People Are Spending Lots of Time, Not Money, on Their Phones

There are still big questions about what benefits brick-and-mortar retailers get from letting their customers pay with phone-based payment services like Apple Pay and Android Pay. The same can’t be said for online retailers and shopping apps, and just-released data from comScore helps explains why.

Shopping on mobile phones is growing at its fastest rate ever. But there’s still a huge gap between how much time shoppers spend on mobile websites and apps, and the percentage of total e-commerce sales that happen on these mobile sites.

One big reason for this 44 percent gap: Entering in credit card and shipping details on a phone can be a pain, both on mobile websites and in apps.

Services like Apple Pay and Android Pay have eliminated a lot of that work in partnering apps, by filling in those details automatically. And as Re/code reported, Apple Pay will be coming to mobile websites soon, too.

If the gap between time spent and dollars spent on mobile sites is going to close, these services are going to be a big reason why.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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