Online shoppers may find it much more convenient to employ their devices for making digital payments.
Visa has now stepped forward in ensuring that its digital Checkout for payments through electronic and mobile commerce will be more friendly to customers using smartphones and tablets as it will allow purchases to be completed by simply sliding a virtual image of their plastic credit cards across their device screens.
This has been done in the hopes that it will provide better competition with its rivals in this market.
The Visa Checkout digital payments service was first launched in 2014 and is meant to take on PayPal within the e- and mobile commerce space. Retailers offer this option with an embedded button on their apps and sites, making it possible for purchase payments to be made without ever having to navigate away from their current location. The original format of the service meant that users would need to enter a username and password on the screen in order to complete a mobile payment transaction. However, the newest feature has eliminated that step and has further streamlined the entire process.
To complete a mobile commerce checkout, users swipe and image of their card to the right before entering a password.
According to Visa, pilot tests of the m-commerce payments service have shown that the swipe feature makes shoppers twice as likely to complete the checkout process instead of abandoning their carts.
At the first launch of this service, the button will be available only to merchants who are selling digital products and services or that have items that are purchased online so that a customer can pick it up at the nearest store location. That said, Visa has stated that it will be expanding its service within the next few months in order to make it possible for merchants to sell products that will be shipped to their customers.
The senior vice president of digital solutions at Visa, Sam Shrauger, discussed this new mobile commerce feature and said that “This new experience brings digital payments one step closer to the ease, trust and familiarity that consumers have long valued from Visa in the physical world.”
The controversial application has been causing a massive stir since last year and it is now launching.
Following a significant controversy in 2015, Peeple, a mobile app with the nickname “Yelp for people” has made its North American launch so that users will be able to rate and review others.
The design of this mobile application lets individuals rate and review anyone they know.
This doesn’t just mean celebrities and people in the public eye. This mobile app lets users give star ratings and reviews for neighbors, co-workers and anyone else they know. Peeple was first unveiled in October 2015 and faced serious criticism from the media as well as across social media and among celebrities. A tremendous number of people objected to the idea of being able to be reviewed in the same way that restaurants or products were being reviewed online.
Some new rules are now allowing the mobile app to proceed forward with its strategy to let users rate each other.
The initial description of the Peeple app explained that users would be capable of adding any name they wanted to the service so they would be able to create a review and a rating for that person. That individual would not be able to opt out of their presence on the app and of that review. That created a tremendous concern in the media and among social media users with regards to the risk of bullying.
Furthermore, positive ratings could be immediately displayed on the app, but low star rankings and negative reviews were required to be placed in a 48 hour hold. In that way, the individual leaving the review was supposed to be given enough time to “work it out” with the other person in the form of a private message.
Public outrage voiced over the mobile app features forced changes to be made to the application before it could be published. Now, Peeple is required to allow ratings only for people who have opted into the network. That way, an individual’s name cannot be added to the service by someone else. As a verification of the person’s identity, sign-ins are conducted through a person’s Facebook account, which is required to have been active for six months before it is approved. A second identification verification is required in the form of a phone number.
According to Visa, pilot tests of the m-commerce payments service have shown that the swipe feature makes shoppers twice as likely to complete the checkout process instead of abandoning their carts.