Vendors of the publication can now accept transactions over a smartphone or tablet.
iZettle, a Swedish company that provides social and mobile payments services, has now entered into a partnership with the magazine called Situation Sthlm, which is a publication that is sold in Stockholm by homeless people as a part of a program that provides them with the opportunity to earn money.
The transaction business is now working with the magazine company to help to make those sales easier.
iZettle announced that it will be working with the magazine by providing the sellers of the publication with smartphones and card readers. This will allow those sellers to be able to use mobile payments technology to accept payments on the spot, from the buyer’s credit or debit cards. No matter where the seller may be, as long as he or she has a cell phone signal, it will be possible to accept these digital transactions, instead of having to rely wholly on cash.
This agreement is the result of a successful mobile payments trial program that has now been completed.
The trial using the mobile payments services ran for a full month through five sellers who were provided with smartphones and a card reader from iZettle. This gave them the ability to expand the acceptable transactions from cash to credit and debit, as well. To use the service, vendors simply plug the card reader into the smartphone. The customers could then swipe their cards and either sign on the device screen or use a PIN to be able to complete the purchase.
The smartphones that are used for the mobile payments program are collected – along with the card readers – from the central offices every day at the same time that the sellers obtain the magazines that they sell.
iZettle provides both the hardware and the mobile payments software in this agreement so that the sellers would be able to convert their tablets or smartphones into a type of credit and debit card terminal that works on the go. They also provide their services to other merchants and are compliant with EMV (Europay, MasterCard, and VISA) standards in addition to the PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards).
Study shows tablets are favored for mobile payments
JiWire, a leading location-based mobile marketing firm, has released a new study concerning how consumers use their mobile devices to participate in mobile payments. The study, titled “Q1 2013 Mobile Audience Insights Report,” highlights the fact that consumers are becoming increasingly mobile; not in the sense that they are using mobile devices but that they are on the move more often than they have been in the past. Thanks to mobile technology, these consumers have the ability to stay connected to the Internet, allowing them to shop online no matter where they are in the world. For this reason, mobile payments have become especially popular among frequent travelers.
Travelers favor convenience over tradition
For travelers, convenience is often a top priority issue. Traveling itself is sometimes a chaotic and stressful endeavor, which can be exacerbated by having to deal with traditional forms of commerce. Mobile payments represent an easier way to pay for products and services given that these payments are entirely digital and do not deal with physical forms of currency. This has made mobile commerce popular with travelers that favor convenience and simplicity over traditional forms of commerce.
Study shows that tablets lead smartphones and laptops
According to the study, some 52% of travel booked in the first quarter of this year was made using a tablet device. The study suggests that consumers favor their tablet devices when it comes to mobile payments and travel. Smartphones and laptops were also used for travel booking, but tablets were praised for providing a more enjoyable and convenient experience over other platforms. This is similar to a trend that exists in the retail industry, where tablet consumers have been showing more interest in mobile payments than those using smartphones.
Mobile commerce impacting consumer behavior
JiWire notes that mobile commerce is beginning to impact consumer behavior across several sectors. Consumers are showing that they are more interested in mobile payments than traditional forms of commerce. Whether or not this trend will continue to gain momentum into the future is not certain, but consumers are currently eager to become more involved in the realm of mobile payments.
