Retailers must avoid replicating ‘a card-based experience’ to succeed in m-commerce – PayPal head of retail Rob Harper
Retailers must improve their mobile transaction experience and move away from a “card-based experience” if they want to avoid losing consumers at the checkout, according to head of retail at PayPal Rob Harper.
Speaking at the e-commerce expo at London Olympia this morning, for which The Drum is media partner, Harper citied recent research, which found that in 2013 UK businesses lost £1.5bn in mobile commerce sales, with payment friction cited as the leading reason why shoppers abandoned the checkout process on a mobile device.
“Mobile is driving innovation in payments,” he said. “It’s not about replicating a card-based experience within a mobile phone, but richer experiences and using the mobile to overcome the frustration of old ways to pay.
“Everyone wants a quicker, better shopping experience regardless of whether we browse on a website or on a smartphone or visit a store. For the consumer in their mind it’s no longer about offline, online or mobile; it’s simply about shopping and that’s the view businesses must adopt also.”
Harper also touched on a Harris poll from last December which revealed that 47 per cent of consumers failed to complete a purchase because the check-out process took too long; while 41 per cent said it is too difficult on a mobile phone.
He added that there is “a lot of room for improvement” when it comes to retailers and their m-commerce offering, and Harper said they must quickly adapt or risk losing money in the future, both online and offline.
Speaking about the recent decision to split eBay and PayPal into two separate business, Harper remained tight-lipped about how this would affect the payment company going forward, simply stating that the decision would allow the two businesses to take up “the best position to grow”, and that PayPal is “very much focussed on delivering its strategy” of platform agnostic, seamless experiences.
Earlier this year PayPal kicked off its first ever global ad push and revamped its brand identity as part of plans to position itself at the forefront of what it calls a "people powered economy".