According to the recent IMRG Capgemini Quarterly Benchmarking Study, a third (32%) of all online sales were made over mobile devices between November 2013 and January 2014 – and this figure is only set to grow. Connectivity has changed the way consumers shop and interact with retailers and banks, with mobile we’re now browsing and buying more on the move than ever before.
Ahead of TRANSACT 14, keynote speakers Ariel Bardin from Google and Paul Galant from Verifone, and ETA CEO Jason Oxman share their thoughts on the further changes mobile will bring to the payments and retail industries.
Payments Made Easy
The ease with which customers can pay for purchases is absolutely integral to the success of shopping on mobile. Having to enter too much information or copy out card details on the move is cumbersome and off-putting for most people, meaning transactions are often abandoned.
Jason Oxman comments, “Shopping cart abandonment is one of the major issues merchants are facing when it comes to mobile. The ability to make payments is a significant part of the issue – after all, without successful payment, no transaction can be completed. Making mobile payments faster and easier is a big driver for the types of mobile technology that are being developed.”
Ariel Bardin agrees, “In this new world of constant connectivity, mobile is blurring the lines between the online and offline worlds. People are growing to expect the ability to transact instantly using their smartphones—whether they’re in cyberspace or standing in your retail space.
“We’ve seen this first-hand with the partners who have integrated Google Wallet Instant Buy, which helps retailers make sign-in and purchasing on their mobile site and app as easy as a few taps. Many merchants are seeing significant increases in mobile traffic, sales, and repeat purchases just by making it easier to pay on their mobile properties.”
Commerce Convergence
When it comes to mobile, the capabilities of payments technology are no longer limited to just making a payment. The demands of mobile commerce is driving the convergence of multiple services and business models, changing the shopping experience across all channels and giving consumers more choice about how and when they conduct transactions.
“There is an exciting evolution underway. I think the coming decade will be the most dynamic and important in the history of payments. Business models, technology, and consumer behaviours are changing. Electronic payments, digital commerce, predictive analytics, and mobility are converging, along with contextual marketing, digital advertising, couponing, loyalty, and social media. The opportunities to enable magical new commerce experiences for consumers and more meaningful interactions between brands, merchants, and their customers are endless,” explains Paul Galant.
Bardin adds, “The power and versatility of a consumer smartphone ecosystem needs to be matched by the power and versatility of the future merchant point-of-sale environment. The point of sale, wherever it is located, must become more open and connected so merchants and consumers can have more freedom to conduct commerce in the way they want. More open and connected must not come at the expense of security and the safety and soundness of consumer information.”
Ensuring Security for Evolution
As with any new technology ensuring security of systems, services and personal data is a priority before widespread adoption can take place.
Oxman comments, “There have been a number of recent breaches at both top merchants and financial firms that have highlighted the need for better security surrounding payments systems and data protection practices. We’re not facing just one type of attack, everything from in-person point-of-sale breaches to increasingly complex cyber-attacks are commonplace. Unless we solve the data breach issue across all channels and areas of the payments chain, we can’t expect banks, merchants or consumers to have confidence in new technology and that particularly applies to mobile because of the unique challenges it brings.”
“Growing concerns over the security of consumer data threaten to undermine the pace of evolution. Security is top of mind—not only in response to the recent breaches, but also in ensuring that, as we enable new methods of commerce, consumers, merchants, and financial institutions can be confident in the integrity of the transaction. We all need to be educating our clients on understanding their risk exposure and on how to develop a more comprehensive approach to reducing their risk and their total cost of ownership,” said Galant.
Cross-Chain Collaboration
Whether it’s about ensuring security, providing a converged commerce experience or enabling widespread adoption and usage, one thing is clear, greater collaboration across the payments chain will be core to the success of mobile technologies.
Oxman concludes, “There is a clear trend in that mobile is pulling the payments industry even closer together with converged services and experiences leading to more collaboration between different industry players. Partnerships are increasingly being formed up and down the chain between technology providers, banks and merchants.
This is a great move forward for the industry, making the payments space is more agile than ever, and one that I believe will be reflected in even greater evolution over the next few years. Just looking at the number of new product launches and innovation taking place at TRANSACT 14, it’s clear to see we’re heading into a very exciting phase of development, in large part due to mobile.”
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