One of the most underrated functions of owning and using a smartphone is how much simpler they make shopping. There are literally thousands of applications available across all mobile platforms that help users compare prices of an item both online and at local retailers, or purchase goods and services right from their smartphone. Google has taken this trend a step further, using near field communications (NFC) on its Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus smartphones to allow customers to actually use their phones as they would a credit card, placing the smartphone (linked to a credit card) up to a scanner which accepts FastPass to pay for the transaction.
With NFC quickly becoming the standard in mobile devices, and rumored to make an appearance in the iPhone 5, the instances of mobile payments is only going to increase at an exponential rate. According to a recent report from Nielsen, a full 29% of smartphone owners use their phones at some point during the shopping experience. Further, over 50% of smartphone users are at least somewhat interested in using their phones as a credit card.
The Nielsen Report also showed that 38% of mobile shoppers use their smartphones to browse products or websites through applications, 32% read user reviews from their smartphones, and 22% actually make purchases through their phones.
The survey covered data collected during Q3 2011, so long before the recent troubles Google had with a vulnerability in Google Wallet that allowed hackers to potentially access someone’s PIN and potentially access funds or personal information. Though Google has done some work to fix the vulnerabilities with Wallet, it probably hurt consumer confidence in cellular payment adoption. We’ll have to wait and see what comes in the next few reports.
How do you use your smartphone to do mobile shopping?
[Via WebProNews, Nielsen]