Facebook has officially started rolling out its new mobile payments feature. The company is quietly launching "Autofill with Facebook" on Monday September 23, 2013, a mobile payments service that lets consumers pay for products on their smartphones with just their Facebook credentials.
Facebook positions the move as a way to reduce friction in mobile payments, one of the most difficult and frustrating areas for retailers to convert online retail users into paying customers. The small screen and lack of keyboard proves too much work for the casual smartphone shopper.
The feature is supposed to be a way to make it easier to shop. On Monday, the feature was rolled out to small numbers of users.
Facebook that is looking to expand its presence in mobile with a new payments feature created the idea of an online payments service for people who store their address and credit card information on the social network. These users can then buy products at selected retailers by inputting their Facebook credentials.
Essentially, the feature will allow a user of retail site's mobile app to automatically fill in credit card information with a drop-down menu, if that credit card info is stored on Facebook. The feature is not an addition to Facebook's mobile app, but a feature that retail stores and app developers can build into their own apps.
Facebook's payments service makes the purchase with the credit card on file, and thus customers don't need to fill in any further billing information. The goal is to make online payments quicker and easier.
Facebook's platform is not to be confused with Google Wallet. Facebook's service is designed solely to provide a different way for customers to make purchases in mobile apps; the platform will not handle actual payment processing. Facebook also doesn't want to compete with PayPal. In fact, the feature works with PayPal, as well as as Braintree and Stripe.
According to analysts, the move can potentially attract more advertising partners. Facebook could market this feature as a way to drive more customers to its designated retail partners.
The social network plans to roll out Autofill with Facebook to all of its users. Two mobile apps are participating in the test, men's clothing store JackThreads and photo book site, Mosaic.
The full statement Facebook sent:
"We are working on a mobile payments test called Autofill with Facebook that gives people the option to use their payment information already stored on Facebook to populate the payment form when they make a purchase in a mobile app. The app then processes and completes the payment. The test is designed to make it easier and faster for people to make a purchase in a mobile app by simply pre-populating your payment information. Today we started publicly testing Autofill with Facebook on two iOS apps - JackThread and Mosaic. These integrations will start slowly rolling out to people this week."
Using Autofill with Facebook
E-commerce shoppers can browse items and add them to their carts like they normally do on e-commerce websites. The different thing comes afterwards if they've previously stored billing info with Facebook when they bought a Facebook Gift, Credits or in-game purchase on desktop.
When these people go to checkout and are asked to fill in their billing info, such as credit-card number, billing address, and shipping address, a "Check Out Faster With Facebook" message and blue "Autofill Your Info" button slides down from the top of the screen. After it's tapped, the user then sees the last four digits of their credit card number for security. The user is then taken back to the commerce app where they see their payment info pre-populated in the fields. They can then confirm their purchase without ever having had to type anything.
Facebook and Dreams for Commerce
Autofill with Facebook makes converting on mobile much quicker and simpler. This can make users to go through with a purchase before they get distracted. E-commerce app developers earn more money thanks to more conversions. For Facebook, this is a "Build, Grow, Monetize" platform strategy.
Facebook knows all the data about its users. The information is critical for it in proving the return on investment of its app install ads.
"We're all trying to help devs monetize and convert. The more conversions, the more payment volume that goes through Braintree, Stripe, or PayPal," explained Deb Liu, Facebook Payments Product Manager.
Liu also said that Facebook is now looking to identify and fix other issues with e-commerce: "Mobile is where the conversion gap is, where our customers are going in the future. It's really important to make this an amazing mobile product. That said, we don't rule out ever doing this on desktop some day."