Long before payment apps were even considered, the car wash industry was built on cash – millions and millions of quarters patiently pressed into self-service bay washes and vacuums: for decades. And while many wash operators still do lots of business in cash, most have moved into accepting other forms of payment including credit, debit and prepaid cards.
And of course, technology just keeps moving along.
The advent of Payment Apps has created a whole new opportunity to capture additional sales by taking advantage of consumer payment preferences. After all, you can’t sell something to a consumer if they can’t pay by the method they prefer.
Here’s some great data from PaymentsJournal.com. about how P2P payment apps are showing big gains in usage by consumers:
- PayPal is clearly the market leading P2P service, 54% of consumers have used PayPal within the last year, up from 47% in 2017
- Venmo is second with 14% of consumers having used the payment service in 2020
- Zelle has gained great adoption from 1% consumer usage in 2017 to 13% in 2020
- Google Pay saw adoption reach 11% of consumers in 2020
- Facebook Messenger was one of the only P2P services to see declining adoption, from 2019’s 9% in 2019 to 7% in 2020
Payment apps provide great consumer convenience – particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As consumers were loath to touch keypads or even swipe their own credit and debit cards, payment apps have become even more popular – and convenient.
In another survey, published on the website electran.org, mobile payment adoption by age group was not surprising. Adoption was highest among younger consumers.
- For consumers aged 16-24, 71 percent said they were likely to use mobile payment apps on their smartphones.
- For those aged 25-34, 73 percent said the same.
- Only 28 percent of surveyed consumers aged 55-64 indicated they were likely to use mobile payment apps.
- The group with the highest adoption were young Americans, with 82 percent of 25-34 year-olds saying they were likely to use mobile payment apps.
The convenience of using a cell phone app is overcoming the obstacles experienced by some consumers, the greatest of which, is security concerns. But the fact is mobile apps are just as secure as card technologies, and as consumers come to trust this fact, even more will be using the cell phone to purchase more services – including car washes.
To learn about the WashCard, UWashApp, please click here.
Link to Payments Journal:
https://www.paymentsjournal.com/p2p-payment-apps-are-seeing-gains-in-consumer-adoption/
See the electran.org article here:
https://www.electran.org/publication/transactiontrends/report-us-consumers-highest-adopters-of-mobile-payments/