Paysafe Group: Mobile Payments and Software Development Connecting
Mobile payments mechanisms are increasingly cropping up in a range of use cases, thus proving their longevity and their ability to provide value in the market. We recently got a report in from Paysafe Group that describes one more use case for mobile payments that’s gaining a lot of ground: the growth of integrated checkout systems in software development.
The notion of building a payments function directly into software isn’t exactly new, as Paysafe points out. It is, however, a development that’s rapidly gaining ground. In fact, 34 percent of software providers believe that their market is already significantly overcrowded, and 54 percent of vendors therein consider the market “very competitive.” Just 12 percent of vendors actually believe there are just a small number of vendors working in their field.
This in turn is a good part of why software vendors are looking to mobile payments options to improve their lot; 41 percent expect pressure on prices to be a significant concern, and 39 percent call getting the full range of payment options into checkout a problem as well. Better yet, 37 percent consider “differentiating our solution” to be a major problem as well.
This connects immediately to the price issue, since price is a major way to differentiate. It’s also one no one really wants to use unless there’s no other way, since it does really unpleasant things to profitability. In fact, it’s such a priority that 88 percent of vendors believe that upgrading payment operations is “a priority” for their operations. Integrated payments systems are actually considered either “important” or “critical” to 70 percent of respondents.
If there’s one thing that online shopping has discovered since its inception several years ago, it’s that it has to be easy for customers to find the checkout option and make a payment. If it isn’t, carts are abandoned and money isn’t spent. By improving the customer experience with payments tools, vendors improve the odds that their customers will find what they want, pay for it, and come back later.
That’s a strategy that’s worth using. While it won’t work well as a differentiator—when everyone does it it just becomes table stakes—but it will likely work to keep from having to bust out the price drops for a good while to come.