Shopify brings Google Pay to its mobile checkout

Brief:

Commerce platform Shopify launched an integration with Google Pay this week, giving shoppers who buy products from participating stores a quicker checkout as the payment system offers a mobile-first design and a checkout with fewer steps, according to a press release by the company.
Now, Android users who have previously stored their credit card information on the Chrome browser can check out by clicking the "Google Pay" button. The new feature is now available to all Shopify merchants, who can enable Google Pay with a single click in their store settings. Shopify provides e-commerce technology to more than 600,000 businesses in approximately 175 countries.
Shopify is the first commerce platform to enable Google Pay for its users, and it aims to ramp up the mobile checkout process because it found that more than 70% of the traffic to its site comes from mobile devices, per the release.

Insight:

The news is a nice win for Google as it continues to try to ramp up its presence in payments and commerce, two areas where it has consistently struggled. Shopify has worked with Snapchat and is integrated with Instagram, where users can purchase items directly from retailers and brands, meaning Google Pay has a chance to get in front of a young audience of consumers who may not be familiar with the service. Google is ramping up its payments strategy at the same time that it is doubling down on shopping programs for retailers with a new cross-platform push.

Shopify's integration with Google Pay is another way to help online merchants cope with abandoned shopping carts and other continual problems for mobile commerce companies. A survey by the Mobile Ecosystem Forum found that 58% of people add items to their cart on mobile but leave before purchasing, leading to billions of dollars in lost sales worldwide. The survey also found that around 31% of people said the checkout process required providing extra personal information they weren't prepared to give, causing a clunky and time-consuming checkout experience. Technical issues were cited among 22% of people for not completing a purchase, and only 20% of people said they always complete a transaction once they begin shopping on a mobile device.

When it comes to bigger-ticket purchases, mobile consumers tend to use their tablet or smartphone devices to browse products before making a transaction on a desktop computer, a study by Yes Lifecycle Marketing found. The report said that the average order on mobile devices was $58, or about 40% less than desktop's average order value of $96, a disparity that has remained consistent in the past three years. Integrations with Google Pay or other digital wallet features are one way retailers are beginning to focus on removing friction from consumers' mobile shopping experience.

Meanwhile, traditional merchants are also transforming their stores with mobile payment systems. Macy's will soon let customers bypass the sales clerk in stores. The department store chain on Monday showed off features coming to its mobile app, such as mobile checkout to let customers scan and pay for products through a smartphone without needing to wait in line at a traditional cash register. The chain plans to roll out the feature nationwide in all Macy's full-line stores by the end of 2018.