Slashdot Mirror
Who's Getting Pay-By-Phone Right? The Fast Food Industry
jfruh writes "Techno-enthusiasts have been predicting for years that cell phones will become one of the main means that we use to pay for items — but most Americans stubbornly cling to cash and credit cards, mostly because cash and credit cards are infinitely more convenient. In order to woo people into buying things electronically, merchants need to make phone purchases better than traditional payment systems, not just another option. The fast food industry is leading the way with a plethora of apps that make ordering remotely a snap."
You mean people who are too young or too poor to have a credit card use this to buy fatfood?
Who would have thought?
You can have my feature phone when you pry it from my cold, dead hands. I'm not paying the difference between a low-end feature phone and a "smart" phone so that I can do something that already works fine without a phone capable of running browser exploits.
This has precisely jack squat to do with "pay-by-phone". The article is about "order-by-phone". In the case of the author, he has a credit card on file with a fast food burger joint staffed with high school drop-outs (what could possibly go wrong) and the order is placed, charged, and processed thru the restaurant's internet-facing computer system. It's no different that buying something from Amazon except that you have to go get the product yourself instead of having it delivered by UPS
Nothing worthwhile ever happens before noon
I use to work in the store systems group of a major fast food chain. Having the customer order via app and pay via phone reduces the chances that cashier messes up the order, reduces the amount of money stolen because the cashiers handle less cash, and just reduces the need for cashiers.
If you can get 20% of your customer base ordering via an app, thats one less casher you have to train and pay to stand at the counter and take orders (made up the number but you get the point). The orders also come in in parallel, you have to pay more cashiers if you want people to take orders in parallel.
One big problem QSR franchises have is that the people applying for the jobs don't know english. Look over at a McDonalds register, its mostly pictures and numbers on the screen, with very few words. If you can get the customers to order themselves you don't have to pay as many english speakers to be cashiers and thus you can pay lower wages. You don't have to know english to work in the kitchen.
A few reasons I will not use pay-by-phone in its current state.
http://www.citeworld.com/security/22535/mobile-payments-apps-outrageous-permissions
* Google Wallet
* Camera -- Allows the app to take pictures and videos with this camera. This permission allows the app to use the camera at any time without your confirmation.
* Read your contacts -- Allows the app to read data about your contacts stored on your phone, including the frequency with which you've called, emailed, or communicated in other ways with specific individuals. This permission allows apps to save your contact data, and malicious apps may share contact data without your knowledge.
* Paypal
* Retrieve running apps -- Allows the app to retrieve information about currently and recently running tasks. This may allow the app to discover information about which applications are used on the device.
* Starbucks
* Phone calls -- Allows the app to call phone numbers without your intervention. This may result in unexpected charges or calls. Note that this doesn't allow the app to call emergency numbers.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
In Canada we have nfc built into our debit and credit cards making paying for items under $20 super easy.
If only it actually worked. The vast majority of stores either don't support contactless payments, only support one of the two (like payWave but not PayPass or vice-versa), or just don't have it set up correctly. "Oh, sorry, it's not working" is a regular refrain. Even when it does work, cashiers often don't understand it correctly. There's this one cashier I encounter regularly who, I had my credit card to her expecting her to stick it into the reader for a chip & pin transaction, and instead she waves it over the terminal. Which, of course, doesn't give me the opportunity to verify the amount I'm being charged until after the fact.
I've found it to work reliably and consistently at McDonalds and Jean Coutu, and the self-pay terminals at Canadian Tire, but I can't think of any other store I frequent that supports it reliably. At many stores I see terminals that say "contactless" on them, or the prompt that comes up is "swipe/insert/tap", but attempts to use the contactless feature does nothing.
If as the summary says, cash and cards are infinitely more convenient, why then is clinging to them to be considered stubborn?
Because the author is a moron. Cash and cards are NOT more convenient, they are less convenient. When I go out, I always take my phone so people can contact me. So if I can use my phone to buy stuff, then I don't need to carry cash or cards. Where I live (California) I don't even need a wallet to drive, because it is legal to show a cop a photo of my drivers license on my phone. As soon as I can start my car and open my front door with the NFC chip in my phone, then I will only need ONE THING in my pocket when I leave my house. What could possibly be more convenient?
The lack of phone-money in America has nothing whatsoever to do with customers being "stubborn". It is because of the fragmentation of the American cellular system, and the lack of cooperation among the vendors. Once they finally agree on a standard, phone-money will be adopted by consumers in America just as quickly as anywhere else.
Call me when there's a universal ordering/wallet app instead of poor wrappers on their existing websites.
Call you...? I see what you did there.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
I have actually not updated any apps on my phone in about 3 months because every single one of them wants access to the camera, contacts, emails, location and a bunch of other crap that I am just not going to allow.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Sorry, but many times paying by phone is seriously inconvenient when compared to a simple credit card. You have to unlock the phone, find the right payment app and open it, find the payment option and pick it, enter another PIN, show some barcode to the cashier, and then it still takes as long as a credit card to approve. Compared to pulling the card from my wallet and swiping it, it's about five times slower.
The place where pay-by-phone gets it right is Stabucks. People are just standing around, tweeting and facebooking about how great the mocha lattes are, and they already have the phones in front of their noses.
Compare that to some lady at Walmart with 2.4 kids running around trying to eat the candy on the shelves, crying because mom took it away, while she tries to unload her cart filled with leaking milk cartons and find a batch of coupons that haven't expired. The last thing I need is to stand behind her as she tries to figure out her phone app.
What most people don't get is that there isn't a one-size-fits-all solution to mobile payment, even though the businesses desperately want one to exist.
