Mobile's Merry Christmas: 57% of All Online Traffic, 35% of Sales

by Chuck Martin,
                               

If nothing else on Christmas Day, consumers were using their phones to shop.

Yesterday’s one-day sales numbers are in and mobile accounted for more than half (57%) of all online traffic, up 19% over last year.

Mobile accounted for 35% of all online sales on Christmas Day, according to the latest IBM Digital Analytic Benchmark, which tracks sales by the hour.

Overall online sales were up 8% compared to Christmas last year and shoppers spent more per order this year as well.

The average order value was $100 with shoppers purchasing an average of 4 items per order.

Smartphones drive 41% of total online traffic compared to tablets at 16%.

For actual buying, slightly more sales came from tablets (18%) than smartphones (16%).

While consumers migrate to mobile for shopping, desktop activity remains strong, accounting for 43% of all online traffic and 65% of sales yesterday, according to the IBM data.

Consistent with numerous other studies, Apple outpaced Android devices for shopping activity.

The average order value from those using Apple devices was $97 compared to $67 from Android consumers.

 Apple iOS accounted for 39% of total online traffic, more than double that of Android at 18%.

Apple devices also accounted for 27% of total online sales, compared to 8% from consumers using Android devices.

No matter how you look at it, mobile had a very nice Christmas.

To view the original article visit: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/240784/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mobile-marketing-daily+%28MediaPost+%7C+Mobile+Marketing+Daily%29

Why Retailers Will Love the Apple Pay Era

Photograph by Monica Davey/Corbis

Retailers should be particularly excited for Monday’s debut of Apple Pay, which promises to be an excellent tool for separating shoppers and their money.

 

Apple’s (AAPL) mobile payment service will let iPhone users buy things by simply pulling out their device. Researchers have long found that shoppers spend more the further they get from handling actual currency and tend to better remember cash transactions. These tendencies help explain why credit card balances tend to bloat and why casinos use chips in place of money. It’s also why companies such as Starbucks (SBUX) encourage customers to load money onto apps or prepaid cards.

 

Behavioral economists have a term for this dynamic: decoupling. The card or app or casino chip mentally separates the consumer from his bank account. The payment is both delayed and bundled with other charges so it doesn’t seem so painful. Citibank tested the research in 2009 and found a mobile “tap to pay” pilot program significantly boosted both the number and size of consumer transactions.

 

Video: How Apple Pay Works at Panera Bread

 

Buying things without cash is simply more fun. Richard Thaler, a behavioral economist at the University of Chicago, proved such transactions are more pleasurable experiences (PDF). Anyone who has ever walked away from an Uber ride knows this feeling well. With credit card data embedded in the app’s settings, someone using the service never actually pays or even tips—at least not in any physical way.

 

The question with Apple’s new payment service is whether it’s an additional degree of distance from credit cards or merely taking the well-established place of plastic in the psychology of shopping. Apple Pay doesn’t require any swiping or tapping, which seems to suggest a new level of abstraction. With a fingerprint on the iPhone button and a little wave at the cash register, the deal is done. “Now paying in stores happens in one natural motion,” Apple says in its pitch. “You don’t even have to look at the screen.”

 

Some 220,000 stores are already set up to accept the payments, including Bloomingdale’s, Foot Locker, Macy’s, McDonald’s, and PetSmart. The list also includes RadioShack, a retailer desperately in need of a revenue boost. The other brick-and-mortar companies in that troubled camp—J.C. Penney (JCP), Sears (SHLD)—would do well to get onboard.

 

To view the original article visit: Bloomberg Business Week

Apple Pay- What Does it Mean For Your Business

   

September 11, 2014

 

Apple’s recent unveiling of its new iPhone 6 and Apple Pay platform has sparked a lot of conversation surrounding mobile payments, near field communications (NFC) and the future of mobile commerce. With Apple finally adopting NFC and entering the payments space, you may have some questions regarding how this might affect you and your business.
Merchant Warehouse has followed the announcement and the technology closely all in an effort to help our partners and customers understand the opportunities of Apple Pay and NFC enabled payments present for their businesses.

How will Apple Pay work?
Apple Pay syncs a few of Apple’s existing programs together and when coupled with the new NFC chips in the iPhone 6 can create a seamless payment experience at the point-of-sale. By combining NFC and the account information Apple already has with iTunes, the ability to store other credit, debit, gift and loyalty cards with Passbook, a secure element with their TouchID thumb print imaging, Apple Pay delivers a seamless and secure wallet solution for retail environments and mobile check-out.

What’s the biggest impact Apple Play will have on our industry?
Apple’s introduction into the payments space will have two inherent outcomes: (1) applications that rely on NFC will be developed at a more rapid pace; and (2) consumers should finally start adopting mobile payments. To date, there havent been that many mobile wallets or applications that have taken advantage of NFC. But with NFC being incorporated in the iPhone 6, we can expect more and more applications using the NFC functionality for not only payment apps, but for other practical functions.

