Half a year ago, mobile solutions firm Field Agent surveyed 300 chip card (EMV) users across the country to gauge their attitudes toward the then-new payment processing system.
The results, well, they weren’t exactly glowing.
At the time, 63% of shoppers said the new EMV processing system was more time-consuming compared to conventional methods, and, altogether, more than 6-in-10 said they preferred good old-fashioned swipin’ to this new-fandangled approach of inserting a card.
One would expect these attitudes to improve with time—as bugs get worked out, as shoppers become more familiar, as retailers adopt EMV technology more widely.
One would...expect.
But six months later, a new mobile survey by Field Agent suggests shopper attitudes aren’t yet sweetening toward chip cards, indeed, they may be souring.
As a follow-up to its initial survey, Field Agent surveyed an additional 305 chip card users at the beginning of October, repeating practically the same questions from half a year ago. Note: For both surveys, respondents qualified for participation by submitting a picture of their chip cards.
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From this more recent survey, Field Agent found:
As the exhibit shows, Field Agent’s research suggests attitudes toward EMV processing could, surprisingly, be on the decline. For instance, over the last six months, preferences for swiping over inserting have risen 7 percentage points, from 63% in April to 70% in October.
So what’s not to like?
That is, what are shoppers’ top complaints with EMV payment processing?
See Also: Field Agent’s Guide to Holiday Shoppers 2016
Field Agent had previously asked shoppers to share their frustrations with chip card processing as a free form, open-ended question. From the resulting qualitative data, the mobile solutions firm distilled a variety of common complaints shoppers associate with chip card usage.
More recently, Field Agent presented these potential complaints to a new sample of 305 shoppers, this time as a multiple-choice question. As the graphic shows, we’re now starting to understand the major reasons—chief among them: uneven adoption by retailers and time costs—why shoppers are yet to embrace EMV processing.
So while EMV processing may hold certain advantages over conventional payment methods, shoppers, this latest survey suggests, don’t necessarily appreciate them yet.
Based on studies with thousands of shoppers, Field Agent’s special report, “The Digital Shopper: Insights into Today’s Most ‘Connected’ Customers,” offers companies an inside, shopper-centered look at online retail. Special features include:
Best of all, the report is free.