Mobile commerce is growing, with 68 percent of smartphone and tablet owners having attempted to make purchases on their devices. However, problems during the payment process have forced 66 percent to abandon their transactions, according to a new report from Jumio.

The “2013 Mobile Commerce Insights” study also found that 47 percent failed to complete a purchase because the checkout process took too long. The findings point to the need for retailers to pay more attention to streamlining the mobile checkout process or else risk losing a growing set of consumers interested in mobile commerce.

“At the top of list is that 41 percent of consumers failed to complete a purchase because it was too difficult to enter credit card information,” said Marc Barach, chief strategy and marketing officer at Jumio, Palo Alto, CA.

“Retailers need to adjust for the small screen to make it easy for consumers in the home stretch,” he said.

“Companies often employ the same strategy on both mobile and desktop, which means retailers are missing the mark on what consumers want – a convenient, painless way to conduct transactions on the go.”

The report is based on a survey of 2,130 U.S. online adults conducted by Harris Interactive in March.

A difficult process
Although many consumers favor the convenience of shopping on the go, there are a number of barriers preventing these users from completing a purchase on their smartphone or tablet. The top reasons cited by users are not feeling secure about entering credit card information and the checkout process being too difficult.

The latter can lead users to feel frustrated when they have to type and retype personal information into the tiny text boxes often found when checking out on smartphones.

Other key findings from the report include that 41 percent said the checkout process was too difficult on their device, and 23 percent said they failed to complete a purchase because it would not go through.

A majority of respondents – 51 percent – said they failed to complete an attempted purchase on a mobile device because they did not feel comfortable entering their credit card information. This suggests retailers are missing the mark when it comes to communicating with consumers about online security.

The gender factor
Interestingly, there are some big differences in how men and women approach mobile commerce.

The report shows that men are more likely to shop via mobile with 74 percent of men who are smartphone or tablet owners having attempted to make a mobile purchase while 62 percent of women have done so.

Younger men are even more likely to shop on their mobile device with 86 percent of men between the ages of 18 and 34 years olds having tried to purchase something on their mobile device.

When it comes to security, 56 percent of women said they did not feel secure entering their credit card information on a mobile device compared with 47 percent of men.

Age also plays a factor, with 62 percent of those 55 or older having concerns over the security of their credit card information compared with 59 percent of those 45-54 year olds and 45 percent of 18-34 year olds.

“It’s fair to say many companies have yet to find the mobile checkout sweet spot; however there certainly are some that are ahead of the curve,” Mr. Barach said.

“Amazon’s mobile checkout consistently gets ranked at the top of the pack for ease and design,” he said. “As the findings show, for any company it really comes down to providing a fast, easy and secure experience to the user and that’s best achieved by leveraging the capabilities of the device.

“We’ve found that many of our customers, like Travelocity, get great reviews from their users specifically because of the ease they’re able to provide at checkout, providing credit card scanning with the camera’s smartphone as an option.”

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York