Mobile Commerce 101: Are You Ready For Everywhere Transactions?
Mobile payments are not as big an opportunity as traditional online payments or retail stores.
However, every business should inventory their customers, sales
transactions and business opportunities and determine if mobile payment
acceptance is something they should or will need to offer customers.
There are many solutions to choose from, including many hardware
options - from small appliances to swipe credit cards, connected to
smartphones, to browser only solutions wherein you input payment
information directly to a credit card. Other solutions include
customers sending payments from their phones to other users, registered
in the same mobile payment system.
Sage Payment Solutions offers a mobile payment solutions and helps us understand more about mobile payments in the interview below.
In this interview you'll learn:
- Why mobile payment is secure
- How to know which payment solutions are best for your business
- Costs you should expect
- And what hardware/software options there are for mobile solutions
Please find the questions and answers from Sage Payment Solutions on the move towards mobile payment options.
There are many emerging payment solutions - Venmo, Paypal and
many others have them. What should businesses look for to know what
solution is best for them?
Emerging payment solutions are designed to fill a void that today's
mass market payment networks are not serving effectively. Generally,
that's cost to the merchant (or seller), desire for anonymity (of the
buyer), protection from credit card fraud, and lack of access to credit
cards. With all these opportunities, it would appear that emerging
payment solutions should soon dominate the e-commerce landscape.
However, three things have plagued these solutions from gaining
ubiquitous adoption: chicken & egg; i.e.,
1) merchants won't adopt it if the user base is small and users won't sign up unless the merchant community accepts it.;
2) duration of the setup experience, and
3) cost is sometimes more expensive than credit cards. In other
words, many emerging payment solutions have filled a few voids, but
then they added a few others.
Two areas have emerged that are having an effect on adoption of
emerging payment solutions: a) mobile devices; and b) data integration.
The mobile phone & smart phone market, and more importantly; the
"App Store", have a chance of solving the chicken & egg dilemma.
Given that mobile phones are still consumer driven e-commerce
solutions it would appear that the emerging payment networks with a
strong brand and distribution, such as PayPal, will have an advantage.
However, community focused solutions, like Venmo and Facebook, stand
a good chance of establishing a loyal user base that could easily
expand via the distributed nature of mobile phones. The second area
that has emerged is payments data integration, which is more business
focused. As mobile devices expand access to commerce, businesses are
looking for these solutions to integrate into their back office
accounting systems.
Here, business software providers like Intuit and Sage are well
positioned to develop ready-channels for emerging payment solutions.
Is your solution (and, I assume, the other solutions)
secure? Should businesses be worried or concerned about security when
it comes to mobile payments?
Sage's mobile payments solutions operate on Sage Exchange, our new
payments platform. Sage Exchange is PA-DSS compliant and the
application servers that deliver the applications are PCI certified. It
is critical for companies considering the use of mobile equipment to
insist on PA-DSS compliant software and PCI certified systems. The
incidence of fraudulent activities have been on a steady increase over
the past few years and the new compliance requirements and fines
associated with incidence of fraud have kept pace. Businesses and
consumers should place security at the top of the list of requirements
and verify PA-DSS compliance before implementing a solution.
Why should businesses consider a mobile payment solution? Who is the ideal customer for this type of solution?
Businesses with a mobile work force that have a need to collect
payments or close sales remotely are ideal candidates for
implementation of a mobile strategy. Companies that operate in an
environment where the customer comes to them would be less of a target.
Additionally, mobile payment solutions, particularly if they support a
wide variety of cell phones, can be an extremely effective way of
delivering information, such as coupons, promotions and other loyalty
services. Combined with a payment application, the ability to send
& receive information remotely and then process payments on the fly
can be extremely valuable to many businesses.
What are some expected costs?
Mobile solutions generally involve setup, per application, and
transaction fees. Setup and per application fees are generally
reasonable (in the $25 - $50 per user and $5 - $15 per month per user
ranges). Transaction fees vary largely based on the monthly fee, but
generally are reasonable when compared with the flexibility provided to
mobile users.
What are some hardware options? Browser? Mobile phone app?
The popular smart phones available today generally provide modern
desktop-quality browsers which can support payment applications through
web interfaces. The Android (OS) based phones, Blackberry, Palm and
Apple OS based devices can support relatively sophisticated installed
applications (for a mobile system) as well. Numerous applications are
now available through the various mobile application marketplaces and
very dramatically in features and methods for delivering the solution.
Mobile payment vendors include:
Mocapay
