meCommerce

I thought, why not, it was almost Friday the 13th, how about coining a new phrase! So, here you go, meCommerce - the convergence of m and e commerce with a cute spin.

With all the spin about mobile and especially mobile payments, I thought I would have us think about what really matters and that is "me", the consumer side of me. After all, this is the "me" economy isn't it?

All that really matters to the consumer is that they have as seamless an experience as they can have across all the platforms and devices they utilize to maximize their time and money.

As ecommerce evolved, those merchants who figured out how to blend the benefits of bricks and clicks delivered the most value to their customers. Now, we have bricks, clicks and pockets (? - perhaps someone can contribute something better!!).

Mobile, with the proliferation of smartphones which are just computers in your pocket that happen to also sometimes work as phones, present enourmous possibilites for enhancing the overall experience for the consumer.

As it relates to payment, the only hang up is the explosion of "Walled Gardens 2.0" which serve to restrict the consumer from the freedom to pay how they wish and merchants the freedom to choose which payment methods they want to take and their ability to negotiate the best rates their volumes deserve. These perhaps serve a purpose during an initial formative phase but they will disintegrate as the power shifts from the few to the many.

Article on Direct Mobile Billing in Digital Transactions

I am pleased to report that an article I authored is available in this month's issue.

If you click on this link and then choose the November issue, you can read it;

http://digitaltransactions.net/index.cfm?pageid=3

It is on page 22.

Would welcome your comments!

BilltoMobile Adds ATT (Only provider with both ATT & Verizon)

This has been a big week for the advancement of carrier billing for ecommerce purchases! The company I work for BilltoMobile (powered by Danal Ltd, Korea) announced and launched support for ATT mobile users. This is in addition to our previously announced and launched support for VZ users. We now have 2/3rds of the US mobile user market covered and more to come! We are the only provider that can provide the superior capabilities (ie; dynamic pricing, real-time auth and verification, limit management, dramatically lower dispute rates) and lower costs of Direct Mobile Billing (carrier billing 2.0 versus the legacy PSMS approach used by others) on both Verizon and ATT!!!

Starbucks Extends Mobile Payments to Nearly 300 More Stores

"(October 25, 2010) In the biggest expansion yet of mobile payments to its standalone stores, Starbucks Coffee Co. on Monday said it has equipped almost 300 company-owned stores in New York City and parts of Long Island to accept transactions using 2-D bar code technology. This expansion follows the Seattle-based coffee chain’s move this spring to install the technology in outlets located within more than 1,000 Target Corp. stores (Digital Transactions News, April 8). Starbucks started its mobile-payments pilot 13 months ago at 16 standalone stores, eight in Seattle and eight in California’s Silicon Valley."

This is great news! Only one problem! I do not live in NYC anymore! This approach overcomes a lot of issues that have plagued other approaches to connecting the physical world payment card to the mobile phone.

Hopefully they will get back around to expanding in the Bay Area!

NFC vs 2D Bar Code for Mobile Retail POS?

I know that this is not ecommerce related (at least not for the moment), but since Mobile Payments is the topic du jour, I thought I would comment on it. So, what is it going to be? NFC has been struggling for meaningful deployment for more than a few years and I think the time has passed. Merchants (that matter) have already embraced bar code technology at the POS and if they are not already 2D capabable upgrading to it probably would not be as painful as installing single purpose (credit card network controlled) NFC readers. They can then be in control of their own destiny at their POS and leverage the enhanced bar code technology for other purposes.
Why did NFC fail? When you combine the fact that most large merchants (supermarkets and big boxers) had turned the terminals to the consumer so they could swipe the card themselves combined with the card brands new rules around no signature for under $25 transactions, a lot of the motivation for NFC which was checkout speed evaporated.
The virtual Starbuck's stored value card iPhone app is the best example I have seen of such a deployment. I only wish it was in more street locations. I know it is now in all the Target based Starbucks but Target is not someplace I stop into on my way to work in the morning. However, this is an interesting point as to why the Target locations were deployed so quickly as they already had the 2D bar code technology and a simple software upgrade accomplished the task.

Facebook Credits bought by Mobile Payments...Disclosure Needed or Not?

I decided it was time to check out Facebook Credits. Last nite I navigated my way to buying some not because I need any but just to see what the payments experience is. I was curious if they were surcharging their "friends" when paying with a Mobile payment instead of credit card. They are to the tune of roughly 50%. The consumer gets 1/2 the number of Facebook Credits when they pay by charging to their mobile phone number.

I realize that their merchant cost is high due to the carrier's fee and therefore it is not completely unreasonable to do this.

What I do find unreasonable is that there is no clear disclosure of what the deal is.
You have to click back and forth between the choices when wanting to pay with credit card and wanting to pay by Mobile and have to do the math in your head.

When I shop at the supermarket, I expect to be able to look at the labels on the shelves and see that the Coke Zero in the 12 oz bottle costs me $.05/ounce and $.04/ounce in the 20 oz bottle.

It is one thing for some low life elixer company to pull this sort of deception, but another for a company like Facebook that should care about their reputation and credibility. And it should not require the government or some other body to monitor and enforce reasonable and ethical behaviour.

The Mobile Marketing Association guidelines prohibit surcharging the consumer. But, no one is enforcing those. Of course, this reminds me of an earlier post about Visa rules being ignored right under Visa's nose; http://paymenttalk.blogspot.com/2008/05/rules-are-made-to-be-broken.html

What do you think?

BTW, I am going to dispute this transaction. I tried cancelling it afterwards following the instructions in the text by texting back "STOP" and even got a text seemingly confirming that the transaction had been "discontinued", but since the 16 credits I bought did not get taken from my Facebook Credits balance, I am presuming either this is a delayed process or simply does not work. I will call the mobile payments company first and see how they handle it. Then I guess I get to call Facebook and then if all else fails, AT&T. Stay tuned!

Mobile Payments ... Uuh?

There is a lot of buzz in the "mobile payments" space. But, of course, there is also a lot of BS. But, the issue for this post is simply the issue of the category name. Unfortunately this term has come to be used for such a wide variety of types of payments that it has totally lost its meaning. Just because a credit card processing app happens to sit on an iphone, does that really qualify as some kind of breakthrough? As they would say in S. CA - pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!

Of course, if you are out looking for money or free PR, you want to be associated with a hot category. And the pundits just eat it up.

So, I have not written in awhile since I just switched to a Mobile Payments company. ha ha! www.billtomobile.com

Actually, we are doing REAL mobile payments where the charge is placed on the wireless carrier bill, not just using some mobile device as a proxy for a credit/debit card.