VB LIVE:
By 2020, it’ll be an Internet of Things world — and creating seamless, simple, and secure experiences for your customers will be imperative. Tune in to the latest VB Live event and hone in on the fastest, best ways to prepare for the IoT world.
In 2020, we’ll wake up to a world where five billion people will be online all the time, using 25 billion devices — and not just mobile devices. Everything from televisions to toasters will become new connected devices, becoming brand-new channels for commerce and marketing.
“There’s this massive opportunity,” says Kevin Gordon, lead innovation architect at Worldpay where horizon scanning, future scanning, investigating new and improved concepts, and seeing how consumers feel and customers feel about new tech and new products is his calling.
“We’ve spoken to a large number of companies, tech companies, retailers, all different organizations big and small, and a lot of use cases have become apparent,” Gordon says. “But often companies have IoT use cases implemented, but payments is kind of a gray box, kind of with a dashed line. They haven’t really thought about exactly how that’s going to work, or how that’s going to happen.”
The problem isn’t going to be driving visits, in other words, but driving revenue. In apparel and retail consumer electronics, mobile is about to overtake desktop — which includes things like smart televisions and assistants like Alexa or Google Home. Global consumers are not quite convinced about payments made via newer devices.
“Consumer adoption is quite low at the moment, in terms of people’s confidence in allowing smart devices, or having autonomous rules, or making payments on their behalf — but we’re also seeing that number is growing,” he says. “So, although it’s quite low, people’s trust in smart devices and chat bots, etc., etc., is growing — and what’s really intriguing for us is the potential of the growth.”
Propelling that growth has to be complete transparency to consumers — a seamless, frictionless experience, but there’s a tension there.
“When consumers made their emotional decision to purchase, you don’t want it to be broken by a horrible payments experience and IoT enables that — for example, a smart fridge buying milk on your behalf,” he says. “But you have to counter that with the importance of allowing consumers control over the payments.”
Research done by the European Commission shows that mental health can be negatively affected by the invisibility of payments, Gordon explains. Spending invisibly isn’t a stress if you’re in a high-income demographic, but the majority of consumers must make money and budgeting decisions — and invisible payments can add a layer of major stress — and a customer who won’t convert.
However, it’s a pain point easily soothed, he believes.
“I think we can deal with those by making sure that the smart devices have the appropriate rules and there’s the appropriate consent and there’s control, but also notifications and high visibility of what payments are actually going through,” Gordon says.
With IoT taking contextual commerce to an entirely new level, challenges will continue to pop up, from the technical to the financial to the psychological, but laying the groundwork now and looking for ways to create genuine value for your customers via IoT is one that can be addressed now.
And when you register for this VB Live event, you’ll learn exactly where to start, from device connectivity to customer confidence and security and more.
Don’t miss out! Registration is free.
Attend this VB Live event and find out:
- How companies are already dealing with device connectivity
- How the challenges posed by IoT are being solved for today
- Global consumer attitudes around payments made by devices
- How payments will become ‘invisible’ or ‘translucent’ for users
- Payment technology that will enable devices to make decisions
Speakers
- Kevin Gordon, Lead Innovation Architect, Worldpay
- Stewart Rogers, Director of Marketing Technology, VentureBeat
- Rachael Brownell, Moderator, VentureBeat
Sponsored by Worldpay