Study: Mobile payment grows in popularity with unexpected leaders
Mobile payment is impressively rising in consumer adoption and interest, but Apple Pay is not their first or even second choice.
According to a 2015 survey of more than 1,000 U.S. adult consumers by location-based mobile platform provider Retale, 43% of respondents have previously used a mobile device, such as smartphone, tablet, or smartwatch, to make a purchase in a brick-and-mortar retail store. This is a 7% increase year-over-year compared to the 36% who reported they had used mobile payment in Retale’s 2014 study.
Indicating similar growth, when asked if they would be interested in using a mobile device to pay for a gift or other item in a retail store during the holiday shopping season, 61% of shoppers polled this year said that they would, a 9% increase from 56% in 2014.
However, when asked to identify the mobile payment service they would most likely use in-store, half (50%) mentioned PayPal. “Your bank’s mobile payment app” was the runner-up, with 27%, followed by Apple Pay, at 20%. In 2014, the top-three ranking was identical. Android Pay (17%) and a retailer’s app (13%) round out the top-five this year.
When asked if retailers should offer some kind of mobile payment option in-store at checkout, 63% say in 2015 that they should. This is 10% more than the 57% who thought in-store mobile payment should be offered in 2014.
In addition, 83% of shoppers this year felt that mobile payments were “convenient,” while 17% called them “inconvenient.” In 2014, only 76% of respondents described mobile payments as “convenient,” with 24% saying they were “inconvenient.”
Year-over-year, the top-two greatest concerns to respondents about in-store mobile payment remained the same, with “data breaches and privacy” (59%) and “possible theft or loss of mobile device” (55%).
When asked what they were most likely to purchase with on-site mobile payment during the holiday season, the top-three selections were: clothing (44%); food (41%); and gift cards (30%).