Tag: mobile payments retail

Mobile payments may soon see explosive growth

Mobile payments may be set to see explosive growth in Australia, at least among retailers. Mobile technology has established a strong presence in Australia, just as it has done throughout much of the world. Consumers have become heavily reliant on smartphones and tablets, favoring these devices when it comes to shopping and, in some cases, banking. This trend has been a double-edged sword for retailers, some of whom have expressed concern that the growing prevalence of mobile commerce is keeping consumers from visiting physical stores. The Australian Retailers Association sees mobile payments as a promising opportunity, however.

Retailers becoming more interested in mobile commerce

The organization notes that traditional retailers — those with physical stores — are beginning to look for ways to reduce transaction times and ensure consumer loyalty. The advent of mobile commerce has made shopping somewhat easier for consumers throughout the country, many of whom can find everything they need online and have products delivered to their homes. By embracing the convenient nature of mobile technology, retailers may be able to secure the loyalty of consumers through the provision of simple services and support of mobile payments.

Small retailers following the example of their larger counterparts

The Australian Retailers Association suggests that embracing mobile payments has become relatively common among larger retailers. This has created confidence among smaller companies that are beginning to consider mobile commerce as the industry standard. As such, growing numbers of small retailers are expected to adopt mobile payments in the coming years, leading to a dramatic increase in the mobile commerce activity of the country.

Companies seek to spread mobile commerce throughout Australia

Mobile payments have been seeing strong growth in Australia due to the numerous financial organizations that have been working to bring mobile commerce to the country. PayPal is one such group and has been testing a new mobile commerce platform in several countries. This platform is designed with retailers in mind, providing them with a way to offer comprehensive services to consumers that are tethered to smartphones and tablets.

A recent market analysis has revealed that smartphones will become a major game changer in shopping.

Though slow to get started, mobile payments could soon prove to be extremely important to the retail shopping experience, as consumers begin to feel that using the devices as digital forms of credit and debit cards, as well as for loyalty programs, is trustworthy and convenient.

This trend would dramatically change the consumer experience as everything will be contained in one place.

Though wallets are stored, locked away, or left behind, in various situations, the odds are that a person will always have his or her smartphone in hand or pocket. Retailers are already using mobile commerce to appeal to online shoppers who access the internet with their smartphones and tablets, and now they are beginning to see the potential benefit from receiving transactions through these devices, as well.

Some feel that mobile payments could be the biggest revolution in retail in many decades.

A recent Business Insider report has stated that the “old dream of the digital wallet is coming true in a very mobile-led fashion.” The report indicated that by the end of last year, in the United States there were already approximately 7.9 million consumers who had adopted a system compatible with NFC technology (near field communications) or QR codes. These include examples, such as MasterCard PayPass, Visa Wallet, Google Wallet, and others that use apps for processing the transactions.

Equally, mobile payments through credit card readers on devices, such as PayPal, Square, and I Love Velvet reported processing transactions worth more than $10 billion last year.

Another report, this one recently issued by Gartner, has predicted that around the world, mobile payments transactions will break the $235 billion mark by the end of this year. That would be an increase of 44 percent over the figure from 2011.

When it comes to examples of mobile payments successes, Starbucks is typically said to be the leader as it has effectively implemented a range of different types of transactions, including everything from loyalty cards to QR code based purchases with a refillable retailer account.