RACO Wireless, a machine-to-machine (M2M) partner for T-Mobile USA, Inc., has announced that it will support wireless credit card authorisation and card activation for the new ConnectNow Custom Gift Card Kiosk by OpenMotion, a digital and mobile marketing solutions company.
The ConnectNow Custom Gift Card Kiosk is a self-service system that allows a consumer to create a unique gift card by selecting the occasion, choosing a design, personalising a message, and purchasing and printing the card on demand.
OpenMotion’s ConnectNow Kiosk ushers in an era of customised gift card products, empowering consumers to create a card from their favourite retailer with their own personal touch, transforming an ordinary gift card into something very personalised and meaningful.
The kiosk combines digital touchscreen computing, ergonomic retail self-service kiosk, gift card printing and real-time credit card authorisation and card activation through wireless machine-to-machine (M2M) communications enabled by RACO Wireless.
RACO Wireless provides wireless connectivity for machine-to-machine applications via T-Mobile’s network. OpenMotion will leverage the RACO Wireless Omega Management Suite™ (OMS) platform for subscriber identification module (SIM) management on kiosks. The kiosks will reside in leading retailers through the United States.
“Retailers require our kiosks to communicate credit card data and other critical real-time information, and we needed to do this reliably and at an affordable cost. RACO Wireless provided us with both,” said Rob Deubell, president of OpenMotion
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“The ConnectNow Custom Gift Card Kiosk from OpenMotion is another example of how the growth of M2M communications is revolutionising industries—by allowing critical data and information to be communicated from one machine to another very reliably and in a manner that generates a powerful return on investment very quickly,” said John Horn, president of RACO Wireless. “The prepaid card market for retailers is expected to grow from US$279 billion in 2012 to $329 billion in 2014, and applications like the ConnectNow Kiosk are likely to accelerate that growth even more.”
The ConnectNow Custom Card Kiosk addresses the top three gift card purchasing criteria for consumers: Selecting a specific monetary value, finding a card for a specific occasion and finding a visually appealing card. It also overcomes the biggest objection to purchasing a gift card – that the card may be perceived as impersonal.
RACO Wireless reportedly enables companies like OpenMotion to build, support and enhance M2M applications, thanks to its streamlined approach to delivering customised M2M connectivity solutions. A RACO Wireless spokesman says that it can assemble a flexible, end-to-end M2M connectivity solution for its partners – including delivering custom rate plans, tailored billing solutions and customised wireless connectivity as well as helping them with device certification and branding their M2M applications – within just hours or days.
The Omega Management Suite™ from RACO Wireless is an information tool that reportedly delivers visibility into the wireless network and provides tools designed to simplify SIM management. According to a Raco Wireless spokesman, OMS also provides advanced reporting and alerting features including real-time SIM monitoring & reports, overage reports & alerts, SIM activation & maintenance, SIM management, web based billing, and APN system hardware status monitors.
