‘Convenience’ tops shoppers’ wishlists, according to consumer survey sponsored by WorldPay

‘Convenience’ tops shoppers’ wishlists, according to consumer survey sponsored by WorldPay

Despite an increasing adoption of mobile payments, research from payments expert WorldPay, carried out by Consensus, has revealed m-commerce frustrations.

The survey found that 39% of smartphone shoppers were 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%), accepting preferred payment methods (17%), and no app being available for a retailer’s website (9%).

Ready to use e-wallets

Nearly two thirds (63%) of consumers rank ‘e-wallets’ – 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 e-wallets provided by merchants and open public systems such as PayPal were preferred above debit cards (48%), credit cards (37%) and payments through mobile phone networks (14%).

In line with the findings, the payments company said it was 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). By using an advanced tokenisation solution, it added 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.

Mobile usage detail

Gabriel Hopkins, head of e-commerce products at WorldPay, said: “We were surprised by some of the conclusions coming out of the research that WorldPay has carried out with Consensus. 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 e-commerce.

“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 e-wallets and a simple checkout experience.”

He added: “We are constantly looking for ways to improve online and mobile shopping experiences for the benefit of both consumers and retailers. 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.”