In a word, yes. If you want to have access to billions of customers worldwide and provide them with an easy, quick and secure way to purchase your product, then yes, you should accept SMS payments.
If you want to accept micropayments, then definitely, yes, you should accept SMS payments. SMS billing provides the most cost effective way of receiving micropayments.
There are over 2.5 billion mobile phones worldwide that can send and receive SMS, this means there are over 2.5 billion customers who could send text payments via premium SMS.
Many of these customers live in countries where there are hardly any banks or credit cards. Companies who offer a choice of payment via SMS billing are more likely to win their custom.
A recent report by I.E. Market Research suggests that the value of mobile payment transactions will be worth almost $1,200 billion in 2014. Another report by Gartner suggests that SMS payments will represent 80% of these transactions.
All industry insiders, banks, companies and mobile phone operating companies are agreed that mobile payments, paying for services or goods by mobile phone is going to grow. And whilst mobile phone payments also include options such as NFC, the SMS payment system is, simply because of its ease of use, going to be the main choice of payment method for most customers.
Customers like the ease with which they can pay for products and services without having to type in their credit card details or bank account details. Customers like the security of purchasing via SMS billing.
Companies who already use SMS billing in addition to other methods of billing such as accepting credit cards, report that they have more conversions, that is to say, more people buying their product via SMS payments than via credit card.
Plus setting up a SMS payment gateway is quick and easy to do. In most cases with most SMS payment solutions providers there are no up-front fees. As a company you pay for the SMS billing service directly from the revenue you receive.
The customer sends a premium SMS. The mobile phone carrier deducts this amount from the customer’s pre-paid account or adds it to their next phone bill. When the bill is paid, the mobile operator takes its cut, the SMS payment provider you used to install your SMS payment gateway takes their cut and the rest is yours.
The only difficult part for you is choosing which SMS payment provider to use.