It’s hard to put a price tag on security and privacy, but a recent study of consumers’ online and mobile purchasing attitudes conducted by Javelin Strategy & Research and PaymentOne found that four out of five consumers would spend more online if offered an easier and more secure way to pay.
The survey also found that by a margin of almost four to one, consumers believe direct carrier billed mobile payments are more secure than using credit and debit cards for online digital purchases.
How much more would consumers spend if they didn’t have to share their sensitive personal data or type in a long credit card number to complete their purchase? The Javelin survey finds that online merchants could add aggregated yearly revenue of $109.8 billion, simply by offering an alternative “no credit card required” way to pay at checkout.
Conducted this fall, the 2011 Consumer Payment Poll revealed that consumers have dramatic and growing concerns about the safety and privacy of using credit or debit cards for online transactions. More than half of consumers surveyed admitted to abandoning online purchases at check-out because of these concerns, confirming a huge loss in potential revenue for online merchants.
Four out of five consumers polled would spend more online if given an easier and more secure payment alternative to credit or debit cards. This indication of pent-up demand and lost opportunity for commerce was consistently high across a wide range of segments such as age, ethnicity, income, geography, early/late adopters of technology and gender, with certain demographics, including higher income, younger and minority segments displaying an even higher demand for easier and safer payment alternatives. Nearly six in 10 consumers are more likely to visit and buy from sites that offer “no-credit-card-required” payment options. Survey results further indicated that digital merchants could realize incremental average monthly revenue of $89 per consumer simply by increasing the available payment choices.
“According to the 2011 Online Payment Poll, consumers are concerned about the use of credit cards online and related issues of privacy, fraud, security and convenience,” said Phil Blank, Managing Director at Javelin Strategy & Research. “If digital merchants simply offered consumers an alternative way to pay, such as mobile carrier based payments, 79 percent of decisive consumers indicated they would spend more, driving significant new incremental revenue from subscriptions, transactions and purchases. With an estimated $110 billion in new revenue for digital merchants being left on the table each year in the U.S. alone, this ‘commerce gap’ represents a massive untapped opportunity.”
read more at Mobile Business Magazine
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