Merchants have seen little rise in mobile payment use over last 6 months

The 2016 biannual ShopKeep Small Business Index (SSBI) has disclosed that 87% of retailers had noticed little or no uptake of mobile payments at their businesses over the last 6 months. Devised by ShopKeep, a cloud-based point of sale (POS) system that streamlines the sales process, this survey evaluated acceptance rates of this new payment technology across a wide range of businesses including bars, restaurants and shops. ShopKeep remains optimistic despite this lack of interest, claiming this is the norm in the early stages of implementation; however, this will change as businesses and customers become familiar with the technology. They expect 50% of customers will use mobile payment systems within the next two years.

ShopKeep, a cloud-based technology provider used by more than 22,000 retail shops, restaurants, and other independently owned businesses, announced the release of its bi-annual ShopKeep Small Business Index (SSBI). The SSBI, which draws insights gathered from a survey of 1,954 ShopKeep merchants reveals that 87 percent of ShopKeep merchants have seen little-to-no adoption of mobile payments at their business during the past six months. Despite these findings, 59 percent of small businesses still predict that in the next two years, 50 percent of consumers will be using mobile payments, such as Apple Pay, as their primary payment method.

The survey also showed that 88 percent of small business owners are confident in the current state of their business, which is an 8 percent decline from Quarter 1 2015. Despite this drop in sentiment, 72 percent of merchants surveyed still reported an increase in revenue over the past six months, and 96 percent remain confident in the success of their business one year from now. As we head into the 2016 campaign season, 57.6 percent of respondents felt that the election would have no impact on the state of their business.

The year-over-year data from more than 5,700 ShopKeep merchants identified additional notable findings, including:

Positive growth within all business categories, including quick service restaurants, bars and retail shops with an average of a 15 percent increase in sales revenue.

An 11 percent increase in total number of sales transactions.

Full-service restaurants and bars saw the greatest increase in revenue, with bars experiencing the largest jump from last year increasing by 47 percent.

Of the merchants participating in the SSBI, more than 50 percent of business are within their first three years of operations, with the majority of business owners ranging between 26 and 35 years of age. Over 60 percent of business owners obtained a Bachelor’s degree or higher, before going on to start their business. While 70 percent of merchants offer paid-time off for full-time employees, 27 percent reported taking zero days off a year, with an average of only five days of vacation.

“ShopKeep’s hard-working independent merchants make up the heart of the U.S. economy and it is encouraging to see our customers showing significant growth in revenue during the past year,” says Michael DeSimone, ShopKeep’s CEO. “At this early point in the adoption curve, it’s not surprising that we see relatively low take-up of new payment technologies. Like our customers, we fully expect to see a significant increase over the next two years as both consumers and merchants get more comfortable with different ways to pay.”