{"id":17026,"date":"2016-11-17T23:57:20","date_gmt":"2016-11-18T04:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/it-takes-more-than-coins-to-change-consumer-behavior\/"},"modified":"2016-11-17T23:59:05","modified_gmt":"2016-11-18T04:59:05","slug":"it-takes-more-than-coins-to-change-consumer-behavior","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/it-takes-more-than-coins-to-change-consumer-behavior\/","title":{"rendered":"It Takes More Than Coins to Change Consumer Behavior"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Mobile and technology have changed almost every aspect in our daily lives. Consumers are getting smarter: from online shopping to calling taxis on mobile. Companies are also getting smarter: collecting and analyzing data to customize the consumer experience.<\/p>\n

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But will payment adopt this trend as well?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Just like Evernote surrendered to pen and paper, mobile payment companies are struggling to compete with simply swiping a credit card. Despite the numerous mobile payment companies from Apple Pay, Samsung Pay to Walmart Pay, less than 20% of U.S. smartphone users have tried out mobile payment at least once.1<\/sup><\/p>\n

Do people not use mobile in-store? 84% of smartphone shoppers use their devices to help shop while in a store.2\u00a0<\/sup><\/span>But only a few use their devices to pay. The dominant reason for not using mobile payment is because people are \u2018satisfied with their current payment method.\u20193<\/sup>\u00a0It is challenging to convince that mobile payment is more convenient and easy to use when the delta of seconds between swiping a credit card and tapping your phone is not significant.<\/p>\n

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Why People Don’t Use Apple Pay (Source: PYMNTS.com, October 2016)<\/em><\/p>\n

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Coin chooses to take only half a step <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Coin has been driven to develop technology that makes payments more simple and secure.4<\/sup>\u00a0The company is not trying to take one giant step and replace the physical wallet with a digital one. Instead, Coin is trying to reduce all of the credit, debit, gift and loyalty cards that clutter up our wallets to a single piece of plastic.5<\/sup>\u00a0It does not attempt to change the behavior of swiping a card.<\/p>\n

This concept created a lot of buzz with its video that portrays the user experience. With this video, Coin received pre-orders in November 2013 using its own crowdfunding campaign, and blew past the $50,000 goal in less than 40 minutes. Not only did Coin raise an incredible amount without any prototype, but it also created several competitors who jumped into develop the same concept.<\/p>\n

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Screenshot of YouTube:One Coin for All of Your Cards\u00a06<\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n

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Coin\u2019s bold venture comes to an end<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite all the anticipation, Coin kept 10,000 beta users waiting for 2 years before delivering its first product in 2015. Not long after, in May 2016, Coin was acquired by Fitbit in May 2016, but not for its all-in-one card product. Fitbit announces that the current Coin gadget will be left out of the purchase, and their expectation is that Coin will accelerate Fitbit\u2019s ability to develop an active NFC payment solution.7<\/sup><\/p>\n

Here are a few reasons why Coin hit a roadblock:<\/p>\n