Tag: qr codes mobile commerce

New application makes use of QR codes to make mobile payments easier for consumers

Bancontact, a Belgian electronic payments firm, has launched a new mobile application that will help introduce a new service into the realm of mobile commerce. Consumers around the world have shown strong interest in mobile commerce, which includes online shopping, banking, and payment transfers. In order to meet the demands coming from consumers regarding  comprehensive mobile commerce services, Bancontact has introduced a new application, which focuses on the use of QR codes.

Codes may be very useful for personal transactions

QR codes are most commonly used in mobile marketing and have excelled in this particular field. The codes allow consumers to access digital information from their smartphones and tablets. The codes have begun seeing use in the field of mobile commerce, with retailers like Tesco using them to facilitate electronic payments for products. Bancontact believes that the codes could be especially useful in helping consumers transfer funds to one another.

QR codes generated by the application can be used to initiate payments

The new application from Bancontact leverages QR codes to allow users to send money to each other.  The application could be particularly beneficial for those that operate their own businesses as it allows them to accept electronic payments for their goods and services more easily. The application can be used to generate a QR code that is associated with a certain amount of money. When this code is scanned by another person, they will be able to make a payment directly to the code’s owner.

Codes may soon become powerful mobile commerce tool

Currently, the application can only facilitate payments of up to $20. The application is available for the Android and iOS platforms and is available to Bancount’s 15 million cardholders. Bancount believes that the application will help draw more attention to QR codes and their use in mobile commerce. The codes are likely to remain a very powerful mobile marketing tool, but may soon become one of the most widely used mobile commerce tools.

Mobile commerce toy and grocery shops are becoming especially successful.

Stores and shopping malls made out of images and QR codes are becoming the next big thing in the trend toward virtual shops and mobile commerce as a whole, as they seem to be popping up in a growing number of cities.

Companies are seeing the chance for profit in stores with nearly no space required and no physical merchandise.q

Instead, they are made up of poster displays of the products that are available, and QR codes that are associated with them and that can be scanned with smartphones in order to make a purchase. The entire mobile commerce experience is simply a digital version of shopping in a real store. The consumer simply needs to have a look at the items that he or she would like to purchase, scan to add them to a virtual shopping cart, and then complete the purchase by checking out.

Scanning the virtual store QR codes can be accomplished with any free or paid scanner app.

Once the items have been purchased, they will be delivered to the consumer’s home within a matter of hours or days, depending on the product and the virtual store’s policies. This trend got started in 2009, and since that time they have been spreading quickly all around the world. They have been found in many locations in the United States, Canada, Korea, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Ireland, Argentina, Chile, and others.

Singapore and Toronto, Canada have been the locations with some of the most common locations for these QR code shopping malls to appear. The most common have been for grocery and toy stores, but others have also made their mark. In Toronto, for example, Well.ca had a massive virtual store in April 2012 at Union Station, the city’s largest commuter train subway station which sees over 200,000 commuters every day. According to Well.ca, this was a tremendous success and it considerably increased the sales that they experienced from the displays as well as from the virtual store through its advertising effect.

Now, Walmart and Mattel will be headed to the same location to create a virtual toy store based on QR codes in the hopes of being equally as successful.