John
Actually, cash is quite expensive for a store to handle. They have to pay someone to count out change, and to count it again at the end of the day. They have to pay an armored car service to haul it to a bank (or a small business owner has to drive it to a bank themselves, and they hope they don't get mugged on the way. It's easy to steal, so they have to invest in locked cash drawers and safes.
Cash easily costs more to handle than credit cards. Even after figuring in card fraud and bad debt, credit cards save retailers money.
John
Replace android with cyanogenmod. You can then install these apps, and selectively retract such permissions. So you can deny the app access to camera & contacts. Maybe it'll work anyway, but it won't be able to spy on you.
Another great use is to retract internet permissions for games like angry birds. That way, no more ads . . .
They new versions of Cyanogen actually go a step farther. Instead of just blocking the permission, and possibly crashing the app, it actually serves "blank" data, depending on what was requested. If the app tries to read your contacts it just gets a blank contact list. If it tries to use the camera it just gets a black png file. The application has no idea that it is being fed blank data, so it just keeps on working as it normally would, just without the spying.
Want people to use it. Get rid of all surcharges related to it. I don't have to pay extra when I use cash.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Cash is king in my shop.
I make and sell small items. These sell for about $50. Parts and supplies cost $30. Labor and counter help adds in about $4. Rent and non-sales taxes adds another $10. So, on a typical non-holiday day, our net markup is about 10 to 15%. That's not much. Every electronic billing system eats upwards of 2.7% of each sale. The more high-tech sysetems chew up more. We have pay for the hardware, installation, maintenance, and monthly support ("Trustkeeper" nonsense to scan our system, and we have to keep at least one employee who's technically competent with the electonics & software).
All these high tech solutions are slower than simple cash. They're all more expensive than cash. They're all less trustworthy than cash. And they all require more expertise than cash.
Getting you in and out as quickly as possible is their goal.
Completely wrong. Lingering is the goal. Customers who linger buy more.
The main cost for these retailers isn't the food/coffee they serve it's the time and space you take up as you order it and then have to wait for all the inefficiencies with cash, cards, or checks.
Nope, it's health insurance. After that, it's definitely cost of goods sold. Operating expenses like "cash handling" aren't even a blip.
Even after figuring in card fraud and bad debt, credit cards save retailers money.
You know how I know you've never run a small business?
Sorry, but many times paying by phone is seriously inconvenient when compared to a simple credit card. You have to unlock the phone, find the right payment app and open it, find the payment option and pick it, enter another PIN, show some barcode to the cashier, and then it still takes as long as a credit card to approve. Compared to pulling the card from my wallet and swiping it, it's about five times slower.
That's now how the ideal system is supposed to work, nor how it really does work anywhere. Most places handle pay by phone via a phone equipped with an NFC chip you just swipe over a payment spot and it charges you, no unlocking the phone, no pin, navigating to your payment app of choice, none of that crap. It effectively turns your phone into a card. If you want to consider convenience, it's more so because you don't have to pull out your wallet, then the card, then swipe it. You just pull out the phone and swipe it.
This app shit that's getting tossed around is not the system that we want. I pray for the day we get a proper pay by phone system like they have in Japan or similar.
"Take out my phone, press the "on" button, swipe to unlock, hit "home", find the app, do whatever the hell the app needs me to do and... fuck it, use the fucking credit card. Using a phone to pay for a burger is retarded. It's less convenient, what's the fucking point??"
What you cite isn't a problem intrinsic to payment by phone technology. It's an interface issue. It's like using the Windows 8 UX to conclude that desktop computers suck on principle (well, maybe all of them suck a "little").
Moreover, when you look at it, credit cards as well as debit cards are a form of pay-by-phone technology. Unless you're stuck in the middle of nowhereland where purchases are logged manually, your credit card is connected to a terminal that phones home or somewhere else to verify that the card is genuine and not picked from somebody's pocket. Of course just as with your precious plastic, charges may apply when you pay-by-mobile-phone.
Payment by cellphone is already a much more convenient experience in most 3rd World countries, especially in Africa. Why? Because there you're either too poor to afford a credit card or the application requires jumping through too many hoops. Cheap and readily available credit isn't a universal phenomenon.
The lack of phone-money in America has nothing whatsoever to do with customers being "stubborn". It is because of the fragmentation of the American cellular system, and the lack of cooperation among the vendors. Once they finally agree on a standard, phone-money will be adopted by consumers in America just as quickly as anywhere else.
Its fragmented in every country, except where it is state run.
The thing is, the carriers have VETOED NFC payments. Why they get a say, I have no idea, If we had any integrity in Washington, the carriers would be out of the decision loop by a simple written order by the FTC or the DOJ. The one carrier that allows it is Sprint (IINM). Every other carrier refused to even allow Google Wallet to be installed.
The carriers should NOT have a say. Its just data. Encrypted data. Its TCP/IP. Just like web pages, it doesn't require standardization of the cellular system to transmit encrypted data. Carriers have business dictating a standard.
If the carriers want to be regulated like banks, we should honor their wishes. Until then, they should get the hell out of the way.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I looked at the requirements of the Starbucks app and declined to install it: needs permission to make calls, needs to track your location, needs to read your contact list, etc. Using it to payment for a drink is not worth all that. Same goes for any of these others.
Ever been mugged? Limiting my liability to $10 in cash worked out really well for me.
Ever wanted to go for a walk in the rain, and stop along the way to buy a beer?
Ever wanted to be offline so you can have time when you're not in contact telephonically? (or tracked)
Ever had to dispute a charge?
Ever run out of a charge on your phone?
Those are only a few of the reasons that credit cards and cash are more convinent. Frankly, I don't understand any benefit to NFC It seems less secure, and more single point of failure.
Your ad here. Ask me how!