Touch Commerce

In the modern world, nearly every little thing is at our fingertips, not just restricted to unlocking our gadgets or doors with our fingerprints, but even to make purchases. Being adequate to purchase anything you want with the touch of a finger may have seemed like an illusion a few years ago, but this is now a reality. With the improvement in e-commerce, online shopping has developed exponentially. You can now amend your closet from the comfort of your home. However, have you ever been in a car or a train or running out of meetings, and Amazon or Flipkart has a flash sale? You are close enough to buy that new footwear you wanted at half of its price, then it comes to payment, and it's almost impossible to fill out your details while on the move. Well, there is a solution. A new technology called touch commerce is in growth. Now the question which arises is what Touch commerce means? 

What is touch commerce?

Touch commerce is a new automation that empowers customers to make digital payments with a single touch or a few touches on the screen through their mobile fingerprint scanners. Touch commerce provides software and analytics that generate real-time customer results, permitting clients to refine the individual visitor paths that lead to higher conversion without adding extra traffic.

Touch commerce also enables you, the customer, to make secured purchases through applications without necessitating to provide login details. It is as smooth as delivering a fingerprint ID or taps on the screen of your device. An illustration of this would be using your fingerprint ID to make Google play store or Apple Store purchases. It also covers online shopping tools such as social media, which allows customers to communicate with a company or online brand.

How does touch commerce work? 

Touch commerce serves in two distinct ways. Both of which make use of third-party touch-based mobile payment services.

1) Operating system

In this system, shopping applications can use existing information that is in the Operating system. This information will contain card payment details, home address, and contact number. It is attached to the operating system. This payment method is demonstrated by a fingerprint scanner, enabling software that is within the app.

2) Payment Servive Providers

In this alternative option, touch-based payment services are connected with pre-existing payment service providers (for example Paypal). Before performing any purchase using Touch commerce, customers need to have opened an account with the relative payment provider. Customers have to stay logged-in to this provider to make later purchases using Touch commerce. Once customers have done this, they will be able to select payment and confirm the shopping. After that, they will receive their payment details through this third-party payment service.  

Essentially, touch commerce allows customers to make secure payments on any online shopping application without going through the task of filling in pages of registration information and card details. Third-party mobile payment services act as authenticators and the data providers allow payments within seconds at the touch of a button.

Perks of Touch Commerce 

Touch commerce automation is on-demand in the online market and has earned a lot of fame. Commendations are to the increased customer's desire toward online purchasing and online payments through smartphones. Most of the latest gadgets and devices are with fingerprint sensors that obtain the users saved payment information and complete the transaction in a single touch. Some perks that this technology offers to the customers and businesses are:

 For Customers:

• Cashless transactions
• Protected single click payments
• The better payment checkout practice
• Enhanced faith through 24/7 customer support and transaction report  

For Businesses:

• More enhanced customer affinity
• Reduces manpower dependency
• Improved online sales values
• Better services

Duncan Stewart, director of TMT Research at Deloitte in Canada, said the reason for the rise is retailers are making it easier for customers to use phones to make transactions. “I think they finally got around to it,” he said, "That sounds slightly humorous, but it’s true.”