WorldPay research shows mCommerce take up halted by lack of payment page optimisation

You can’t make this stuff up.

Real life, eh?

Over the past few days I’ve been critical of The Cloud and their payments provider, WorldPay, for making it exceptionally difficult (if not potentially impossible) for their users — well, me — to sign-up and pay for their WiFi service.

I was just having a look through the WorldPay media page when I came across this press release from November. It’s about the importance of payment page optimisation for mobile devices. Which is strange — or unfortunate — given the experience that’s currently deployed by The Cloud.

I’ve no idea who’s responsible for the debacle. I’d assume it’s WorldPay but who knows, maybe The Cloud specified that they wanted a really, really broken payments page.

As a reminder, here’s what the payments page looks like on my iPhone (from earlier this week):

That’s right. The form even offers you a field for “fax”. Hello 1998!

Now here’s the press release from WorldPay’s media centre:

Research conducted by WorldPay, the global leader in payment processing, risk and alternative payments, has today revealed findings which show that mobile payment page optimisation and screen size are impacting the number of consumers willing to purchase goods and services on their mobile devices.

The research conducted at the 2012 Internet Retailing Conference in London, found that retail experts believe mobile devices play a role in the shopping experience but consumers are put off from purchasing goods and services on their mobile devices. Over half of those polled believe that screen size is still an issue but 34% think that lack of payment page optimisation discourages consumers from spending money on their devices. The most popular activities completed by consumers on all mobile devices include searching for stores (48%) and researching prices (43%).

Of those polled, 65% believe that tablet devices are most commonly used for making a purchase whereas only 31% think that a smartphone is used for this activity. In fact, tablets are thought to be the device of choice for a number of activities including searching for a store (60%), researching product price (57%) and looking up product information (55%). In comparison, smartphones are more commonly used for voucher codes (60%), taking photos of products (60%) and using QR codes (65%).

Philip McGriskin, chief product officer, WorldPay comments: “Perhaps the most dramatic change aligned to recent mobile successes is that consumers are able to browse using their personal technology any time they want – on the commute home, at the pub, and even while visiting a shop itself. Yet, whilst consumers are using their devices to browse they are not spending as much as they could. Merchants need to understand if their target customers would purchase if the experience met their requirements and, if so, implement an optimised mobile payment page. Consumers have high expectations of the purchasing experience on a mobile and it needs to replicate what they have come to expect on a website. If merchants can understand and respond to their customers’ demands, they will reap the rewards as the mCommerce appetite does exist.”

These findings support recent research conducted by WorldPay for the Global Online Shopper report, which found that almost half of online shoppers in the UK own a smartphone (48%) and 13% own a tablet. Our research found that in the UK a quarter of respondents’ disposable income is spent online and promisingly, 29% of UK consumers said they’ll use their smartphone or tablet to buy online in the next year, meaning the opportunity is enormous. The report also found that of those who purchase goods on their mobile devices, 25% prefer a mobile optimised website, compared to 19% who prefer to shop via bespoke apps.

Internet Retailing Conference is the UK’s longest running and largest dedicated conference for tier one and two online and multichannel retailers. The conference is produced by Internet Retailing magazine, which also produces a range of events and supplements throughout the year in the UK. Please visit www.internetretailing.net for details and subscriptions.

Ah dear.