It has long been predicted that Apple would be the catalyst for mobile payments. They distribute the most popular mobile devices in the world, have a loyal customer base that integrate different aspects of their lives to their hardware and software and an avid developer community that develops applications to exploit their devices’ functionality.

We already trust Apple (and other mobile devices and platforms) with some of our most important daily functions. It’s only a matter of time before consumers begin to trust and adopt Apple Pay to be their payment method of choice.

Merchant Warehouse is very excited for the opportunities that Apple Pay will bring for businesses. Our Genius Customer Engagement Platform was designed for these types of innovations in mind. The NFC readers in our Genius devices can accept Apple Pay payments today and it will continue to evolve with future innovations.

To view the original article visit: Merchant Warehouse

Apple Pay Is Here — and There’s Just One Big Problem

Merchant Warehouse® and top retail technology reseller One Step Retail Solutions recently won the Innovative Solution Award for Best Partnership by the Retail Solutions Providers Association (RSPA) and Vertical Systems Reseller (VSR) Magazine. This award honors both companies for bringing Merchant Warehouse’s Genius™ Customer Engagement Platform™ to One Step Retail Solutions’ retail customers. Read below about how Merchant Warehouse feels about Apple Pay and what it means for retailers.

Jacob Davidson @JakeD Sept. 9, 2014

While many consumers are ready to embrace the new mobile-payments service, most retailers are not. At least, not yet

On Tuesday, Tim Cook took the stage to announce — in addition to a few other things you may have heard about — a brand new mobile payments service called Apple Pay. Instead of swiping a credit card, users of the service will swipe their iPhones (or Apple Watches), which can be preloaded with customer’s debit and credit cards using the Passbook application.

courtesy of Apple
 

Having one phone to rule all our cards sounds pretty great, and Apple is certainly positioned better than any other company to make mobile payments finally catch on. But there’s one issue the company still has to surmount before it can kill off plastic for good: Right now, the vast majority of retailers lack the technology to accept the company’s new payment service.

As CEO Tim Cook acknowledged during Apple’s announcement, only 220,000 stores will work with Apple Pay out of the gate. That’s about 2.4% of the roughly 7 million to 9 million merchants in the U.S. that accept credit cards. The remaining 97.6% of businesses do not have point-of-sale systems that work with near-field communication (NFC), the technology Apple Pay relies on. Merchants will have to upgrade their checkout process for Apple’s service to catch on, and the expense of such an endeavor has—thus far—left many businesses reluctant to do so.

Michael Archer, a partner leading the Global Financial Services practice at Kurt Salmon, thinks the major indicator of whether an Apple payment service will succeed is the number of locations prepared to accept NFC. According to Archer, who spoke to MONEY just before Apple Pay was announced, the service would need to be usable at about 20% of U.S. retail locations to reach critical mass of acceptance. So far, Apple isn’t close to hitting that number.

However, Archer points out that credit card companies may have an incentive to help stores acquire NFC technology to give their own cards an edge. “This could be a way to lock someone into the card if you can make it extremely convenient to use in the device,” said Archer. Another development he thinks could work in Apple’s favor is that merchants will soon be forced to upgrade their point-of-sale systems to accept EMV, a new card technology meant to reduce fraud. Card companies have given their customers until 2015 to make the transition, with laggards bearing increased liability for credit card fraud, but stores have dragged their feet. With the deadline approaching, more merchants may finally decide to upgrade and choose to add in NFC compatibility while they’re at it.

But not all experts are rosy on Apple’s chances for mobile payment domination—at least in the near term. George Wallner, co-founder and CTO of LoopPay, an Apple Pay competitor that uses existing point-of-sale infrastructure for mobile payments, predicts a slow acceptance of Apple Pay, and other NFC-dependent services like Softcard and Google Wallet. While Wallner was impressed by Apple’s demonstration, he says it will take more than the promise of Apple compatibility to get merchants to change their ways, especially when the status quo works just fine. “It’s not an easy change,” says Wallner. “It is a long, drawn-out, careful, extensive process. It can take six to eight months to even certify a new system. Retailers look at the bottom line, and they see nobody is offering a financial incentive for them to change.” According to the LoopPay founder, even increased fraud liability may not be costly enough to spur a jump in NFC adoption.

That said, Wallner believes that over time, merchants will gradually upgrade their equipment to support Apple Pay. In a decade, he sees NFC having significant market penetration and co-existing with both older and newer payment technology.

One feature that might convince merchants to upgrade ahead of schedule would be a way for businesses to use Apple Pay to reward loyal customers. According to Archer, a slightly more convenient way to pay, by itself, doesn’t provide enough value to customers or merchants to force a change in behavior. Integrating loyalty programs into Apple Pay, on the other hand, would give merchants a reason to upgrade their terminals and consumers a reason to use the service. Passbook, which powers Apple Pay, also integrates with multiple retailers’ loyalty cards.
Apple “is going to be playing on the cool factor on the first round of this,” said Henry Helgeson, CEO of Merchant Warehouse, a company that helps retailers implement mobile payments. “The real value is when merchants can put loyalty in those wallets and get repeat business. It’s something that they know and retailers know is very important to them. We’re going to see version 2.0 with some of those things.”

