POS

Digital Transactions Set to Mark Holiday Shopping Season

November 24, 2024         By: Steven Anderson

Word from the National Retail Federation spells it out in black and white: Thanksgiving weekend—including Cyber Monday—is set to be one great whopping monster of a shopping event, one that will see fully 69 percent of Americans either hitting the stores or the stores’ websites in order to land that special gift. All of this together will mean a lot of transactions, especially a lot of digital ones. A new Paysafe report suggests those transactions will come from a lot of different directions.

The Paysafe study found that just shy of a third—31 percent—of Americans are already turning to a mobile wallet of some kind in everyday use. Moreover, about one in seven, have used cryptocurrencies of some kind. It’s increasingly believed, and we’ve heard this more than once, that cash just won’t be a necessity by 2020, a point that Paysafe notes 54 percent believe.

With those points in mind, it’s worth wondering just what the stores are doing to accommodate this. The answer is surprisingly broad; we’ve already seen some mobile payments firms make increasing pushes into the physical world; Amazon with its Whole Foods purchase, Alibaba with its own grocery store investments. But we’ve also seen a large number of businesses without so much as a website, let alone the ability to accept mobile payments beyond the credit card.

Indeed, in Denmark, stores are actually now allowed to refuse cash as a payment method by some reports, and consumer card payments are now more popular than cash payments as of 2016 worldwide. The Paysafe report expects consumers to develop increasing confidence in mobile payments, and for new transaction processing tools to come into play.

Whether it’s those of us who use mobile payments to pay for things, or those who offer things for sale that need to accept mobile payments or risk losing a pile of business, the landscape is changing. While the notion that cash will be removed may be a bridge too far, it’s clear that accepting mobile payments is no longer an option, but rather a necessity for ongoing operations.

People want to use their mobile wallets, and mobile payment systems. Failing to accommodate this desire may mean a lot of closed businesses going forward, so it’s best to be ready now.