There are many things want to become the entrance of O2O. One side includes some tools such as commercial Wi-Fi, QR code. The other side includes experience marketing, bricks and mortar stores, services and so on.
All of them are eager to become the entrance of O2O. And payment is one of the most popular species. On one hand, payment is a necessary element in eCommerce chains. On the other hand, online payment has spread and become universal. Many O2O system providers are focus on the payment. The value is immeasurable. So has payment become the entrance of O2O? From my perspective, not yet. But it is necessary continue to focus on the online payment. Follows are some reasons.
1. Offline payment ratio remains low
Most of Chinese know the Taxi App and its subsidy became popular from two years ago. To be honest, one purpose of developing the app is to develop users habit of offline payment. But when the subsidy became lower, the number of people who used Alipay or Wechat-pay for taxi become fewer as well. That is only for taxi industry. Users habit still need to estimate according to different industries.
Furthermore, some restaurant or retailers who tried to use Alipay also have a rough go. The payment ratio remains not more than 10%. As a result, the habit of mobile purchases still need a long time to develop.
2. It cannot be independent
Payment usually relies on services. It belongs to the category of tools. Such as Wechat-pay are integrated with social media. Alipay also provides some financial products. So we can say that the support is more important than payment alone. On the other hand, business giants know that an independent payment product is difficult to survive.
3. It is difficult to reach a fixed scale
At present, actually, the Alipay and Wechat-pay are online payment products. It remains to be seen whether it is suitable to offline market. The promotion way of Alipay is via third party service providers. It is difficult to convert most of online traffic to offline. Such as Baidu started from search engine. It developed many relative products afterwards. But only few people know some kinds of Baidu products like Baidu Wallet.
4. Users need to make a habit change
Opportunities usually accompany with challenges. People are getting acceptable to mobile payment, as the same with they accept the credit card. O2O is not fast food. We shouldn’t measure the speed of development as same as the PC Internet. Maybe after 5-10 years, the main groups of consumer will change, the mobile payment will outbreak naturally.
5. Technology breakthrough is immeasurable
At present, most of payment products are based on the habit of traditional eCommerce. Offline payment is primarily limited to the QR code. But from last year, some new payment technology came out such as NFC, fingerprint payment, face payment… Some mobile phones enterprises also follow the trends and produce products, which support these new payment technologies. Innovation drives productivity, it can also change the pattern of market.
In conclusion, mobile payment has become maturity in O2O commerce. But it still need time to change user habits. There are still some opportunities waiting to be discovered. We should to be patient and not to give it up.
