Mobile Marketing Strategies: Mobile Wallets

By Dan Winkler, UMSL MBA Student
Mobile Marketing Strategies, a special Marketing seminar course offered by the UMSL Business School, touches on many topics currently impacting our everyday lives in the world of mobile marketing. While I attended this class, SME’s and guest speakers came together to present on these “hot-button” mobile topics which included user experience (UX) design, mobile advertisements (and ad blocking), mobile product lifecycle management, mobile app design and notifications, and mobile wallets.
That last topic, mobile wallets, is one that I, like many, have had at least moderate experience with, which is why I want to delve a bit deeper into it in this blog post.
e-Commerce is undoubtedly revolutionizing and defining the way in which the free market works. Bringing to life the ability to shop without ever setting foot inside a retail store was a dream of many [guys] thankfully brought to fruition.
Even today many of us might feel that e-Commerce has come full-circle in its lifestyle, while others might think it’s only in its infancy still. Regardless, while still feared by some, e-Commerce is starting to  grow into a primary avenue of shopping.
PayPal, Apply Pay, Samsung Pay, Android Pay, Google Wallet, Square Cash, Venmo, Snapchat, Facebook – these brands are all some of the most widely used versions of mobile wallets. The convenience of having your bank account directly (and securely) linked to your smartphone is yet another win for technology; however this particular feature is only slowly progressing into the Early Adopter stage of the Diffusion of Innovations model. Why? What will push it into the critical Early Majority stage of success?
mobile-phone
Acceptance.
Both merchants and consumers are hesitant to accept mobile payments due to the fact that it hasn’t gained much attention or popularity in the world of commerce. Everybody seems to be waiting for someone else to test the waters before they adopt the new[er] technology. Especially in the wake of such alarming rates of merchant fraud. You can’t go from one holiday to the next without hearing about another major company whose systems have been hacked and personal information stolen.
Security concerns top the list of reasons why consumers shy away from proximity mobile wallets. Some 55 percent of respondents were concerned about some kind of security issue such as a hack or losing their phone. Some 21 percent of respondents don’t know enough about mobile wallets to make a decision about them. (Hernandez)
What many people don’t know is that mobile payments themselves are actually safer than your traditional credit card transaction. With the growing popularity of mobile transactions, backed security statistics, it’s only a matter of time before mobile wallets become widely accepted – we just have to better understand them.
One way to gain more knowledge around mobile wallets, as well as mobile marketing in general, is by taking the Special Marketing Seminar business course through UMSL!
Reference:
Hernandez, Will. No surprise: Gallup finds mobile wallets low priority for consumers. 21 July 2015. 26 October 2015 <http://www.mobilepaymentstoday.com/blogs/no-surprise-gallup-finds-mobile-wallets-low-priority-for-consumers/>.