Mobile payments have become a new “must” for retailors. Recent studies have shown that a large number of consumers are using a mobile wallet to make their payments. For retailors that do not accept mobile wallet payments, they could be losing considerably in sales.
In a January 2015 survey conducted by Interactions Consumer Experience Marketing Inc., approximately 30% of consumers use a mobile wallet for payment. The wallets considered ranged anywhere from major third-party apps like Apple Pay to online wallets like Visa Checkout. It was also revealed that, if a store was found to accept no mobile wallet, 36% of users informed surveyors that they would have walked out – 56% said they wouldn’t go back.
As far as usage patterns, almost 62.5% of consumers pay with their mobile wallet apps at least once a week. 19% of consumers informed surveyors that they actually use their wallet once a day. Not surprisingly, the younger generation of consumers have the heaviest usage.
Apple Inc., Google Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. have lined up for battle over who is going to control mobile payments. Meanwhile, companies like Starbucks Coffee Co. chain’s wallet boasts more than 12 million users. Some of the top mobile wallets for iPhone and Android include: LoopWallet, Softcard, PayPal and Google Wallet.
One booming industry has so far failed to jump in on the success of mobile wallets – e-cigs. E-cig merchants are not offering to accept these payments, despite the fact that mobile wallet payments are popular due to their ease and convenience. Consumers love them!
If you are an e-cig merchant who has a merchant account provider that does not allow you to accept mobile wallet payments, it is time to go elsewhere. There are very few high risk processors that are willing to provide merchants access to mobile wallet payment acceptance – eMerchantBroker being one of them. You can solve your high-risk categorization issues while also securing this capability.
With e-cig merchants discovering that they can secure safe payment processing solutions from providers like EMB, the hope is that they will soon jump in on mobile wallet payments. If they don’t, they will miss out on a booming opportunity. In the long run, it will only hurt their business if consumers choose to turn around and walk back out the door, taking their mobile wallet payment elsewhere.