Large Merchants May Drive Mobile-Payments Adoption: Study

More consumers might try making mobile payments if more large merchants supported them, new survey data suggest.

Of the 502 U.S. credit card users Auriemma Consulting Group surveyed online in June, 37% said the most likely place they would expect to use mobile payments would be in person at a large retailer, 29% said they would use mobile payments at a large online retailer, and 29% said they would use mobile payments at a large restaurant.

Respondents who had phones able to conduct mobile payments were comfortable with the functionality, as 58% said they would conduct mobile payments at a large retailer, 46% would do so at an online retailer and 43% would at a large restaurant.

Most consumers likely would not use their phones for many small-ticket purchases, the survey data suggest. Only 20% of respondents, for example, said they would use mobile phone to pay a parking meter, according to the Cardbeat survey.

That consumers would not choose low-value transactions to try out the new technology but instead opt for larger purchases at a larger retailer is surprising, says Scott Strumello, associate at Auriemma.

Consumers are choosing large retailers because they have more trust in them to take care of any security concerns or issues, Auriemma’s Cardbeat report suggests. And that would be good news for retailers, as consumers would seem satisfied with how they handle potential data breaches.

“The perception is that larger retailers garner more trust from consumers, and that’s a combination of knowing that the breaches will be taken care of and that consumers see the incidents being resolved in a satisfactory manner,” says Strumello. “They see dealing with smaller retailers as being more of hassle.”

Younger respondents were more interested than older ones in mobile phone services, and they tend to be the most likely to adopt new technologies than other consumer groups, he says.

The biggest fears about mobile payments involve theft and security, though consumers with mobile-capable phones have a higher level of comfort, says Strumello.