Is User Experience Holding Back the Growth of Mobile Payments?

I’ve been talking a fair bit lately about the growth of mobile payments and how that can only help improve overall mobile commerce activities (for instance, during this week’s podcast and my Travel Tuesday post about Google streamlining mobile payments).

Well, while the AGFAM folks (Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft), are among the bigger drivers of this trend, there’s plenty of room for smaller players, too.

For instance, VentureBeat just looked at a company called Coin, who will hold “all” your cards information to turn your mobile phone into your wallet. Money quote (no pun, I swear):

“Simply swipe your cards using a card dongle like Square’s, take a picture of their front and back, and Coin’s app securely stores all of the card information for you. You can hold up to eight cards on the Coin card at once, which you can cycle through using a small button and display on the front of the card (an unlimited amount of additional cards can be swapped over from the Coin app). Paying is as simple as swiping like a normal credit card.”

Pretty cool.

One big plus of the system:

“It’s also worth noting that most consumers won’t have to change their habits much when using Coin, something that’s also holding mobile payments back. Even Square and PayPal, which don’t rely on near-field communications, requires you to completely rethink how you interact with cashiers when checking out.”

That’s critical. As any marketer can tell you, getting customers to change their behavior falls somewhere between “pretty damn hard” and “ain’t never gonna happen.”

The only thing I don’t see yet about Coin is whether it can be used on-device, in-app to conduct mobile transactions. But, still, a promising approach, well worth watching.

If you’re interested in learning more about the future of e-commerce and marketing via the social, local, mobile web, register to receive a special report I’ve produced in conjunction with hotel marketing firm Vizergy, “Digital Hotel Marketing in a Multiscreen World.” While it’s targeted specifically at hotel and resort marketers, the lessons apply to just about any business. You can get your free copy of the report here.

You might also enjoy some of our past coverage of the social, local, mobile web and what it means for your business, including:

• Warning: Mobile Drives Booking Costs Up and 4 Ways to Prevent It (Travel Tuesday)
• The Zen of Digital Marketing Strategy
• 7 Steps to E-Commerce Heaven
• Today and Tomorrow: Mobile and The Changing Customer Journey
• Mobile Makes E-commerce Even More “Frictionless”
• Shouldn’t Mobile be More than Last-Minute? (Travel Tuesday)
• 3 Key Trends for 2013