Two recent studies has shown that device users still aren’t ready to shop and pay with their gadgets.
Although smartphones are rapidly making their way into the hands of virtually every American, nowadays, mobile commerce and payments are falling way behind the many other uses that people have for their gadgets.
This, according to the results of two different surveys that looked into the use of mobile devices.
According to research from Informate Mobile Intelligence, the average American smartphone user currently spends about 4.7 hours on his or her device, every day. That represents about thirty percent of their waking time. That research was conducted in December 2014, and shoed that device users in the U.S. are greatly likely to have access to applications for mobile commerce and payments. The reach for shopping apps, at that time, was 59 percent, and for mobile payments apps, it was 49 percent.
That said, despite the reach, mobile commerce and payments aren’t appealing to American consumers as they could.
A second survey, this one by Placeable, which involved the participation of one thousand consumers in the United States, said that while the mobile apps may be there, people simply aren’t using them. That survey determined that 42 percent of smartphone owners had never made a purchase on their device. Moreover, only 9 percent of those who had access to mobile payments said that they actually used them.
The survey pointed out that this also doesn’t necessarily mean that shoppers aren’t using their mobile devices as a part of their purchasing process. The research indicated that 6 out of every 10 consumers will use their smartphones at some point during the shopping process when they are shopping for a product online or even in-store. However, the actual purchase is not being made over that device. That is occurring over PC or at the store’s checkout counter.
While other research has indicated that mobile security could be in the way of the use of these options over smartphones, Placeable suggested that this may not entirely be the case. Nearly 70 percent of participants in the survey said that they were willing to trust shopping over mobile commerce or making smartphone based payments. The reason that they are not using them is that they don’t see the need.
Comparatively, Apple Pay had been reporting early victories in the use of that mobile wallet at Whole Foods, where 1 percent of the sales had been processed using smartphones. Clearly, Starbucks has been able to not only create a success out of its service, but it has managed to do so in a solid way that is generating a rapid, steady increase in the number of people who are actually using it. They have managed to avoid becoming a flash in the pan gimmick and have provided their customers with a transaction method that they are happy to use on a regular basis.