M-Commerce

Target Fights Showrooming With Price-Matching Scheme
January 10, 2013

Target has announced that its brick-and-mortar stores will extend the company's holiday season price-matching policy year round. It has promised to match the prices customers find on identical "qualifying" products at Amazon, as well as the e-commerce websites of Walmart, Best Buy, Toys 'R' Us, Babies 'R' Us and others.

App It Up: Mobile Strategies for Small Businesses
January 04, 2013

Even when Darien Gold's pilates clients aren't in her studio, they can work on their moves by following the instructions and imitating the positions on her mobile app. Gold uses the app to expand the reach of her business, according to Bharath Lingam, CEO of PurpleTalk, which worked with Gold to develop her app.

Amazon Creates Safe Haven for Kids on Kindle Fire
December 06, 2012

Amazon is enlarging its Kindle universe to expressly target children. It has rolled out Kindle FreeTime Unlimited, a service that offers several different types of content for children 3-8 years-old, including books, games, educational apps, movies and TV shows.

All Things Appy: Top 5 Android Shopping Tools
December 01, 2012

Keep things simple with Barcode Scanner. Scan the product barcode wandering the aisles and read up on the product via a Google Web search or Google's shopping Web pages. That's it. It's super useful when showrooming, in-store browsing, price-matching, or looking for independent reviews and specifications.

Google Buys Custom Coupon Startup
November 29, 2012

Google acquired retail coupon company Incentive Targeting, giving it a way to target consumers with deals based on their preferences and broaden its e-commerce presence. Incentive Targeting works with manufacturers of grocery and consumer products to design personalized, timely coupons and special offers.

Brick-and-Mortar's Showrooming Scourge
November 20, 2012

How can classic retail, the brick-and-mortar physical stores dotting our neighborhoods, compete with the likes of Amazon and Zappos? Can real-world retail survive e-commerce? And if it can, what's the trick? How do retailers intend to meet this growing threat? We're now seeing something insidious that threatens the very heart of brick-and-mortar retail: showrooming.

Courting the Prized Omnichannel Shopper
November 16, 2012

Holiday shopping this year will take place on multiple channels, with many shoppers doing research and buying online or on mobile devices. That's according to Deloitte's 2012 Annual Holiday Survey, which found that shoppers who use multiple channels plan to spend more money than retail shoppers.

Isis Tiptoes Into Chilly Mobile Payments Water
October 22, 2012

Isis, a joint venture of AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, has debuted its long-awaited mobile wallet initiative in Austin and Salt Lake City. It joins a number of other initiatives -- Square and Google Wallet, to cite just two examples -- competing in the nascent mobile payments industry. Whether Isis will gain more traction than they have, however, remains to be seen.

Mobile CRM Gives Retailers Ammo Against Showrooming
October 09, 2012

Showrooming enabled by the proliferation of smartphones has become the bane of brick-and-mortar retailers. Basically, consumers waltz into a local Best Buy or similar big box store, find the product they are thinking of buying and check it out. So far, so good, from the retailer's perspective -- only then they go online to buy it from an etailer like Amazon.

Future Proofing E-Commerce for the Mobile Era
September 22, 2012

The launch of smartphones with the capacity for e-commerce created a new channel for Internet merchants to address, mobile commerce. M-commerce revenues are expected to grow to $31 billion by 2016, according to Forrester Research. The number of mobile devices available for making purchases on the Web has drastically increased since the iPhone first made waves.

Trulia Flies High but Could Fall Hard
September 21, 2012

Trulia, an online real estate listing company, hit it out of the park Thursday in its first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock priced at $17 per share and then opened at $22.10. It rose an eye-popping 48 percent to reach $25.20 per share at one point before settling in at $24 per share at the market's close.

Groupon Gets Its Mobile Payments Groove On
September 20, 2012

Groupon is entering the mobile payments space with its own offering, Groupon Payments. The service, which facilitates credit card transactions, is available to any small business in the U.S.; however, it's offered to Groupon merchants at cheaper rates. Groupon is positioning the service as easier and less expensive for small businesses to use than traditional payment systems.

Passbook: Apple's Answer to the Mobile Payment Question
September 14, 2012

Apple has turned its back on a mobile payment technology used by its rivals in favor of an app-centric scheme called Passbook. The technology, Near Field Communications, was missing in the new iPhone 5 unwrapped Wednesday at a press event by Apple. Instead, Apple will be putting its support behind Passbook, which will be part of the next version of its mobile operating system, iOS 6, expected to be released later this month.

Lack of NFC Tech Slightly Deflates iPhone 5's Balloon
September 13, 2012

The iPhone 5 is a lean, mean consumer-oriented shopping machine. It has improved camera functions, audio and processing power -- perfect for showrooming in a brick-and-mortar environment, not to mention for m-commerce. Then there is the larger screen and improved video quality.

Mobile Payments: A Question of 'What' and 'When'
September 01, 2012

There has been a lot of hype about mobile payments, especially last year, with executives proclaiming adoption to be a rapidly growing trend. While we know that consumers are using their mobile devices to access information on the Internet, are they actually using them to shop?

Retailers Cram Another Payment System Into Bulging Mobile Wallet
August 15, 2012

A group of major retailers in the United States on Wednesday announced a new mobile commerce platform, Merchant Customer Exchange. Members include 7-Eleven, Best Buy, Lowe's, Sears Holdings, Target, Walmart, Shell Oil and Sunoco. The group will announce more members over time. MCX is still searching for a CEO, and it's not yet clear how much money each member will contribute.

Mobile Payments Chicken-Egg Problem Goes to Committee
August 10, 2012

The ETA has announced the formation of the Mobile Payments Committee, a task force to develop a cohesive business strategy for the mobile payments industry, and to help legislators and regulators determine a mobile payments policy, while educating consumers and merchants about the benefits of mobile payments.

Starbucks Squares Up
August 08, 2012

Starbucks has selected Square to process mobile payments at its approximately 7,000 stores nationwide in the United States, in a move that could shake up the nascent mobile payments market in the country. The coffee company had introduced the first mobile payment via iPhone app in 2009.

Court Docs Reveal Details of Kim Dotcom's Rough-and-Tumble Arrest
August 07, 2012

Today in international tech news: Details emerge from the Megaupload case. Also: A British supermarket chain is launching a virtual store in a London airport that will allow customers to purchase items via smartphone and have them delivered on the day they return; Chinese banks are a little behind when it comes to supporting new Web browsers; BBC's ambitious Olympics coverage is proving a hit.

Can the Cloud Shield Google Wallet From Pickpockets?
August 06, 2012

Some folks' answer to wallet security is chaining it to their belts. Google's is to chain it to the cloud. The Search Giant added some security features to its Google Wallet product last week intended to make it safer for consumers to use. For example, credit card information no longer resides in the Google Wallet mobile app.