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Google Wallet And Google Offers; The Future Of Retail

Featured: Google Wallet And Google Offers; The Future Of Retail

By Anthony Hardy
May 30, 2011

The Future Of Check Out

Near Field Communication (NFC) has been written and spoken about countless times by analyst and Google itself. What it all adds up to is Google Wallet and Google Offers a combined deal and payment system that makes checking out a quicker and more convenient process. It is the start of a new era in which online and real world shopping are combined together to offer the best possible experience. To receive all of the available features you will need to have a Sprint Nexus S 4G and a Citi MasterCard.  The question now is when are more manufacturers going to start implementing NFC into their Android devices?

Possibilities Of NFC

The future of NFC looks promising and with enough support from retailers and credit companies Google Wallet and Google Offers could have a major impact on the way people shop. The first retailers on board are Macy’s, American Eagle, and Subway along with an additional 100,000 retailers who have already stated their interest in adopting the technology. With everyone trying to get in on mobile deals from Groupon, to Facebook Deals, and Living Social the ability to combine the deals with your payment seamlessly at checkout will quickly bring Google Offers to the forefront of the segment. The offers or coupons will appear in Google searches for retailers and can be saved to your device and opened easily with the Google Wallet app at checkout.

This also brings geo-location based offers to the forefront, by searching on your phone the nearest retail locations will come up along with promotions from those retailers. There will be check-in based offers, Google Places offers, and you can have customized offers emailed daily based on your purchase history. All of the offers will integrated into your G -Wallet as shown in the above photo.

Security

Google also claims that it is safer to use a pin protected Google Wallet then to carry around your physical credit card. The full card number is never displayed the actual card number is stored in the NFC chip itself which is tamper and laser proof. Also if you ever lose your phone you can deactivate the wallet over the air.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tBAB5ls5vM

This method of payment does seem more secure the conventional methods of cash or having physical cards in your wallet. It also brings in the added convenience of letting you know how much you’ve spent and how much you have left to spend on your credit limit.

The one problem with security is the same one that faces all Android devices and that is the threat of a malicious app. Although the Google Wallet payment system is secure in almost every way it might be possible for someone to create an identical app that if installed could act as the official app and access credit information. It remains to be seen how Google will address this issue, but overall the system is secure by payment card industry data security standards.

Free Money To Sign Up

In addition to having the available credit and merchant cards in your Google Wallet, the service will also launch with a Google pre-paid MasterCard. The Google MasterCard can be refilled using any of your credit or debit cards in case your provider is not currently covered. As an additional bonus Google is placing an initial balance of $10 on your GCard for those who sign up for Google Wallet. So you get a free $10 and Google gets another customer using their G Wallet and G Offers services.

Google Wallet And Google Offers

This is an exciting time in terms of mobile technology and the new Google services serve to make the shopping process easier and more engaging. The ability to easily have your offers and payments come from the same place and easily applied is a benefit that other deal providers can’t currently offer and should be a major selling point. The issue still remains when more manufacturers and retailers will begin to implement the services into their devices and stores.

Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile have already agreed initially to support the Isis mobile payment system that utilizes the same kind of mobile wallet but has Discover as the main payment handler. While Google has stated they intend to expand the scope of their payment system to include all major carriers and more credit companies and retailers it remains to be seen how long the process will take and if they will be able to join their system with the Isis system that will soon begin initial trials as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZGoXvzW4WU

What is your take on Google Wallet and the possibilities it holds for more payments an the retail market as a whole? How long do you think it will take for the system to catch on in a major way on all major carriers and retail locations?