I was at a marketing event the other night and, as often happens when folks hear you’re involved in app development, I was cornered after our speaker was finished to chew over the latest developments in the mobile market.
The conversation was focussed on mobile payments; not in-app purchases, but taking payment for physical goods and services.
You can’t use the in-app payment mechanisms to bill for physical products, so a developer needs to look elsewhere.
There’s a whole book to be written on the Merchant Services sector, most of the content would be quite negative, too. However, things are starting to change. With the arrival of Square, iZettle et. al. the floor is opening up.
If you’re a small merchant though, with a mobile site or application, ease of integration is probably key. And for ease of integration, there’s none better than PayPal.
The one-click integration and payment system does work flawlessly, for all of PayPal’s other faults. I still await the arrival of a PayPal killer with baited breath (their treatment of the customers, merchant and consumer alike, is despicable). In the meantime, it’s still a world-class platform with some encouraging stats*:
¢â‚¬ ¢ PayPal has 113.2 million active registered accounts available in 190 markets and supports payments in 25 currencies.
¢â‚¬ ¢ PayPal expects to process $10 billion in mobile payment volume in 2012
¢â‚¬ ¢ 31% of buyers said they would not have made the purchase if Paypal had not been offered as a payment method.
¢â‚¬ ¢ There was an 18% average increase in sales from merchants since adding Express Checkout
¢â‚¬ ¢ $3 billion in PayPal balance turns over every fortnight
¢â‚¬ ¢ It’s a lot easier to use on mobile devices
¢â‚¬ ¢ It avoids the “conversion killer” that 3D payer authentication is claimed to be
Here at Tradebox, we understand the perils of committing to one Merchant Services provider. That’s why we offer a full review of the platforms available with every commerce product we build. I hope that we’ll add to PayPal’s offering very soon, however, it remains a safe bet for the time being.
Stephen Milburn is the Founder of Tradebox Media; App developers and publishers based in Cardiff, UK.
*Data and insight courtesy of www.screenpages.com