The vast majority of Americans would spend more online if they were offered an easier and more secure way to pay than credit and debit cards, according to a survey from Javelin Strategy & Research.
The poll of over 2000 people, carried out for mobile payments and billing outfit PaymentOne, shows that four out of five respondents would take advantage of safer and simpler methods of buying on the Internet.
Asked about their concerns related to using cards to buy online, 55% are worried about receiving junk mail, 54% that their personal information will be sold on to other merchants and 51% that their data will be intercepted.
These worries mean that nearly 60% of consumers say they are more likely to visit and buy from sites that offer "no-credit-card-required" payment options.
Quizzed about alternatives, by a margin of almost four to one consumers believe direct carrier billed mobile payments are more secure than using credit and debit cards for online digital purchases.
Phil Blank, MD, Javelin, says: "If digital merchants simply offered consumers an alternative way to pay, such as mobile carrier based payments, 79% of decisive consumers indicated they would spend more, driving significant new incremental revenue from subscriptions, transactions and purchases."
Recent global research from KPMG revealed that PayPal has overtaken credit cards as a preferred form of payment for consumers shopping on the Web.