Payments in Merchant Mobile Apps – Embed or Dead?

You cannot have mCommerce without payments

What’s the point of having a mobile app if it doesn’t have payments? Redirecting consumers to make payments in a resized online form is challenging to do on a small mobile phone, especially if you are, like most people, multitasking in some way.

In today’s world of Amazon and Uber, customers don’t want to go through steps that can be avoided, or worse, ‘fat finger’ the wrong number on their card, resulting in a declined payment. In a Loquate survey, 4 in 10 respondents abandoned their mCommerce cart because of problems entering their personal details. Meanwhile, Statista found that 30 percent of shoppers will leave if they have to re-enter their credit card information. In a YouGov survey, 62 percent said they would shop elsewhere if declined, and 23 percent of them responded that they would not go back to the retailer. 

It’s no wonder that mobile carts have an even higher abandonment rate than eCommerce at 85.65 percent.

The holy grail of payments?

One-click, embedded or invisible payments – that’s the holy grail. It’s where the payment portion becomes so easy and frictionless, that it becomes second nature. Pay? Yes. Thank You, your order is on its way. Have a great day!

Consumers now expect their retail experiences to be seamless and payment is usually where the most friction in any transaction occurs. But when handled properly, can be a win-win for both the consumer and the merchant.

The Baymard Institute found that having too long or too complicated of a checkout process is the reason why more than a quarter (26 percent) of shoppers abandon a transaction. The good news; they also state a 35 percent increase in conversion rate can be achieved through a quicker and better optimized checkout process — and the quickest checkout process is one-click!

Additionally, consumers have a tendency to stop and try to convince themselves they are making the right decision. Most of this can be averted with reviews, but when they hit the payments screen, that doubt can creep back in. Why take the chance? Make it quick and easy to purchase.

In short, when payments are embedded, merchants will see better engagement, conversions and sales. When the purchase experience feels effortless, it is more likely that customers will come back for more.

Why do you need to make sure this happens?

Insider Intelligence predicts mCommerce volume to hit $620.97 billion, or 42.9 percent of ecommerce, in 2024. Think that might be an exaggeration? Statista says mobile commerce sales were $362 billion in 2021 and are expected to surpass $430 billion in 2022, and more than $710 billion by 2025, accounting for 44.2 percent of retail ecommerce sales in the U.S. There are other stats that claim mCommerce was already almost 50 percent of all eCommerce in 2021, so it is no longer a small segment of eCommerce sales. 

According to a survey by OuterBox, 8 in 10 smartphone users have made a purchase online using their mobile devices within the last 6 months. An Oberlo survey found that 75 percent of customers make purchases on their mobile phones. The number one reason for doing so was that it saves time. If the number one goal is to save time, then one-click is once again the answer.

If there ever was a case for one-click payments, it’s mCommerce

You would think this is a no-brainer, but in reality, only 4 percent of companies surveyed by OpenPayd currently offer embedded payments, although an additional 83 percent had plans to do so. What’s the hold up? Internal talent? Offerings of their existing vendors? Priorities? Funding? The economy? Complications integrating with existing systems?

There are numerous hurdles to overcome when implementing one-click embedded payments, and these are just a few of them. The most important thing is that you are moving forward with this as a high priority strategy to take advantage of where the market is going and convert more of the sales opportunities you have spent considerable funds getting to the payment conversion point. If you already have one-click payments in your mobile app, just like everything else there’s always room for improvement as well as keeping pace with integrating new ways to pay, but that is a conversation for another post. 

What’s stopping your one-click payment efforts? If it’s your existing vendors and complications with integrating payments into your mobile app, you should look into  ACI’s Mobile Commerce SDK and award-winning ACI Smart Engage.