How retailers can join the future of mobile payments now
The future of mobile payments is the future of retail, with global mobile payment transaction value expected to reach $14 trillion by 2022.
The payments landscape has changed dramatically in recent years. Shopping online once required consumers to navigate through several pages just to complete a transaction. But today, the traditional checkout is all but disappearing, and customers are able to make purchases at just the click of a button, thanks to mobile checkout.
One company that has been particularly successful at making checkouts disappear is Uber. Customers simply press one button and it both schedules and pays for their ride. In fact, the only time customers even have to think about payment is when they first enter a credit card into the app.
Put the user experience first
All too often mobile shoppers have to fumble through several pages and long checkouts in order to make a purchase. This poor user experience is what leads to the disconnect between mobile traffic and overall e-commerce purchases – while mobile devices account for approximately 52 percent of online traffic, they only account for 35 percent of sales.
And with four of 10 transactions involving a mobile device in some way, it’s critical for retailers to get the mobile checkout experience right.
Becoming mobile-friendly means much more than simply having a mobile payment option or responsive website. One method retailers can use to improve mobile conversion rates is adding one-step or one-click checkouts. One-step checkouts improve the shopping experience by condensing multiple pages into a single button and reduce the friction involved in checking out on a mobile device.
Already, 1.5 million retailers worldwide offer a one-step checkout, including more than half of the top 500 online retailers. Retailers can improve an existing one-step checkout by letting customers select a “same as billing” option for their shipping address or by asking for a zip code rather than city, state and country.
Another way many retailers are addressing mobile UX issues is by developing standalone mobile shopping apps.
Although they do require extensive investment in time and resources to develop, mobile shopping apps convert at a rate that is 3.7 times greater than mobile browsers.
Two contributing factors for why apps convert better are that they allow retailers to store data and send push notifications, both of which help to reduce friction in the mobile shopping experience.
Retailers can further improve on their mobile shopping experiences by separating payment from the user experience. Consumers have high expectations, and this includes paying. How better to exceed these expectations than to remove payment from the user experience?
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Eliminate payment from the shopping experience
Payment is the last obstacle shoppers have to overcome before they become customers, and letting them buy now and pay later effectively removes the friction of paying from the shopping experience on your site.
An alternative method for removing payment from the user experience is by tapping into invisible payments. With invisible payments, the payment process is effectively removed from the checkout flow, keeping the focus of the shopping experience on the product.
Interestingly, the Internet of Things (IoT) is also playing a role in the advancement of invisible payments by allowing more network-connected devices to skip the traditional checkout. For instance, with Amazon’s voice-activated personal assistant, Alexa, shoppers don’t have to lift a finger to make an order – they simply tell Alexa what they want.
Amazon isn’t the only company working to marry the IoT and payments. GM, for example, is also working to let customers use their key fob to complete transactions, and Ringly’s NFC payment-enabled accessories can already be used to complete payments.
By prioritizing the user experience and turning to the latest advancements in payments, businesses can strengthen their mobile shopping experience – leading to increased customer loyalty and revenue.
