This article in BankingExchange.com has an eye catching headline but it fails to clarify what mobile devices it includes or the payment types counted. It also never bothers to even support the claim that mobile payments will exceed the $252B eCommerce sales reported by the U.S. Census Bureau for just the first three quarters of 2015!
But the article starts with the type of surveys I hate, even if I’m one of the professionals surveyed:
“A survey by CAN Capital Inc. concludes that the growth of mobile payments technology is overtaking ecommerce as the largest trend impacting the spending habits of today’s retail consumers.
Nearly half (47%) of 166 payments and financial innovation professionals surveyed at the Money 20/20 Conference in October agreed mobile payments are changing retail consumer spending. Ecommerce came in next (35%) followed by personalized marketing and advertisements (18%).
This is a significant change from last year’s findings, when the majority of respondents in a similar survey (58%) said an increase in ecommerce was having the largest impact on consumer spending. This shift can likely be attributed to mobile technologies becoming more available to the average retail consumer since the launch of products such as Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Chase Pay over the past year, the researchers say.”
The article offers eMarketer research as supporting evidence that mobile payments are huge, yet fails to identify how that mobile payments number will come close to exceeding even the first three quarters number of $252B provided by the Census Bureau:
“According to research by eMarketer, in 2016, total mobile payment transactions are expected to reach $27.05 billion, with users spending an average of $721.47 annually. Total mobile payment sales will rise faster than average spending per user in 2016 because of the growth in the number of overall users of the technology.”
It’s a shame when headline writers are allowed to create headlines that are both meaningless and unsupported by the very facts that are reported in the article itself.
Overview by Tim Sloane, VP, Payments Innovation at Mercator Advisory Group
Read the full story here
