
Mobile Commerce

It looks like mobile will be the biggest Christmas present retailers will get this holiday season, according to recently relased survey findings from personalized customer experience solutions provider Baynote and e-commerce consulting firm the e-tailing group. One in three retailers forecast that mobile will drive more than 10 percent of their total holiday revenue this year.
L'Oreal has teamed with Walgreens and Duane Reade locations in Manhattan for a mobile coupon campaign aimed at solving mobile advertising's fundamental problem: connecting mobile ads to real-world purchases.The campaign involves ad tech startup Sparkfly serving L'Oreal product coupons within popular women's beauty app Pretty in my Pocket (PRIMP), which are then redeemed at Walgreens or Duane Reade stores in New York's Manhattan borough.
shopkick, the iOS and Android app that lets users search for products, find out where they're sold, and then automatically get checked in at retail locations for discounts to buy them in-store, is making another move that widens its remit beyond simply driving more bricks-and-mortar business. The startup is launching in-app purchases, starting with 30 major stores that were already a part of shopkick's product aggregation platform, including Target, Macy's, Best Buy, Old Navy and Anthropologie.
No, it isn't just you and the sites you happen to try on your tablet. Retailers are behind the curve when it comes to optimizing across all of the major screens from which people access their sites. According to L2's most recent monitoring of 71 specialty retailers, only White House | Black Market and H&M actually optimize their sites for tablet use. The rest shuffle the tablet user off to the standard desktop experience, complete with the finger-challenging buttons and drop-down menus, legal document text, and touch unfriendliness.
Square introduced an online marketplace on Wednesday, which lets merchants open up virtual stores for free to list goods and services. The move marks Square's first venture into e-commerce and may help establish the startup as useful for businesses looking to both process payments and attract new customers. "Creating an online marketplace is our next step in making commerce easy for everyone," said Ajit Varma, Square's director of discovery, in a statement. "Square Market makes local businesses accessible to customers down the block and across the country."
One of the most dramatic effects of the new mobility is that traditional behaviors are no longer tied to familiar time and place constraints. In fact, they may not even be tied to a consumer's own familiar brands. The internet may have made shopping available to consumers 24/7 on the desktop, but devices have now made every moment everywhere shoppable. Wal-Mart Canada seems ready to grasp this opportunity of the always-shopping consumer by putting a buy button in an unlikely place — a bus shelter.
Only a few years have passed since retailers finally became comfortable with their transformation to e-tailers. Now they must shift their point of view again, becoming what we might call "see-tailers," as the physical retail store assumes the role of a showroom, with consideration selection and transactions all conducted online through smartphone apps or mobile websites. Rather than visit stores to compare prices or find new styles and products, consumers are using stores to see, touch, taste or smell a product they've already targeted, then are leaving to order the item online.
As mobile commerce activity increases within the U.S. marketplace and payment processing advances alongside it, ISOs, acquirers and other merchant service providers must reposition themselves to meet the immediate and future needs of the businesses they serve. A newly released research report from ControlScan and TransFirst promises to help meet this objective, sharing important insights into small merchants' progress and struggles in implementing various mobile payment technologies.
Mobile commerce is a driving force behind the dramatic and accelerating pace of change in the retail industry. More than ever before, consumers are relying on mobile devices to interact with brands and retailers. This has been the trend for the past several years, and so far 2013 has been no different. Four notable trends are leading the way this year
The day may come when more of your shoppers are making purchases on mobile devices than via laptop and desktop computers. While this milestone hasn't been reached quite yet, many mobile device users are eagerly embracing shopping on the small screen: According to eMarketer, U.S. mobile commerce sales will top $17.2 billion this year, up from $3.5 billion in 2010 - and by 2015, mobile sales will reach $31 billion.