Smartphone apps and technology are considered not only to be the next big thing in commerce, but are already playing an important role in reshaping the retail marketplace.
The results of a PayPal survey made in partnership with the Australian Retailers Association, which was released earlier this year, revealed that online transactions made by way of mobile phone have skyrocketed in Australia. It suggested that among consumers with smartphones, 68 percent intend to use this payment method in the future.
It also indicated that spending via mobile phone broke the $155 million mark in that country. As smartphone penetration continues its way into the market, so will the number of payments made using the devices.
Online giant, Amazon, was already reporting a global revenue of $1 billion via mobile device by July 2010. Similarly, eBay’s mobile commerce revenues for that year reached between $1.5 and $2 billion. According to that company, a purchase is made every two seconds at eBay Mobile.
Experts expect that this climb will only continue to build. Even Visa has recently unveiled its digital wallet, which will permit smartphone payments. With that service, credit card information is stored within the individual’s mobile phone “wallet”, so that a login and password will permit payments to be made using the device.
With an industry leader such as Visa making the change, it is anticipated that others will simply be required to follow. Though it is not believed that cash and credit cards will entirely fall out of use, they will become less common.
The downside of this technology is that improved security measures will be a necessity. The PayPal study showed that the security of transactions is among the greatest concerns of mobile consumers. Moreover, a March 2011 report released by McAfee revealed an increase of 46 percent in mobile malware over the previous year at the same time.
All this considered, experts are still saying that security setbacks would represent only a tiny impediment to mobile commerce growth and that it will continue to lunge forward.
