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TheMobileBuzz

Mobile wallet apps consumers weekly, and 50 million consumer
visits to casual dining and other high-volume
boost store visits merchants using its platform.

"What is a surprise is the level of increased
frequency, which is very significant," Squire
t the recent Shoptalk conference held in Las Vegas, mobile said. "In addition to finding that mobile is
wallet provider CardFree released research that shows a a driver of frequency, we've also found that
direct link between retail mobile wallet apps and frequen- adding a loyalty program tends to increase
A cy of store visits by consumers. Analyzing transactions both frequency and spend. Merchants that
processed on CardFree's mobile commerce merchant platform, data use our full platform services including order-
indicated that visit frequency jumped from monthly to weekly after ahead, payments, offers and loyalty tend to see
customers downloaded and used retail mobile apps. the most shift in behavior."
Incentives play big role
Research across CardFree's platform revealed that this doubling of
visits, once established, stabilized over time as the new norm. In fact, The latest data from Auriemma Consulting
the company found that time between visits decreased with each Group's Mobile Pay Tracker also suggest that
successive app use up to around the sixth visit, where usage patterns transaction-based incentives may increase visit
reached a new plateau. "Historically, we've seen that mobile consumers frequency and spend through mobile pay and
have a higher lifetime value than other consumers, so the results of that regardless of who funds the incentives, is-
our platform research aren't a surprise," said Jon Squire, founder and suers, merchants and payment app providers
Chief Executive Officer at CardFree. Data was collected from over all stand to gain.
22,000 quick service restaurant locations transacting with 100 million
"Pay apps very well may be the future of pay-
ments," said Jaclyn Holmes, Director of ACG's
Payment Insights. "Incentives provide an op-
portunity for issuers and merchants to have
consumers associate their brand with the pay-
ment method, which could turn out to be a
valuable long-term investment."

According to ACG, 25 percent of consumers
with an eligible smartphone use mobile pay, a
group primarily comprising affluent, college-
educated individuals. Within this segment, 32
percent recalled being offered a mobile pay in-
centive, compared with 19 percent in the pre-
vious tracker. Eight-six percent of recipients
said that when an incentive was offered, they
claimed it at the POS in-store or in-app.

In past trackers, the proportion of banks offer-
ing incentives was highest, but the percentage
slipped from 58 percent to 40 percent quarter-
over-quarter in findings released in March 2017.
Merchant-funded incentives have now taken
the lead, with 46 percent of merchants offering
them. Seventy-eight percent of consumers who
responded to these offerings said the incentive
was linked to a specific merchant.
Similar to CardFree's findings, ACG found that
over a one-week period, those who received an
incentive to use mobile pay in-store did so 4.6
times, compared with 3.1 times for those who
did not receive an incentive. In-app purchases
incentivized shoppers to purchase four times a
week, compared with 2.4 for those not offered
incentives.

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