In a recent Internet Retailing webinar, The face of mobile shopping: How do age and gender affect mobile adoption?, we heard from Maria Prados, VP Global Retail, Global eCommerce, Worldpay, in a session on understanding mobile shoppers. Here’s a bulletpoint overview of the webinar.
Maria Prados opened the webinar with an overview of Worldpay’s research, How does age gender and culture affect buying behaviours. It questioned 20,000 consumers across 10 markets including China, Brazil, the UK and the USA about how they shop, how they pay – testing the assumption that different demographics have different payment preferences – and why they prefer to pay this way.
Online shopping habits
• Shoppers as a whole still favour desktop, but younger generations are using more mobile.
• In Asia Pacific, where mobile use is higher, 18-24 year olds are using mobile to browse and pay: 53% in China, 39% Australia and 31% Japan.
Takeaway: use Asia Pacific as a testing ground for mobile optimisation and then roll out to other countries.
Gender
• Women leading the way: 72% use desktop, 80% of men making payments on desktop, and the balance on mobile.
• Women in China and Australia were the most active online shoppers.
Takeaway: If you sell to women, put your resources on new channels and new channel adoption.
Takeaway: Good cross sales needed for selling to women: for men it’s about product descriptions and branding.
How do they pay
• Women spend less in total, but more frequently.
Takeaway: if you are targeting women cross sell; for men it’s about product descriptions and branding.
• Baby boomers – a global phenomenon. 50% around the world pay by credit card; in Japan that’s 93% of over-50s.
• Under-50s pay by debit card: 71% of those in the UK, 31% globally; 56% Netherlands.
• Alternative payment methods (= non-card method) most widely adopted among 18-24-year-olds. 60% Germany (53% of all payments); China: 48% 18-24 (38% of all payments).
Takeaway: the younger generations pay with non card methods. Understand the uptake per country and tailor proposition to millennials.
• 1/5 shoppers underwhelmed at the checkout: don’t have the method they want to use. 24% in the UK say they pay using a card because that’s what’s on offer, not their preference.
Takeaway: if targeting millennials have their preferred payment methods. Make sure they don’t feel underwhelmed. At some point they’ll become your shopper even if they aren’t your target.
Why do they pay this way?
• What are the motivations behind them choosing payment methods?
• Global level: no age difference between why people choose methods:
1. Availability 2. Convenience Fit
• China, France and Germany: 22% of millennials want payment methods that offer more control over their finances.
• In China, Germany, Mexico and Netherlands: 22% of 35-50year olds want rewards.
Takeaway: If targeting younger shoppers give them a real time view on processing and pricing. Older audiences: drive loyalty through rewards and offers.
How much are non-card payment methods used – are they cannibalising card sales or are they incremental sales?
• Changes by age
• When shoppers are forced to pay with non-preferred payment types, 45% of millennials go to a competitor. esp in Mexico, China and Japan.
• Among over 35s, 26% drop out.
Takeaway: Make sure offer preferred payment mix to millennials or lose to competition. Older generations are at risk of dropping out, so target them to come back to abandoned baskets.
The webinar was followed by a Q&A session, in which questions ranged from asking more detail about the demographics behind payment processes, to bitcoin and upcoming regulations. To see the webinar and the Q&A session in full, visit the WorldPay webinar page here.
