Shoppers avoid m-commerce usage over security concerns

Thursday, December 5, 2013 - 11:42 by Paul Tissington

A new report from Ovum has found that while December 2nd was a hugely busy day for shopping online, the majority of purchases were still made from people using PCs, as smartphone technology is considered to be less secure when it comes to carrying out transactions.

15,000 consumers were questioned in the study and 68 per cent said that they would stick to using a desktop or laptop computer to shop online. A fifth said they would be using a smartphone, with 14 per cent picking tablets as their go-to device.

Almost half of respondents said that they did not think m-commerce was as secure as using a full desktop e-commerce site over a fixed line connection. Forty seven per cent said that they were worried that their private details could be appropriated by malicious third parties if they used a portable device to shop online.

Report spokesperson, Angel Dobardziev, said that the growth of m-commerce usage could be seriously curtailed if retailers do not address the concerns exhibited by many consumers.

He said that while the rise of m-commerce had been swift, there were still obstacles which need to be overcome in order to convince consumers that they can use online outlets to buy products with suitable levels of security, irrespective of the device they are using.

The study also looked into the growth of mobile payments, with about 50 per cent saying that they will not be using this type of service in the coming year, while 20 per cent intend to regularly transfer money between parties using a portable device.

The UK's established payments infrastructure means that adoption is likely to be slow, but other regions, such as the Asia-Pacific, are leading the way with migration to this transaction technology.