In this week’s news, we saw Amazon top all other retailers in consumer preference. And JPMorgan acquired 75% of VW’s payments unit. The Weekender is here to catch you up.
News
Amazon Ships Outside Cargo to Compete with UPS, FedEx
Amazon is now shipping cargo for outside customers in a move that sets them up to compete with UPS and FedEx, according to a CNBC report on Monday (Sept. 6).
Amazon’s first-quarter earnings show an 80 percent jump in the company’s capital expenditures, which helped it boost the capacity of its logistic network by 50 percent from year to year. The retail behemoth now ships 72 percent of its products, up from 46.6 percent two years ago, thanks to a global transportation network with 400,000 drivers, 40,000 trucks, 30,000 vans and over 70 planes.
Seven Years Later, Only 6% of People with iPhones in the US Use Apple Pay In-Store When They Can
New PYMNTS data shows that seven years post-launch, 93.9 percent of consumers with Apple Pay activated on their iPhones do not use it in-store to pay for purchases, meaning only 6.1 percent do use it, based on PYMNTS’ national study of 3,671 U.S. consumers Aug. 3-10.
Apple Pay’s adoption and usage isn’t much larger than it was 2015 (5.1%) and is the same as it was in 2019, the last full year before the pandemic.
JPMorgan Acquires 75% of Volkswagen’s Payments Unit
JPMorgan has reached a deal with German carmaker Volkswagen (VW) to buy almost 75 percent of its financial services unit for undisclosed terms, Reuters and other news outlets reported Wednesday (Sept. 8), ahead of VW’s launch of in-car payments technology.
Volkswagen launched its financial services division in 2017 and has operations in 32 countries. The unit offers vehicle financing and leasing, in-vehicle payments, electric vehicle charging and subscription services for insurance, entertainment and more.
PayPal Closes $2.7B Acquisition Deal For Japan’s Paidy
PayPal is acquiring Japan’s buy now, pay later (BNPL) payments platform Paidy for 300 billion yen (about $2.7 billion) in a mostly-cash deal.
The deal builds on PayPal’s payments capabilities in Japan, the world’s third-biggest eCommerce market, according to a Wednesday (Sept. 8) press release.
Peter Kenevan, vice president and head of Japan at PayPal, said Paidy has grown its two-sided platform into a “leading service” for buyers and sellers in Japan and “pioneered buy now, pay later solutions” for that market.
Amazon to Pilot ‘Just Walk Out’ Tech at Whole Foods Locations
Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology will be trialed at Whole Foods locations in Washington, D.C.’s Glover Park neighborhood and Sherman Oaks, Calif., giving shoppers the option of skipping the checkout line, according to a blog post on Wednesday (Sept. 8).
Shoppers at stores with Just Walk Out technology don’t need an Amazon account or the app; they just enter the market with a credit card, according to Amazon’s website. The technology automatically detects which items people keep and tracks everything in a virtual cart.
Trackers and Reports
ModCloth’s Data-Driven Approach to Tackling Fraud, Reducing False Positives
eCommerce retailers expected to lose $20 billion this year alone to digital fraud — an 18% increase over 2020. The jump in online traffic since the COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020 has provided a feast for bad actors, with the fraud prevention market likely to reach $40.8 billion by 2026.
Studies have shown, however, that the overzealousness of these security systems can backfire. Up to 15 percent of card-not-present (CNP) transactions are falsely flagged as fraudulent, costing merchants up to 75 times more than the fraud itself. These losses come not only from customers abandoning their purchases out of frustration, but also in future lost sales as customers take their business elsewhere.
Biometrics and Limited PC Privileges Keep Remote Work Seamless and Secure
Working from home is proving attractive to both companies and consumers alike even as brick-and-mortar offices reopen, but the rise of remote work could present new opportunities for today’s fraudsters if proper authentication tools are not in place.
Usernames and passwords don’t offer the same security as they used to, yet the adoption of emerging digital identification measures such as multifactor authentication (MFA) has continued to progress slowly.
Cyberattacks on small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have grown 20 percent since 2016. Implementing digital identification measures and security tools that can ward against such attacks is therefore vital.
5,000 ‘Need It Now’ Consumers Tell PYMNTS What They Expect, Value Most From Retailers
The days of all-day weekly shopping trips are long gone, especially since March 2020 when consumers took to shopping online in droves for all the products they only ever purchased in stores before. It is therefore perhaps little surprise that more consumers now shop on Amazon (91 percent) than at Walmart, Target or Costco and other national retailers (90 percent).
Shopping in this brave new economy is less about choosing whether to buy products online or in stores and more about how shopping fits into consumers’ schedules. Consumers now ask one simple question for every purchase they make: Do I need it today, or can it wait?
Fun, Cool and Otherwise Interesting
UATP, BitPay Team on Crypto Payment Possibilities
Global payment network UATP has partnered with payment processing company BitPay to allow for more payments using cryptocurrency, according to a press release on Wednesday (Sept. 8).
The deal allows for payments in bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dogecoin and six other cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin, which recently passed the $1 trillion mark for market capitalization, is now recognized as the fifth-largest currency in the world.
MVB Bank Teams With NYDIG to Enable Bitcoin Offerings
MVB Bank has teamed up with Victor Technologies (a subsidiary of MVB Edge Ventures) and bitcoin-focused tech and finance firm NYDIG on integrating bitcoin into the Banking-as-a-Service solutions offered by MVB, a press release says.
MVB FinTech clients will now be able to offer bitcoin and other related products on NYDIG’s full-stack platform.
LA’s SoFi Stadium, Square Ink 10-Year Deal for Contactless Payments
Square will be the exclusive point-of-sale (POS) payments, software and merchants service provider for SoFi Stadium, home to the Los Angeles Chargers and Los Angeles Rams, along with Hollywood Park, a 300-acre mixed-use development being built by Rams owner Stanley Kroenke, according to a press release on Thursday (Sept. 9).
Square, SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park will be working on “seamless commerce” as the entertainment and sports industries evolve alongside customer demands. Square’s products and services “will power commerce and contactless payments across every checkout and purchase point, spanning hundreds of concession stands, bars, roving hawkers and merchandise retail stores,” per the release.
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