Facebook wants to put an end to typing billing details on the small screen, help developers and payment processors earn more money, and prove that its app install ads make money for ecommerce companies. So today it’s rolling out last month’s test of “Autofill With Facebook” in partnership with PayPal, Stripe, and Braintree to two ecommerce apps, JackThreads and Mosaic, with more to come.
It’s important to understand this feature is a partnership with payment providers and is additive, not necessarily competitive, at least for now. One day Facebook could try to conquer more of the payments flow by processing payments itself. But currently, if a developer uses PayPal, Autofill With Facebook layers on top of it, and PayPal still earns its processing fee. These three partners could become two shortly as we’ve reported that PayPal may be close to buying Braintree.
We’ll have a demo of Autofill With Facebook here in a moment. The “early test” feature as Facebook calls it will appear in the Mosaic (photo book-buying) and JackThreads (hip clothing) iOS apps for some users starting today and everyone who has payment info stored on Facebook by the end the week. You can add your payment info to Facebook by hand here.
Previously this test was only available in early beta to a small percentage of JackThreads users. Facebook is making Autofill developer documentation available now, but devs won’t be able to turn on Autofill With Facebook until they’re approved.
Using “Autofill With Facebook”
Here’s how the feature works for users. Ecommerce app shoppers browse items and add them to their cart like they normally do. Then something different happens 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 like 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. When tapped, users are shuttled into their Facebook for iOS app where they can look over their payment details and select a shipping address.
They click ‘OK’ and on the back-end, Facebook and the app developer’s payment processor do a ‘handshake’ so the credit card and other info is securely transferred. On the front-end, the user only sees the last four digits of their credit card number for security. The use is then whisked 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.
For users, this makes converting on mobile much quicker and simpler. That means they’re more likely to go through with a purchase before they get distracted or second-guess themselves. Ecommerce app developers earn more money thanks to more conversions.
As for payment processors, they get to handle more payment volume and earn more fees.
For Facebook, this part of “Build – Grow – Monetize” platform strategy. When you make an auto-filled purchase, Facebook knows who you are, how much you spent, and in what app. That’s critical to it proving the return on investment of its app install ads. If JackThreads hits you with a $1 Facebook ad to download its app, and Facebook sees that you clicked and five minutes later spent $25 at JackThreads, it can convince the ecommerce app developer it’s a good use of spend and they should buy more campaigns.
When I asked about Facebook payments product manager Deb Liu about working together with PayPal and other payment processors, she explained “We’re all trying to solve the same problem: helping devs monetize and convert. The more conversions, the more payment volume that goes through Braintree, Stripe, or PayPal [and they make their fee that way].”
And Liu said Facebook is now looking to identify and fix other issues with ecommerce: “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.”
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