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Adoption of mobile payment shifts consumer spending patterns, habits
Paying for a cup of coffee with a smartphone instead of a credit card is gaining prominence among consumers – and is disrupting their spending patterns and consumption habits, according to new research co-written by a University of Illinois expert who studies operations management.
[...] Using a unique data set from one of the largest banks in China – which contained the transaction data from personal computer, offline and mobile payment channels – Xu and co-authors found that, on average, the total transaction amount increased by 2.4 percent after the adoption of the mobile payment channel, and that the total transaction frequency increased by more than 23 percent.
[...] “Switching to the mobile channel leads to more shopping overall, and it particularly affects more hedonistic shopping such as food, entertainment and travel,” Xu said. “But it doesn’t affect purchases like education or health care. So it’s changing consumer behavior.”
The greatest impact came on less costly items that are purchased frequently, such as beverages and movie tickets.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 02 2018, @02:14PM (8 children)
If more people thought like I do, credit/debit/device payment methods certainly wouldn't be what they are today. I like the feel of anonymous currency nestled into my wallet. No one gets to track my purchases. No one makes a note if I do something unusual, because I'm paying cash.
I've been forced into accepting electronic direct deposit to my checking account. Each Friday morning, I drive by my local ATM, and withdraw what I intend to give the wife for household expenses, plus my weekly gas money, lunch money, and just pocket change, plus any purchases that I intend to make. Usually, that is the only withdrawal that I make for the week. If something unexpected comes up, I will probably go by the ATM and withdraw a little more money.
My online purchases are tracked, of course. There's not much I can do about that. But, I'm not giving the bastards ALL of my information for free.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 02 2018, @04:17PM (2 children)
Right there with you except if I need to use a card for something online I go and buy a prepaid one with folding money. If they want to keep track of my spending habits, I'm at least going to make tracking by card number pointless.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 02 2018, @09:30PM (1 child)
Face recognition will still tie cash purchases to your permanent record - just two years away from being consistently true - that said, I still like cash to avoid the ~3% seller's charge paid to the credit card companies that I would indirectly pay
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 03 2018, @12:45AM
Facial recognition is a threat, but that is still no reason to hand over everything on a silver platter. Defeatism is self-defeating, and so it's good that you still use cash.
This is why mass surveillance in all its forms (whether done by the government or corporations) needs to be banned. It is simply too dangerous to allow. If corporations conduct mass surveillance, the government will be able to get the data, so the people who argue that corporations are private and thus should be able to do as they please have no leg to stand on.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RandomFactor on Sunday December 02 2018, @05:03PM (4 children)
.
Sadly, I think you underestimate video surveillance and facial recognition.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 02 2018, @06:07PM (1 child)
May also be possible to track the serial numbers of bills from ATMs to self-pay machines. Even with human cashiers, the bank could still get data from the serial numbers when the store's night deposit is processed in the morning.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 03 2018, @12:50AM
I've never seen anything more than hearsay that such a program exists. To begin with, given how often cash exchanges hands, the tracking would be entirely unreliable.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 02 2018, @06:15PM (1 child)
Perhaps. I won't argue very hard, but I'll offer you some argument. The places I frequent don't seem to be networked into the WWW yet. Most businesses have dumb cameras, that record XX number of hours, then begin erasing drive space to make room for new video. Cutting edge tech, and networking, cost. The bandwidth to truly network all of those video cameras isn't available out here in Outback, Nowhere.
In the cities? Hmmmm. . . maybe. The bandwidth is available, of course. The tech is available. But, still, both cost money. I suppose that even in the cities, you have a patchwork of superb surveillance, moderate surveillance, and shoddy surveillance that equals what we have out in the country side. Those who have the money, have the best, those who don't have the money, settle for whatever they can get.
Of course, I may just be fooling myself. The cops have plenty of bandwidth for license plate readers. Those computers on the passenger seats always seem to work quite well, no matter how far out in the country you get. Something to think about: The bandwidth has been there for years, with that almost-mythical "deepstate" always directing the telcos where that bandwidth needs to go. Just because I have no access to it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist at all. Food for thought, nothing more.
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Sunday December 02 2018, @06:52PM
Not really much to argue about there.
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I do live in the big city, which colors my perspective accordingly. But yes, it is probably worse than what you see.
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Still, I do fully intend to join you in BFE when I retire :-)
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