Tag: mobile payments

PayPal launches new mobile payments service

| January 20, 2014

New mobile payments services comes to the Asian market thanks to PayPal

PayPal has launched a new mobile payments service in order to embolden its presence in the Asian market. Asia has proven quite attractive in terms of mobile commerce due to the growing degree of smartphone and tablet penetration and the increasing number of retailers entering into e-commerce. In order to tap into this promising market, PayPal has launched mo.bi.pay, which stands for “mobile built-in payments.” This new service is designed to appeal to small and medium-sized enterprises.

Asian market shows a great deal of promise when it comes to mobile commerce

Merchants throughout Asia are becoming quite interested in mobile commerce. They have found that consumers enjoy shopping from their mobile devices and those that do so tend to spend more money than those that do not. E-commerce has already won the favor of many consumers throughout Asia, particularly those in China, and this popularity has not gone unnoticed by retailers. Large retail organizations like Alibaba have made a name for themselves in the world of online shopping and are now beginning to focus on mobile commerce.

Services for small and medium-sized enterprises are currently lacking

Paypal mobile payments serviceThere are many mobile commerce services that are available for large retailers, but few of these services cater to the needs of smaller groups. PayPal intends to capitalize on this by giving small and medium-sized enterprises something they can use to engage mobile consumers more effectively. Mobile point-of-sale payments are expected to reach $5.4 billion by 2018 and PayPal is keen to ensure that it has positioned itself to take advantage of this aggressive growth in mobile payments.

PayPal works to fend off its competition in the mobile space

PayPal now accounts for 42% of eBay’s total revenue. The company has been purchasing firms that specialize in mobile commerce and technology recently, with its most prolific acquisition being that of Braintree for $800 million. PayPal is working to establish an even stronger presence in the mobile payments space so that it can fend off competition from companies like Google and Square. While Square has focused primarily on the North American market, the company has recently expanded into Japan.

Mobile commerce may have fallen $16 billion short during the 2013 holidays

| January 17, 2014

Mobile spending grows, but retailers miss out on a significant opportunity

The 2013 holiday shopping season has proven to be quite successful for most retailers and brands. A recent report from comScore show that online spending passed $46 billion during the holiday season while another report from the National Retail Federation notes that overall spending reached $601 billion. Mobile spending has grown significantly in 2013, but Jumio, a market research firm, has released a new report that suggests that mobile commerce has missed a major opportunity.

Mobile commerce misses out on $16 billion

According to the report from Jumio, mobile commerce missed out on $16 billion over the 2013 holiday season. Overall, the report shows that mobile spending has grown, but many consumers have reported a lackluster experience with their shopping experience. Mobile shopping platforms from retailers were launched late last year in order to attract the mobile audience, but these platforms were hastily developed and some were crippled by glitches that prevented people from purchasing products.

Abandoned carts may be the culprit behind the loss of revenue

Mobile commerce shoppingThe problem may lie with abandoned shopping carts. Carts are quite common in e-commerce and they serve as a place where products are stored before the checkout process has been finalized. Jumio suggests that consumers running into significant problems on mobile commerce platforms often caused them to abandon their online shopping carts. In many cases, platforms failed to store product information properly, causing consumers to abandon their digital shopping carts and start the process from the beginning.

Poor shopping experience cause consumers to drop mobile commerce

The report shows that some 51% of consumers opted to abandon their digital shopping carts because of security reasons. These people did not believe that a mobile commerce platform would be capable of keeping their financial information safe.  Some 47% abandoned carts because of difficulties regarding mobile payments, while 41% claimed that a mobile commerce platform they were using was simply too difficult to manage. Another 23% of consumers reported that their transactions would not go through during the checkout process, causing them to seek out more convenient forms of shopping.