Greetings from the depths of this year’s ho-ho-holiday shopping season. Along with a sleigh full of gifts, Santa is bringing new payment and shopping experiences this year – more mobile payments, newfangled POS, a new/old idea for credit, payments-free grocery shopping from Amazon, and a beacon of hope at the ATM. Happy shopping, everyone!
Mobile Is Huge for PayPal on Big Holiday Shopping Days
PayPal’s Cyber Monday mobile payment volume was up 50 percent over last year, while sales overall broke records on both Black Friday and Thanksgiving. Food for thought: The biggest Thanksgiving-day transaction on PayPal exceeded $75,000.
When In-Store Payment Innovations Bring Customers Closer
Can an effortless payment experience change how consumers feel about shopping? It can if the result is more and better face time. “Payments need to be quick, simple, secure and painless leaving the sales associate free to extend their relationship with the consumer who can then engage on their own terms.”
Credit, On A Cardholder’s (Flexible) Terms
Mastercard is rolling out a new program that gives cardholders another option for financing their purchases, leveraging their existing credit, debit and commercial cards: installment payments.
Amazon Tests Cashier-Free, App-Based Food Shopping
“Customers use the Go app to enter the store, and once inside, some combination of sensors, computer vision and deep learning keep track of what’s taken off and returned to shelves inside a virtual cart. Once finished, the shopper just walks out and the company charges their Amazon account, along with a receipt.”
Diebold, Cuscal Test Benefits of Beacon Technology at ATMs
Would the same beacon technology that promises to transform the retail space also work at the ATM? Diebold and Australian payments solutions provider Cuscal are testing it out. The project is focused on testing consumers’ responsiveness to messages delivered during the “approach” phase, rather than after they have entered the “transact” phase.
The original article 5 Must-Reads This Week: Shopping for a Better Experience can be found on Insight Vault.
