Tech-dependent millennials are set to take more of their commerce to mobile, according to a new poll of 18- to 34-year old smartphone owners released Wednesday by mobile capture company Mitek and Zogby Analytics. And their smartphone cameras will likely play an important role.
Surveying more than 1,000 smartphone owners to discover mobile commerce preferences and expectations, the 2015 Mitek Millennials poll says that what started out as selfies are now emerging as a way to decrease friction when onboarding information, verifying identity, and making purchases.
In a similar survey conducted last year, Mitek found that most millennials wanted to pay for goods and services using their mobile devices; this year, they’re doing so, with 86% conducting transactions from smartphones, and 11% doing so on a daily basis. Four out of five (83%) expect mobile to be part of all transactions in the next five years.
“What struck me is how frequently this group uses their mobile devices for commerce,” Sarah Clark, vice president of product for San Diego-based Mitek, told Retail Dive. “Last year, half of millennials said ‘I would like to use my mobile device to buy goods and complete transactions.’ This year, 86% are using their mobile devices to transact. And that generation expects the user experience to be easy.”
Mobile deposits as a gateway
About 50 million people have used Mitek’s technology to capture an image of a check to deposit into their bank. Two-thirds of the millennials (68%) surveyed were introduced to mobile capture technologies for this purpose, and many of them only since Mitek and Zogby released the previous survey in 2014.
“[Millennials’] usage of mobile deposit went from 34% to 54% in the last year,” Clark says. “People love the user experience—capturing an image and having something magical happen.”
Millennials are big fans of smartphone cameras and want to leverage them for all kinds of uses, Mitek adds. More than two-thirds (68%) of the survey respondents say they would rather snap a picture than type something into their touchscreen devices.
About one-quarter (28%) say they would rather perform functions such as signing up for a new credit card or enrolling in a gym by taking a picture of their driver’s license. When shopping, 30% of survey respondents say they would like to use mobile capture to sign up for retailers’ loyalty programs to avoid keystrokes.
“Anything you can do remove friction only has a positive impact on conversion rates—that’s true of millennials, and that’s true of pretty much everyone,” Clark says. “If you are a retailer or a financial service provider and want to increase the number of users who sign up for products, you want to remove friction from those processes.”
Security sells the selfie
Security is increasingly important to millennials, who buy through mobile sites and apps often; 49% make purchases at least a few times a week, and just over half (51%) now use a mobile wallet, the survey says.
What’s more, 54% of respondents say that security trumps convenience when conducting transactions a mobile device. And nearly two-thirds (64%) say that companies that use a picture to verify identity are protecting their account information with the latest available technology.
Millennials’ willingness to snap a picture “is a combination of awareness of the underlying problem of data breaches, along with successful user experiences,” Clark says. “Every sector is impacted by identity theft, and it has become part of the awareness of that generation.”
Card issuers are catching on. In 2016, MasterCard will roll out its Identity Check function, which will help consumers verify their identities using their smartphone cameras. To use it, a shopper will submit an initial photo of his or her face to establish identity, then submit a new photo when making a purchase to verify identity via facial recognition software.
“There is a lot of space in the market for making signup easier and having stronger identity verification,” Clark says. “One area is setting up a mobile wallet. When it’s important to know that the person using the wallet is that person, you check ID. End users, financial service providers and merchants can benefit.”
