutions.” Business Insider says retailers have grown frustrated with consumer-oriented smartphones and tablets that while popular, aren’t designed to handle the rigors of retail environments. Often referred to as retail-hardened solutions, ruggedized tablets are often better suited for high-traffic mobile POS environments but lack consumer awareness.

Another reason could have something to do with definition. As we discussed in a previous blog, different market players define mPOS in different ways to serve their own interests, but this poetic license creates confusion that leads to indecision among buyers.

Security concerns also seem to be playing a role. “If data breaches have taught us one thing, it’s that hackers never sleep. They are always looking for another target. As mobile payments gain in popularity, we see mobile point of sale systems becoming the new target,” Bluefin Payment Systems CEO John Perry said, as quoted by Pymnts.com.

On the consumer side, the adoption of mobile wallets for purchases also has been slow. Even though awareness among North American consumers that they can use smartphones for payments grew by 10% in the past year, actual use of mobile wallets increased a mere 1%, according to a study by Accenture.

“This is a clear indicator to banks and retailers that although the digital transformation in payments is progressing, there is still a long way to go before we reach broad market adoption,” said Robert Flynn, managing director for Accenture Payment Services in North America.

Whatever the reasons for the slow adoption of mobile payment systems, it reinforces what we have been saying all along: Cash isn’t going away. It accounts for roughly 40% of all transactions and up to two-thirds of purchases of less than $10. With that in mind, we have three recommendations for our POS dealers and ISVs to accelerate adoption:

• Continue to promote the benefits of mPOS to your customers, emphasizing cost savings as compared to legacy systems, ease of use, flexibility and easy integration between components. Remind your customers of the advantages of completing transactions at the point of purchase decision and providing patrons with a better shopping experience.

• Tie mPOS deployments to EMV implementation, which merchants have to execute to avoid liability in fraud cases involving chip-enabled cards. EMV aims to reduce fraud through computer chips embedded in credit and debit cards.

• Integrate cash management into your solutions. For instance, our WiFi-enabled cash drawers would be a perfect fit for merchants looking to deploy flexible mPOS systems that let associates accept payments anywhere in a store.

• Also consider our new SMARTtill cash management solutions, which vastly improve cash counting accuracy and reduce the time spent by employees on cash reconciliation.

Slow adoption of a new technology isn’t a death knell. Remember, cell phones took a while to catch on and portable computers were available long before the laptop became the go-to computer. Mobile payment systems will prevail, and we will support you as you help transition customers to the new technology.