The Adoption of the Digital Wallet

In today's ever-changing world we are always adapting to the latest and greatest technology. Among the more recent advancements is the digital wallet. The digital wallet makes swiping your credit card, an already very easy process, much more convenient. Some people might be hesitant to trust a gadget with all of their money but isn't that almost what we are doing with our credit/debit cards? People were skeptical initially when adopting these cards as well. What if instead of dragging your wallet or purse with you, all you had to do was take your phone with you, which is already with you at every living second. Technology is constantly making your life easier, so why not adapt to this change?

The majority of stores we go to are always bombarding us to sign up for rewards cards and/or credit cards. Eventually, either all of those cards get thrown somewhere and we never look at them again or we have to stand at the cash register and dig through them and makes us wonder why we ever signed up for them anyway. The Digital Wallet stores all of your loyalty cards, credit cards, coupons, gift cards, and debit cards in one location. The biggest challenge that people have seen come with the Digital Wallet is having stores adapt to this new change. 

Here are two of the more popular digital wallets:

1. Apple Pay: Coming soon, Apple Pay will let you store all your accounts in one place. The hassle of opening the app and waiting for the app to load is long over. Just hold your phone up to the reader with your finger on the Touch ID, you will then be noted if the payment goes through by a vibration or a beep, and off you are with the purchase you just made. 

2. Google Wallet: With multiple wallets, Google lets you store all your accounts and even lets you send money across the country. Making checking out online even easier, Google as a special account called, "Buy with Google" which stores all our information and makes checking out that much more convenient.

The digital wallet is still in the adoption phase but this will likely become a more popular payment method as consumers and stores incorporate the use of digital wallets. Many people are hesitant to adopt a digital wallet with all of the security breaches lately (rightfully so) which puts all the pressure on the developers to produce a secure and reliable product. Like I said earlier, once the credit card became a trusted form to make a purchase, consumers had no problem with owning one. I think the digital wallet will become the primary source to make payments in the future. How quickly people adopt it, on the other hand, will depend on how quickly stores will make these digital wallets an available form of payment. 

-Brady Feldman