The Estimote Beacon can be leveraged for proximity marketing, hands-free check-ins, and contactless payments. Beyond that, Estimote states that the technology can also be useful for indoor mapping to help consumers navigate through a store.

And let’s not forget iBeacon, a feature that will come with iOS 7. Apple hasn’t said much about iBeacon yet, but most people anticipate that it will be a big deal in retail marketing or advertising. As GigaOM explains:

“Essentially iBeacon can transmit customized coupons or even walking directions to the aisle where a particular item is located. It can prompt a customer with special promotions or a personalized messages and recommendations based on their current location or past history with the company. Smartphones that are in an iBeacon zone will benefit from personalized microlocation-based notification and actions”.

The Experiential Future of Retail

It’s important to note that the future of retail isn’t just about advanced gadgets and equipment. It’s about the experience that people encounter when shopping. In an article about what he learned in building the Apple Store, Ron Johnson, previously the CEO at J.C. Penney and former senior VP for retail at Apple said:

“People come to the Apple Store for the experience — and they’re willing to pay a premium for that. There are lots of components to that experience, but maybe the most important — and this is something that can translate to any retailer — is that the staff isn’t focused on selling stuff, it’s focused on building relationships and trying to make people’s lives better”.

Here’s a key difference between the retail tactics in Minority Report and the ones that BLE can offer: The advertisements in the film are purely for marketing purposes. They’re about putting a product in front of the consumer. BLE technology on the other hand, isn’t just about selling, it’s also about shopper experience. Or at least, it should be.

For this to truly work in retail, businesses should use BLE, not with the sole purpose of marketing or advertising, but also because they want to provide a better shopping experience.

If businesses adopt the technology purely because they want to shove products into people’s faces, then they’re no different from companies that employ pushy salespeople or sites that pester users with obtrusive ads.

On the other hand, if retailers embrace the technology because they also want to enhance the shopping experience (i.e. through maps, hands-free payments, automatic rewards, etc.) then shoppers will embrace the technology–and the company–right back.

Francois Bondiguel writes on behalf of Vend, a point-of-sale, inventory, and customer loyalty software that helps over 8,000 retailers manage and grow their business. Connect with Vend on Google+ and LinkedIn.