Smartphone Shopping Not On Par With Smartphone Usage

While smartphones seem to be progressively devouring the day for most Americans, mobile commerce and mobile payments are lagging far behind the other uses of mobile devices, according to a new pair of surveys.

U.S. smartphone users now spend 4.7 hours per day on their devices, or almost 30 percent of the time they’re awake, a survey from Informate Mobile Intelligence found. The survey, conducted in December, also found that American mobile users are highly likely to have access to mobile shopping and payment apps on their devices, with the reach of shopping apps at 59 percent and payment apps at 49 percent.

But according to a separate survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers by Placeable, while Americans have those apps, they just aren’t using them to buy and pay. The Placeable survey found that 42 percent of consumers had never made a purchase on their smartphones, and only 9 percent say they use mobile payments when they’re available.

That doesn’t mean consumers aren’t using the apps for shopping. According to the survey, 6 out of 10 consumers say they use their phones to buy online and in-store. It’s just the actual purchases that are lagging overall phone usage.

And while it’s often repeated that consumers’ security fears are a major block to their use of mobile payments, especially after years of high-profile data breaches, that’s just not true, according to the Placeable survey. Nearly 70 percent of the respondents in its survey actually trust mobile payments. Then why don’t they use them? They just don’t see a reason to, the survey found.

And while enthusiasm for Apple Pay by the consumers who can use it has pushed Apple’s system to the top of the mobile payments charts in the U.S., that still makes it a big fish in what’s (so far) a relatively small pond.

While Placeable didn’t ask specifically about Apple Pay, the mobile marketing company recommended that retailers use special promotions, discounts and loyalty programs to give shoppers the reasons they currently lack to use mobile payments.