Adoption of digital wallets, digital gift cards, QR codes, and barcodes have accelerated in the past 12 months. Survey data indicates that these digital payment methods have an impact on how shoppers feel about a particular brand, and how likely they are to frequent that retailer.
Compared to other countries, India leads by a margin when it comes to frequent usage of all given digital payment methods – PayPal, digital wallets, peer-to-peer apps, and barcodes or QR codes. At the same time, contactless payment innovations like QR codes are keeping Indian businesses moving, sans hands. QR codes, or barcodes on a mobile device, were being used more frequently at grocery stores and online-only retailers.
On average, the likelihood of scanning a QR in India is greater than in any other country. 20% of Indian respondents used a QR code or barcode for the first time during the pandemic, and 69% report using them more frequently.
Secondly, the adoption of the Gift cards helped people connect to eCommerce in 2020. The gifting ecosystem in India is steadily thriving and is already witnessing a significant jump compared to last year. The trend around gifting has essentially moved towards digital, with close to 59% of gift card transactions taking place with online only merchants, and the rest being powered by offline stores.
Digital gift cards also saw a huge increase in popularity since they are an easy contactless payment option to send and use. A whopping 92% of Indian respondents believe they will overspend beyond the gift card value/redeemable points value compared to 77% of the global average. 75% of Indian respondents prefer to buy a digital gift card over a physical one, with 50% of them buying it for the sole purpose ‘to make purchases online.
With this rising trend, an equal focus should be laid on implementing an appropriate level of encryption and security in the digital payment ecosystem. India ranked lowest (13%) among all countries in choosing ‘secure checkout process’ as the most important factor when making a payment.