Overall, Helgeson anticipates Apple Pay being a huge success. His company recently outfitted 3,000 retailers with upgraded point-of-sale systems that included an NFC reader. “I’m pretty happy about that decision right now,” said Helgeson.

To view the original article visit: http://time.com/money/3311917/apple-pay-iphone-iwatch-passbook/

Nordstrom Sees Sales Boost From Mobile POS Devices

Kelly Clay Contributor 

Long lines are one of the worst nightmares for retailers – especially those with consumers about to make purchases worth hundreds of dollars. For these customers, standing in line for several minutes provides the opportunity to think about the purchase they are about to make. This time can allow customers to think about the necessity of the purchase and the cost, and given too much time to over-analyze the potential purchase, a customer standing in line can easily decide to set aside part of the potential purchase and pay less for fewer items – or even walk away entirely.

Retailers like Apple and Home Depot recognized the need to eradicate this wait several years ago, providing employees with mobile POS devices that enable them check out customers from anywhere within the store if the customer is paying with a debit or credit card. Employees at Apple’s retail stores have been armed with iOS devices for several years, enabling consumers to easily make purchases without waiting in line. In early 2011, Home Depot introduced their “First Phone” to allow customers to check out from anywhere within the store, also without having to wait in line.

 

Now, Nordstrom, the Seattle-based fashion and beauty retailer offering apparel, shoes, makeup and other beauty products, is rolling out mobile point-of-sale (POS) devices throughout their full-line stores, as well as in some of their Nordstrom Rack stores. These mobile POS devices, which is a modified iPod Touch with a merchandise scanner and credit card slider, allow employees to check out customers from anywhere in the store. The app on the device also provides Nordstrom’s sales staff access to the company’s entire inventory, which is useful when helping customers check if an alternative size or color is available elsewhere, without needing a register to look up that information.

Nordstrom has deployed over 6,000 of these devices throughout their 117 full-line stores, and at some Nordstrom locations, there are more mobile POS devices than regular registers. Colin Johnson, a spokesperson for Nordstrom, says that these devices are part of a larger plan for Nordstrom to help “provide a more technology enabled store experience.” He notes that in 2005, Nordstrom began offering the option to ship merchandise directly to customers, and in 2009 the company integrated inventory with its online store. In 2010, Nordstrom then introduced WiFi into stores to “make it easier for customers to stay connected in the stores by using their mobile devices to shop and to compare and learn more about merchandise.”

With WiFi, Nordstrom laid a foundation for these new mobile POS devices, which Nordstrom finished initially rolling out in mid-2011 and are primarily being used in B.P. (the trendy young women’s section) and shoes, which is a conglomerate of smaller departments catering towards specific demographics. Other departments using these devices include men’s. At the flagship Nordstrom store in downtown Seattle, most sales associates in these departments can be found armed with a mobile point-of-sale device and using them to checkout customers paying with plastic. When a Nordstrom customer checks out with a mobile POS, they can sign for their purchase and enter an email address for a paperless receipt. For most Nordstrom customers, checking out with a mobile POS is an incredibly intuitive and almost shockingly simple experience.

 

Johnson explains that the goal of using the mobile POS for Nordstrom is really to “take care of customer anywhere in the store. We don’t have to take you to the cash register, and instead, can do that right there with you on dressing room or when you’re trying on shoes – and then you’re on your way.” He adds, “that kind of ability to increase speed and convenience is increasingly important.”

Increasingly important for not just the customer’s convenience, but for Nordstrom’s sales. According to the company’s 2012 March Sales Report, “Preliminary quarter-to-date total retail sales of $1.73 billion increased 15.3 percent compared with total retail sales of $1.50 billion for the same period in fiscal 2011.” Additionally, according to the 2011 Nordstrom Annual Report, “both the average selling price and the number of items sold increased in 2011 compared with 2010.”

Is it a coincidence that the average number of items sold and the average selling price both increased after implementing mobile point-of-sale devices? While Johnson explains that the new mobile POS at Nordstrom is designed to provide a “faster and more convenient experience for customers and reduce the time it takes time for customers to check out,” he adds that “anything that can help that is beneficial.”

This efficiency undoubtedly reduces the potential amount of time customers have to think about their purchases before they reach the register. Though consumers may enjoy the convenience these new mobile POS devices offer, both Nordstrom’s 2012 March Sales Report and 2011 sales figures allude to the real benefit of these new mobile point-of-sale devices.

To view the original article visit: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyclay/2012/04/06/nordstrom-sees-15-3-increase-in-retail-sales-following-introduction-of-mobile-pos-devices/