There are now tons of options on the market and despite tech company hopes, they’re not taking off.
As the holiday shopping season truly got underway last year, many companies predicted the launch of powerful wearable technology trends. Firms were unveiling devices left, right and center to ensure they had the chance to become the next big thing.
That time brought the entrance of the Apple Watch and Samsung Gear S2, major wearable tech players.
Lenovo, LG and Huawei all stepped in with Google to use Android Wear on their offerings. Each company wanted to add their own device to the wearable technology trends. However, a year later and well into the next holiday shopping season, it’s clear that consumers aren’t impressed. At least, they’re not as impressed as tech firms thought they would be. They’re certainly not ready to pay the hefty price tags for the devices.
Many in the industry feel that wearable technology trends won’t pick up until smartwatches become more convincing.
According to IDC senior research analyst Jitesh Ubrani, wearable technology companies have yet to give consumers a reason to want to buy. “A lot of what these devices can do, they’re essentially just mimicking the phone.”
As most people already have other mobile devices and certainly have a smartphone, there is little motivation to buy a smartwatch. Currently, people bring their smartphones everywhere they go. As the mobile devices are nearly always in a hand or a pocket, they are not considered inconvenient to use. Therefore, asking people to drop another few hundred dollars after already having spent several hundred on the phone seems too much for many consumers.
These unfortunate wearable technology trends have not been without their casualties. Pebble, for example, announced last week that they were shutting down. That company had been among the first smartwatch companies. It had a loyal following and was able to hold its own against the competition for quite some time. Now, faced with the Apple Watch and offerings from many other giants, even Pebble will be dissolving and selling its software to Fitbit; the leader of the fitness tracker scene.
A pilot program is now underway using QuickPay for WeChat customers in the country.
McDonald’s is now running a pilot project using QR code payments with a cashback offer. Customers using WeChat can get 50% cash back when they use the QuickPay service. This is exclusive to select restaurants in South Africa.
The goal is to encourage people who are already using the social messaging app to pay with their smartphones.
Participating restaurants are located in Cape Town and Johannesburg. Customers using the WeChat mobile app are being offered a special 50% cashback offer. This is mean to encourage them to use the QuickPay QR code payments at McDonald’s in a participating location.
This incentive is meant to help to encourage customers to try the mobile payments for the first time. By showing them how easy it is to pay for an order simply by presenting the QR codes at the point of sale so they can be scanned, McDonald’s hopes that consumers will be taken with the service and will continue to use it.
The QR code payment cashback offer is available to the first 20,000 customers to use the service.
Those customers will receive 50% cash back when they pay for their meals with their smartphones. According to the McDonald’s South Africa chief marketing officer, Daniel Padiachy, “We are continuously searching for innovative ways to enhance our customers’ experience.” He added that “We believe that WeChat’s Quick Pay will further assist us in upholding these principles.”
The WeChat app first launched in the country in November 2015. The app is owned by Tencent, the ecommerce giant from China. Payments through the service have been made possible in South Africa through a partnership with Standard Bank.
WeChat makes it possible for users to make P2P transfers as well as to scan QR codes to make payments in-store at any of 30,000 merchants across the country that support the SnapScan platform. The mobile app can also be used to purchase wireless services such as airtime and data, as well as to pay certain utility bills.
While Quick Pay is functioning within the SnapScan WeChat feature, that QR code payments option is currently available exclusively at McDonald’s.
