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Data for today’s episode is provided by Mercator Advisory Group’s report –North American PaymentsInsights, U.S – Subscription Services and Bill Pay: Card Payments Dominate
How Satisfied Are Consumers with Their Online Subscription Services?
- Generally speaking, consumers are very satisfied with their online subscriptions services: for instance, 81% are highly satisfied with video streaming.
- At most, 3% of consumers are dissatisfied with their online subscription services (News/Magazines & Premium Apps).
- Generally speaking, household income does not determine satisfaction with online subscription services.
- Satisfaction within the Software vertical is loosely tied to household income: >$100K = 76% satisfied, <$100K = 67% satisfied.
- The disparity between tech forward and tech laggard consumers is sharpest in the premium apps category: tech forward = 76% satisfied, tech laggard = 40% satisfied.
- Credit and debit cards are by far the most common means of paying for online subscription services.
- Credit cards tend to be used most frequently in low-incidence payment categories like News & Software Subscriptions.
About Report
Mercator Advisory Group’s most recent consumer survey report, Subscription Services and Bill Pay: Card Payments Dominate, from the 2019 Technology Survey of the bi-annual North American PaymentsInsights series, examines U.S. consumers’ current use of subscription services and methods for paying their bills.
The report, which is based on an online panel survey administered to 3,006 U.S. adults in November-December 2019, presents results from questions exploring how adults in the United States use and pay for “box of the month” clubs and online subscription services. It also explores the ways consumers pay their bills and the increasing importance of digital bill payment.
Regarding subscription services in the U.S., consumers are about twice as likely to subscribe to an online subscription service as to subscribe to a “box of the month” service (59% vs 23%). Interestingly, a relatively large portion of American adults (38%) do not subscribe to either type of service.
When it comes to paying bills, the majority of consumers (6 in 10) are currently paying at least some of their bills electronically through either automatic billing or bank account withdrawal. Consumers are paying bills in equal proportion through electronic bill pay via their bank, their biller, or bill pay service.
“This report explores two very important aspects in the payments ecosystem—subscription services and bill payment. Electronic payments play a very large role in both of these areas, and it is important to understand the payments dynamics of both,” stated the author of the report, Peter Reville, director of Primary Research Services at Mercator Advisory Group, which includes the North American PaymentsInsights series.
