• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, March 13, 2015

From stealthily positioned beacons to Apple Watch-assisted mobile payments, retailers are eying a range of technologies to boost sales. Unfortunately, the only way to test their respective effectiveness to in-market, experts told attendees at OMMA at SXSW, on Friday. “You don’t really know how all of this is going to work until its hits the marketplace,” said Laura Davis Taylor, EVP of Customer Experience at MaxMedia. “Focus groups don’t work.” Meanwhile, in addition to logistical and engineering barriers, making new technologies work in-market is inevitably hampered by mammoth “egos and legacy systems,” said Ryan Bonifacino, SVP of Digital at Alex and Ani.