Mobile Payment Security – Challenges, Trends, Recommendations, and Tips
Everyone agrees that eCommerce has become a new norm. But did you know that m-Commerce is growing even faster? With growing popularity and adoption of mobile devices, mobile is not just yet another channel but it has more or less become the primary channel for everything, right from communication, information exchange, entertainment and shopping as well. Remember the time when plastic card with magnetic strip revolutionized the whole payment industry? Something like this is set to happen now with NFC and other such technologies which facilitate payments using mobiles.
The figure shows (Via bianor.com) the phenomenal growth of mobile commerce sales.
The mobile apps which facilitate mobile banking, leverage location maps to provide information and news, facilitate mobile shopping, ticketing and mobile file sharing are preferred by the consumers. Today, retail stores have no option but to have a solid mobile strategy apart from their regular brick and mortar model. As more and more consumers own smartphones and access the Internet from their mobile devices, they are increasingly spending more and more time in shopping from their mobile devices.
Advantages of m-Commerce for Consumers
Let’s look at the advantages of m-Commerce which is making the millennials spend a lot of disposable income on apparel, accessories, and beauty products using their mobile devices.
# Flexibility and convenience
Mobile is always with you. Unlike laptop or the PC, you don’t need to specifically switch it or find a place to settle yourself before using it. Mobile phones offer the flexibility to connect from anywhere, anytime – be it while commuting or waiting at the airports!
# Constant Connectivity
As far as there is mobile and Internet signal, you are connected. You don’t need to worry about Wi-Fi signals or data cards to work with your laptops. The constant connectivity makes it easy to compare prices, read reviews and check availability of desired products and make the purchases instantly.
# Rewards
Lot of stores have started offering customized rewards for shoppers who shop using the mobile app. The consumers can enjoy such exclusive reward points and discounts.
# Time Saving
No travel to the shopping malls and no long queues for billing. Shopping is a breeze from mobile. Shopping from mobile devices is usually a matter of just a few clicks leading to a lot of cost and time saving.
Advantages of m-Commerce for Retailers
The retailers can benefit hugely from mobile commerce. Here are some of the advantages for the retailers –
# Wider Reach
M-commerce gives an opportunity to the retailers to reach out to a wider audience – without worrying about geographical boundaries. Obviously, a wider audience means more business growth. By connecting to a larger number of people, businesses are able to increase their sales volumes and enjoy increased profit returns.
# Personal touch
m-Commerce gives an opportunity to retailers to personalize their communication with the consumers – be it in the form of offers, discounts or suggested products based on their purchase history. Such personalization increase the chances of purchase – because, instead of throwing a complete list of hundreds of available products, the mobile app can suggest very specific products to the consumers based on their purchase patterns and history. Numerous research have shown that location specific advertisements, alerts, and relevant and predictive product information induce consumers to make instant purchases.
# Opportunity to create killer apps
Retailers have an opportunity to create customized mobile apps with their own branding and streamline the purchases through that app. With the apps, they can do things like location specific offer alerts, product comparisons, purchase history and storing of payment information – all this to make shopping a memorable experience for the consumers.
Convinced on m-Commerce and want to leverage it for your business? Connect with the iRESlab Payment and Mobility experts.
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