Mobile and PayPal
We’re used to people accessing the Internet via personal computers, but more and more consumers
are accessing the Web via smartphones and other mobile devices. This trend toward mobile access will
affect the way you sell online—including the way you accept customer payments.Suppose a potential customer sees a friend with your product and loves it, but is not near a computer? You don’t want that moment to pass; in all sales, timing is critical. And when she gets to your site, can she find the product? Can she buy it easily? PayPal Mobile gives you access to those impulse buys, with a checkout process designed for mobile devices.
Why Mobile Matters
Why is mobile e-commerce important? It’s a simple matter of numbers: mobile Web use is fast gaining on traditional computer-based Web use. You need to reach your customers no matter what type of device they use to access the Internet.Look at the statistics. The Intern
ational Telecommunication Union reports that there are more than 5 billion cellular telephone subscribers world-wide; CTIA—The Wireless Association reports that more than 300 million of these subscribers are in the U.S. CTIA also reports that 96 percent of all Americans had a mobile phone subscription at the end of 2010. IDC reports that there were close to 1.4 billion new mobile phones sold in 2010, making this the fastest-selling item in the entire consumer electronics industry.These raw numbers dwarf those of the personal computer industry, but it gets even more interesting when you drill down to look at mobile Internet usage. In a 2009 report, the Pew Research Center found that 35 percent of all mobile phone users have used their phones to access the Internet; that’s more than a billion people worldwide, and more than a hundred thousand in the U.S alone. This mobile access will only increase; Gartner estimates that mobile Web usage will surpass PC-based access by 2013.And these mobile users are spending money. ABI Research reports that in 2009, $1.2 billion in purchases were made from mobile devices in the U.S.; ABI expects this number to increase to $119 billion by 2015. That’s big
money, and reason enough for savvy businesses to embrace the mobile Web. No business can dismiss hundreds of millions of potential custom-ers; indeed, you want to reach Internet users no matter how they connect to the Web. A mobile phone is just another gateway to the products you sell online.The importance of the mobile Internet is more than just numbers, of course. Customers don’t need to be sitting in front of a computer, but instead can connect to the Web via mobile phone anytime and anywhere. People always have their phones with them; this gives you nonstop con-nectivity to your customers.The mobile Web also romises increased access to location-based infor-mation about your customers. Being able to target buyers based on their location lets you provide them with information about shoes if they’re in a shoe store, for example, or promotions for frozen food if they’re in a gro-cery store. It’s narrowcasting, as opposed to mass marketing, which should generate more effective results.All this adds up to a channel that you can’t ignore—and a real need for upgrading your e-commerce activities to embrace mobile users
note: PayPal’s efforts in mobile extend beyond merchant services to services aimed squarely at mobile consumers. The very popular PayPal Mobile, for example, which lets consumers shop securely on eBay, speed through checkout on other mobile sites, send money to other users, and manage their PayPal accounts, all on their mobile phones. PayPal has apps for the iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry platforms, as
well as a dedicated mobile version of our website (located at http://m.paypal.com).
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