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How important is click and collect? What’s happening with showrooming? Has the public embraced contactless? MEF Minute looks at how retail and mobile are intersecting in 2015…

Mobile payments comprise over a quarter of global online payments

Stats from Dutch payments processor Adyen say mobile’s total share of online payments is 28.7 per cent. Its Mobile Payments Index revealed that for Q2 2015, mobile increased its share from 27.2 per cent in Q1 2015.

It also showed just how crucial the iPhone is to online shopping traffic. The report revealed that iPhones account for a 35.6 per cent of all browser-based transactions made using mobile devices. That’s 10.2 per cent of all global online transactions.

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More customers do ‘web rooming’ than ‘showrooming’

Data from Deloitte shows that the web may be driving more people into high street stores than away from them.

It revealed that 69 per cent of shoppers plan to do webrooming – looking at items online first, then completing the purchase in a store. That’s up from 58 per cent in 2014.

Meanwhile 52 per cent expect to engage in showrooming, in which they appraise an item in a shop, then search and buy it online.

The top three reasons respondents shop in stores are the ability to see and touch the product (54 per cent), save money on shipping (31 per cent) and purchase gifts immediately (25 per cent).

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US mobile proximity payment will be bigger market by value than m-commerce in 2019

At present mobile payments made in store are tiny compared to those we make via mobile sites and apps. But it won’t stay this way, says eMarketer.

The market research estimates that by 2019, the total value of mobile payment transactions in the US will hit $210.45 billion. This total will make it a bigger market by value than m-commerce, which will gross $149.79 billion in 2019.

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Half a million click and collect locations in Europe in 2015

Retailers have enthusiastically embraced click and collect as they adapt to new shopping behaviours, says Deloitte.

Its 2015 trends predictions says there will be 500,000 retail locations providing the service in 2015 across Europe. That’s a 20 per cent increase on the previous year.

It revealed that 43 per cent of shoppers expect to buy a product online and pick it up from the store instead of having it shipped to them—primarily to save on shipping charges (67 per cent), to get the item faster (49 per cent) and pick up other items on the same trip (35 per cent).

But Deloitte warned that there are potential pitfalls. It said click and collect storage displaces space that could be used for display, while staff are taken away from traditional duties. Also, click and collect might make it easier to return goods.

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Enthusiasm for mobile digital wallets is still low in the US

Consumers are still dubious about the value of mobile wallets, says research by market watcher Gallup.

This year has seen immense hype around Apple Pay and Android Pay, while retailers like Walmart and banks like Chase have launched their own payment products.

Despite that, just 13 per cent of US adults with a smartphone have one loaded up, and 76 per cent of this group had not used it to make a purchase from a retailer in the 30 days before they were questioned.

38 per cent of them don’t see any benefits of using the technology while 90 per cent are very unlikely or unlikely to start using one in the next 12 months.

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European consumers are embracing contactless payments

According to data from Visa, one billion contactless payment cards were used more than 1bn times in the 12 months to March 2015.

That amounted to €12.6bn spent – with €1.6bn of that in March alone – three times higher than the amount spent in March 2014.

Of course, this refers to mostly plastic contactless transactions. But since most mobile payment systems use NFC, the figures have some resonance for the mobile industry.

Brits top the adoption chart. They have 49.6m cards, more than twice the 20.3m held by the country in second place: France.

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Brits will spend £1 million on mobile devices every 35 minutes in 2015

UK shoppers are set to transact £14.95 billion via phones and tablets this year, which is 28.6 per cent of all online purchases, It equates to £1 million every 35 minutes.

The figures, from RetailMeNot and Vouchercodes.co.uk, show how shoppers are switching away from the desktop to their phones and tablets.  Brits will increase their mobile spending by 77.8 per cent this year. PC based spending will rise just two per cent.

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Consumers are falling out of love with tablets for shopping

iPad-based transactions have almost halved as a percentage of overall mobile commerce, says Adyen’s Mobile Payments Index.

The Dutch payments processor, which powers millions of online transactions a year, observed that iPad transactions accounted for 28.5 per cent of all browser-based mobile transactions in Q2 2015.

It’s a dramatic decline. They once dominated the mobile payment scene with almost 50 per cent market share in March 2013.

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Starbucks rules in-store mobile payment

It may be a proprietary system that works exclusively in one retailer, but Starbucks remains the best example of how succeed at mobile payment.

Its app lets customers easily top up their balance, add rewards and check out (by generating a barcode scanned by the barista). Starbucks says the app has 16 million active users in the US and processes over 8m transactions a week.

It recently added a Mobile Order & Pay feature to reduce waiting time still further.

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Enthusiasm for Apple Pay is fizzling out

It’s over a year since Apple Pay launched in the US, but research suggests consumers are largely ignoring it.

In October, research firm Trustev revealed that only 20 per cent of Apple Pay-enabled iPhone users in the US had tried the feature.

Then data from InfoScout said that, over the Black Friday weekend, only 2.7 per cent of NFC iPhone users had paid with Apple Pay. That was a fall on the previous year’s usage rate of 4.6 per cent.

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