Did you already order something without being conscious of doing it? This can happen when you’re using for the first time Lyft or Amazon. Within just few clicks you are surprised that the payment was already made.
Various innovations happened in the last years making payments easier and faster. Amazon stands out as being one the best in this category. They were the first one to implement technologies that fully removed the action of payment. First, in 2015, they launched the Amazon dash buttons. This innovation enables you to buy a product of a certain brand from the Amazon platform by just pushing the button corresponding to the brand. Next, in 2018, Amazon opened the first Amazon go. This shop allows customers to enter, pick their favourites products and, exit without having to take any action to pay.
Currently, plenty of brands are trying to develop technologies that enable clients to pay quicker. One such example is the development of voice payments driven by the success of the virtual assistants like Alexa or Google home. You can already buy from Starbucks or the Amazon platform by just saying it to Alexa. According to Medici, 8%-10% of US customers have already used a form of voice payment at least once . A study from OC&C states that the value of voice-based should increase from $2 billion in annual payment volume in 2018 to $40 billion in volume by 2022.
In Europe, there are also developments and innovations in this sector. In France, the retail Brand Monoprix is developing an app to scan the product with your phone in order to make the payment. In the United Kingdom, the financial service provider Barclaycard created an app that allows you to “dine & dash”3. By tapping their phone on a colour-coded electronic totem at their table, the customers can at the end just leave the restaurant and the bill will be paid with the payment details they entered before.
One of the probable effects of these innovations will be the increased of the number and the value of payments made by each customer using these services. Already, a study shows that contactless payments (which already contribute to the invisibility of payments) increase the value of expenditure and impulse purchases : 59% of British consumers say that not having to hand over physical cash has led to them spending more at the tills, according to new research from credit checking service, 72% say digital payment methods such as Apple Pay and contactless credit cards have encouraged them to make more impulse purchases, suggesting a need for more people to consciously embrace new ways to keep track of their money4. An academic paper from 2008 shows also that the invisible payment methods influences our behaviour related trough spending money by diminishing the aversion and ‘the pain of paying’.5
This changes in the customer behaviour regarding money expenditures can be caused by the fact that through these easy payment’s method, the consciousness of paying is diminishing. Therefore, we should call for a debate to define what should be the criteria to define the payment consent. Such a debate already started in January 2019 in a court in Germany that rules than the Amazon dash button were illegal because the action of pushing a button is not sufficient to make an order. Indeed, the customer was not aware of basic information (prices, terms of sales, …) 6
Even if it seems that this sector is growing some methods are not working and already some of these payments methods were stopped by the companies as the Amazon Dash Buttons and the Google Hands Free app. Nevertheless, to reassure customers and to regulate these innovations, probably more debate and concerns will occur about payment consent and legislation should be implemented to clear rules regarding this matter.
References
1 Mandal D. (2018) The Rise of the Voice Payments Ecosystem. [online] Medici. Available at: https://gomedici.com/rise-of-voice-payments-ecosystem
2 OC&C Strategy Consultants, (2018). Voice Shopphing set to Jump to $40 Billion By 2022, Rising From $2 Billion Today [online] Cision. Available at : https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/voice-shopping-set-to-jump-to-40-billion-by-2022-rising-from-2-billion-today-300605596.html
3 Fin Extra (2018) Barclaycard invites restaurant customers to ‘Dine & Dash’. [online] Fin Extra. Available at : https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/31738/barclaycard-invites-restaurant-customers-to-dine–dash
4 Lewis R, (2016). Contactless Payments “cause brits to overspend”. [Blog] Money Watch – Personal Finance Blog. Available at : https://money-watch.co.uk/10913/contactless-payments-cause-brits-overspend
5 Raghubir, P., and Srivastava, J. (2008). Monopoly money: The effect of payment coupling and form on spending behavior. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 14(3), 213-225. Available at https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2008-12802-002
6 The Conversation (2019). Amazon’s Dash Butoons, now banned in Germany, would also push legal limits in Australia. [online] The Conversation. Available at : https://theconversation.com/amazons-dash-buttons-now-banned-in-germany-would-also-push-legal-limits-in-australia-111632
