Mobile Commerce Depends on PayPal according to Study

Over the past 60 days, ShopVisible conducted research spanning 23,000 web and mobile transactions in order to "decipher some of the code to unlocking the potential of mobile commerce." ShopVisible found that in thousands of mobile transactions, 67% of customers used PayPal or an alternative payment method while only 33% chose to pay by credit card. In web-only transactions over the same period, the results were reversed: 62% of buyers choosing to pay by credit card, 12.9% by Amazon Payments, 8.1% by Google Checkout, and just 16.8% with PayPal.

ShopVisible said its study reveals that alternative payments overcome part of the barrier to unlocking mobile commerce, which is projected at $31 billion by 2016 according to Forrester Research.

Sean Cook, CEO of ShopVisible and author of Evolving Commerce, set for release in July 2012, said, "Lacking a simple alternative payment method could crush any retailer implementing a mobile commerce strategy. Even if alternative payment methods don't constitute a large percentage of your existing web business, you should reconsider the relative importance when it comes to your mobile strategy."

ShopVisible released the data at the Internet Retailer conference on Wednesday.