Does Carrier Billing Improve Checkout Conversion Rates for Value Added Services?

Global mobile usage has increased by nearly 70% over the past 5 years alone. In the same period, digital spending in e-commerce has grown exponentially and contributes to more than 3.5 trillion dollars in total to the world economy. The same trend can be seen in classifieds sites and premium listings. As more and more money is spent online, more people feel comfortable selling and purchasing second-hand items as well, and the trend is moving to mobile. Gone are the days when classifieds companies saw a clear divide between desktop and mobile purchase conversion rates. As the new generation-z enters the market, mobile usability is seen as a basic right among people who are very comfortable making big purchases via mobile devices.

But have businesses in the digital content market fully adapted to this new digital era? How easy is it to sell and buy online? This article takes a look at the benefits of an alternative payment method - direct carrier billing - as an example.

3 times faster than checkout with credit card

Carrier billing is the fastest payment method for digital content. But how does it compare to the most widely used payment method - credit cards? We put together a small video to compare the fastest payment method to the most used one.

Mobile payment UX - carrier billing vs credit cards.

No need for extra steps to purchase

As seen below, friction in the checkout flow accounts for over 50% of total purchase abandonment. This is especially relevant when collecting smaller payments such as one-time listing fees. Alternative payment methods, such as carrier billing, can help marketplace sites grow additional revenue by being easily accessible for the demographics that do not own any credit or debit cards.

Most accessible digital payment method worldwide

Globally, only 48% of people have a debit card and 18% have a credit card. So rather than not wanting to pay, a lot of your visitors might not be able to pay. So when adding payment methods that can automatically charge users to their phone bill, you’ll be able to tap into new user revenue without cannibalizing from other methods.

There are 3.5 billion people with smartphones on the planet (44,9% of the total population). The vast majority of these smartphone users are connected to a telco via billing solution. Don’t deny them access to content simply on the premise that they don’t own credit or debit card.

A recent study on consumer online purchase intent concluded that usefulness and information quality significantly affect the online purchase intention through mobile apps. Depending on the region, alternative payment methods could play a crucial role in growing extra revenue without cannibalization. Undertaking major UX changes might be a 2+ year investment, onboarding DCB takes on average just one month.

Fortumo has been working with OLX in Poland since 2018. In their case, approximately 10% of sellers choose to pay with carrier billing, resulting in +3% monthly growth in transaction volume. With Fortumo you can get access to 3 billion people around the world, even those who do not have access to debit or credit cards.