Despite an increasing adoption of mobile payments, research from payments expert WorldPay, carried out by Consensus, has revealed that 39% of smartphone shoppers are frustrated by the length of the process when buying via their mobile, and 38% were irritated by the amount of information that needed to be entered.
Other frustrations included websites not being mobile phone friendly (31%), acceptance of preferred payment method (17%), and no application being available for a retailer’s website (9%).
63% of consumers rank eWallets – whereby their details are stored by a third party and retrieved when a purchase is made – as their ideal method of payment when it comes to shopping via their mobile phone. Both private eWallets provided by merchants and open public systems such as PayPal are the preferred choice above debit cards (48%), credit cards (37%), and payments through mobile phone networks (14%).
“We were surprised by some of the conclusions coming out of the research that WorldPay has carried out with Consensus,” says Gabriel Hopkins, Head of eCommerce Products at WorldPay. “iPhone users behave very differently to the rest of the smartphone population and showed a much higher propensity for all types of online activity including eCommerce. We also uncovered a community of shoppers who prefer to use mobile devices ahead of a desktop or a laptop – which was really unexpected. We saw the importance of convenience across the survey with shoppers showing a clear preference for eWallets and a simple checkout experience.”
WorldPay offers merchants a range of solutions to enable mobile commerce. In line with the findings, the company is in the process of designing a mobile-optimised payment experience for its customers, in association with mobile technology, payments and user interface experts Mobile Interactive Group (MIG).
The new payment solution is currently being developed and is expected to make mobile payments easier and more flexible for shoppers. Additionally, by utilising an advanced tokenisation solution shoppers can buy quickly and securely across a host of apps and websites without the need to input credit card details each time, as details will be securely stored.
“We are constantly looking for ways to improve online and mobile shopping experiences for the benefit of both consumers and retailers,” says Hopkins. “We have been very impressed by MIG’s solutions for mobile payments and we are excited to be developing an optimised capability for customers of WorldPay.”
