Dive Brief:

• Some research from earlier this year found growth in the number of retailers testing beacons in stores: Nearly a third (32%) of the top 100 U.S. retailers in the United States will have deployed at least some beacons this year, according to Business Insider, and 85% will have beacons by the end of next year. And more than half of the top retailers in North America are testing beacons, according to Boston-based mobile platform Swirl Networks.

• But consumers haven’t really responded to the technology, with many simply unaware of it and others unwilling to be tracked in stores. 

• Other research has found that not many retailers are really on board, either. Just 3% use beacons now, and 16% have plans to try the technology, Forrester Research found earlier this year. And Apple itself, which developed the technology, accounts for 15% of existing beacons, according to analytics firm Reveal Mobile.

Dive Insight:

A couple of years ago beacons seemed to be the future of in-store technology, helping to shape customers' store experiences. But now many believe that consumers aren’t really that interested in using them, for a variety of reasons. 

There’s a decidedly mixed pattern of views on the future of beacons, with some saying their ubiquity is just a matter of time and others saying their utility is more limited than initially thought, and not so much in marketing.

It may be hard to believe that independent tech consultant Hari Gottipati, for example, is still a fan of beacons, considering that his initial impression, two years ago, of the tech's usefulness has largely fizzled. But he now believes, reports Bloomberg, that the technology will be more useful to customers in their homes, helping them to manage their connected devices, rather then in stores helping them to shop.

One reason beacons have failed to emerge as a major retail force is that the technology hasn’t yet been refined to be really useful to the shopper; beacons will greet customers repeatedly after already having entered a store if they happen to pass near the entrance, for example. Plus, the Bluetooth connectivity must be on and a retailer’s app must be downloaded onto the phone for beacons to communicate.

And many customers aren’t very appreciative of the tech’s “smart” features, reporting, for example, that getting a coupon for an item they’re looking at can be creepy.

“From a consumer standpoint, using beacons is sort of a hassle, when it involves downloading and installing an app that doesn’t relate to the users’ lifestyle,” Kim Stuart, COO of mobile wallet marketing services vendor Atlas Rewards Corp., told Contently. “Most companies fail to realize that spending the money to create (and then support) an app is a fruitless enterprise on their part [because] they don’t have a user base that’s large enough to make it worthwhile.” 

Yet, while beacons may be falling flat as a marketing tool, they could remain valuable to retailers as a source of data, some observers say. And if consumers begin to use them and find them helpful in other contexts, retailers could find them more receptive to them in store as well. Eventually.