Tag: mobile shopping

The latest addition to the company’s availability is in Spain, raising its number of E.U. countries to seven.

The increasingly popular mobile payments startup from Sweden, iZettle, has just announced that it is taking its first steps into Spain, which has boosted its availability in the European Union to include seven different countries.

The service provides small businesses with a way to receive credit card transactions over smartphones.

The company is already offering mobile payments options to small businesses in the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Germany. It has also brought Visa transactions to Finland, Norway, and Denmark as of November 2012. They were able to accomplish this goal following the settlement of an issue between the two companies that had been outstanding.

The mobile payments will be expanding to Spain with an eye on small and struggling businesses.

The expansion into Spain is meant to provide small business owners who “are hurting” with new mobile payments options, said an mcommerce news release by the company. At the moment, there is no subscription fee for the company’s services and there is no minimum monthly fee. Instead, it charges a flat 2.75 percent per transaction.

The service works for either Android or iOS devices, and the mobile payments are compatible with all of the major credit cards including Amex, Visa, and MasterCard. This places iZettle in direct competition with a number of other companies that are offering comparable services within the European small business marketplace.

For example, there is a German startup called Payleven that is providing mobile payments services for Germany, Spain, Poland, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Another example is Elavon, which is also headquartered in Europe and has just recently expanded into Ireland as of October, after being active exclusively in the United Kingdom until then.

Among the most recent mobile payments companies to make its way into the European marketplace is a company from Holland called Adyen. It is similar to iZettle in that it functions on both iOS and Android, but it is designed for large retailers so that they can make a point of sale in any location that there is an employee, in order to reduce lineups at the checkout counters.

Mobile commerce is not popular with everyone

Mobile commerce has been gaining steam, largely due to the influence of the holiday season, but there is still a long way to go until consumers feel comfortable with using a mobile device to purchase goods and services. New research from The BIO Agency, a digital agency that specializes in online marketing, shows that many U.S. consumers are leery when it comes to mobile commerce. These consumers suggest that security is their primary concern.

41% claim they will not use their mobile device to make a purchase

According to The BIO Agency, 41% of American consumers refuse to use their smart phone or tablet device to make a purchase online or in a store. This accounts for some 103 million shoppers that are not interested in participating in mobile commerce. The general consensus among these consumers is that cellular and tablet devices are not secure enough to make them comfortable with purchasing products online. Without adequate security features, these consumers are unlikely to adopt mobile commerce in any way.

Security may be primary concern

The research from The BIO Agency shows that mobile commerce adoption is highest among younger consumers. Those between the ages of 18 and 24 are most likely to make purchases online using a mobile device, with entertainment products being the most popular. Generally, older consumers are more leery of mobile commerce. This may come from a lack of understanding regarding how mobile commerce works, but many suggest that mobile security must be improved before they can feel comfortable with mobile payments, whether they understand how these payments work or not.

Slow adoption may create problems for mobile commerce in the future

Several industries are investing heavily in mobile commerce. Over the Thanksgiving weekend, shoppers favored their mobile devices when purchasing products, providing a massive amount of momentum behind mobile commerce. This strong showing has secured strong support for mobile commerce, but if consumers continue to resist adoption, this burgeoning industry may be facing significant problems in the future.