“The Google buy button and Android M announcements are the latest in a long line of innovations that aim to disrupt the payments market. With the likes of Facebook and Twitter trialling direct payment options and Google adding a buy button to its search results, consumers can soon expect to make online purchases with just a single click.
 
“The concept of buy buttons is a big departure from the current payment systems which require customers to create a profile, enter card details, and go through multiple pages of additional identification and delivery information before reaching the actual point of transaction. This process then has to be repeated for purchases at each new site visited. Initially, these new buy buttons will create a short cut to the checkout page and increase conversion rates. However, in the future this process will be even further improved whereby customer details will be saved and can be reused when purchasing from other merchants using the same payment infrastructure.
 
“As many as 74% of online shopping carts are abandoned by shoppers before they even get to the point of making a transaction. Much of this is due to fatigue at having to jump through hoops to get to the point of buying the product or service. Instant buy buttons will allow merchants to significantly reduce the number of sales lost due to frustration or impatience by taking customers directly to the point of payment. Conversion rates will improve.
 
“While assessing the potential uplift in conversion rates, merchants will also be evaluating the potential loss of upsell sales they currently achieve via the ‘customers like you purchased’ suggestions that many merchants do so well during the purchasing journey.
 
“The critical decision merchants now face is whether to stick with current systems or embrace the new buy button concept. Those who don’t keep up run the risk of being not just one step behind, but also several clicks behind, competitors. Digital wallets such as Skrill stand to be prime enablers for the new buy button functionality given the need to use customer and source of funds details, all of which can be obtained from either digital wallets, as well as operating systems used by the likes of Apple and Google.
 
“There is no doubt that inconvenient checkout models will be disrupted by reduced click payment models such as these new short cut buy buttons. This is good news for the digital payments industry as a whole and will only accelerate the migration away from cash to more convenient digital payment methods.”