Buying Soda with Your Phone
by Elizabeth Blair York | May 8th, 2007Today, I got into discussing some of the future applications of Bluetooth with another technophile, Jim.
Specifically about the buzz about using Bluetooth mobile phones as a sort of “Mobile Purchasing” device.
“Oh, they already do that in Germany,” Jim told me. “You can by Cokes out of the vending machine with your phone.”
The closest I’ve been to Germany lately is Belgium. Where, yes, I did buy a Coke. With money. Not my phone.
I’m not sure if using my phone was an option. The instructions were in Dutch. Not one of the languages I or my companion speak.
(Frankly, if it was, I wouldn’t have been lost outside Lille buying a Coke when what I really wanted was a long shower and a civilized drink back at the hotel. But that’s another story.)
Intrigued about the idea of using a phone as a purchasing tool, I did some research.
Turns out? Jim was right.
Asia (especially Japan) and Europe started jumping into the Mobile Purchasing pool in 2001. The US has actually been slow to to follow. Perhaps because we were all burned on the ‘Speedpass‘ concept?
The money tells the story of a business about to boom. In 2005, $65.5M US was transacted globally via Mobile Purchasing. That’s expected to jump to over $178M US by 2009.
It works like this: users complete a registration that sets up a funded account (via debit or other account) tied their unique mobile phone number. Then they hold their phone up at special vending machines like the one in the picture above. While it may take a few extra seconds than dropping in change, the gee-whiz aspect isn’t the only benefit here.
Mobile Purchasers save the vending machines companies cost in processing money in the long run, which may be passed along to the consumer.
For example, toll booth companies see reduced costs when their customers use remote gadgets (like an “EZ Pass”) to pay. And in Illinois, EZ Pass customers are rewarded at some tolls by being charged only HALF what a person who wants to drop cash in a basket (or get change from a live toll operator) pays. EZ Pass users get docked $.40 but the rest pay $.80
(See the original picture over at Fierce Wireless.)
Tags: Sphere: Related ContentRelated Posts:
May 8th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
I keep telling my wife I’m always right and she never believes me! I’ll send her this link.
June 25th, 2007 at 6:43 am
[…] May, I wrote about the growing trend in other parts of the world to use your cell phone as a kind of mobile payment device (like the […]