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These little devices can be placed in your home, where you need them, making everything you would at the counter,
re-ordering of frequently purchased items as easy as touching a button. with your phone – you can order your
drink, pay for it and even apply your
Amazon's Echo provides a similar experience, allowing you to order what you Starbucks Rewards account to the
need with a simple voice command. By making it easy to purchase items while transaction.
you're thinking about them, Amazon fosters loyalty in its customer base. In
2017, more ecommerce merchants will look to add the benefits of contextual For some, using mobile payments
commerce to their buyer journey. isn't more convenient than using
an actual card. Unlocking a phone,
According to recent research, 56 percent of consumers who follow brands choosing a card, scanning it and still
on social media do so specifically to view products. So it's no wonder that having to enter a PIN, all while hav-
Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and even SnapChat already have, or are ing to add a loyalty card separately,
introducing, functionality that allows platform users to make purchases removes the seamless experience that
directly from their social media feeds. would make users leave their wallets
at home. To see the expected growth
Further advancements in digital wallets in mobile, the customer experience
With predictions of contactless payment users reaching over 69 million by must improve, making it possible for
2019, it's no surprise that digital wallets will be a huge focus for the payments consumers to shop where they want,
industry in 2017. But because mobile, and even wearable payments already without carrying their wallets.
exist, the focus will be on improving the experience and making them more A move toward 'true'
accessible. digital wallets
Improving the mobile payment user experience
Current incarnations of digital wal-
While some mobile payment applications – like the Starbucks app – have creat- lets lack some expected features. For
ed a pleasing, seamless user experience for customers, many other payment ap- instance, carrying around loyalty
plications are far from frictionless. With the Starbucks app, you can do almost cards in your actual wallet may be
cumbersome, but at least you can use
them when you're paying for your
purchases. Mobile payment options
need to account for all the different
cards you carry, and apply things like
loyalty memberships and rewards
points to purchases in a single user
action.
Increased availability
of NFC POS terminals
The last piece in the contactless pay-
ments puzzle is the ability to use your
digital wallet wherever you go. Some
merchants may be hesitant to change
to new POS terminals after the recent-
ly mandated switch to chip-enabled
terminals didn't go so well. But as
the number of customers demanding
to use mobile or wearable payments
increases, they will be more inclined
to make the switch. And with 85 per-
cent of the POS terminals shipping in
2016 being near field communication
(NFC)-enabled, many merchants will
already have the capacity to accept
mobile payments without changing a
thing.

Kirsty Tull is Director Marketing &
Communications for BillPro. Follow her on
Twitter at @Billpropayments, or email her at
kirsty@billpro.com.
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