Mobile Commerce

Retailers have spent millions of dollars and countless hours ensuring consumers are able to view pages and navigate their e-commerce site on a mobile device. This is all very well, but the minute a consumer decides to make a purchase it becomes clear that the attitude of facilitating mobile commerce hasn't yet permeated to the checkout page. Consumers are still required to enter their billing and delivery address details on an awkward mobile keypad or screen, making the risk of lost patience and abandoned carts very real. 

Home Depot is continuing to prove that mobile is a prime part of its digital strategy by running commerce-enabled mobile ads. The retailer is running a mobile ad campaign to promote its line of floor products and lead consumers to a commerce-enabled mobile site. The ads are running within Pandora's iPhone application.

Saks Fifth Avenue is piloting an iPod-based mobile point-of-sale solution in two of its OFF 5TH outlet stores, with plans for a wider rollout to additional outlet and Saks Fifth Avenue stores in spring 2012.

Interested in digital wallets, gaming or social media? You'll soon be acquainted with near field communication. It could transform the way we shop, pay, save and interact with other mobile device users and even with physical objects.

Customer experience analytics company ForeSee recently released data on which e-commerce companies had the most customer satisfaction in 2011. Amazon and Apple proved to be among the winners, with Netflix falling last year in terms of sentiment.

The U.S. online retail sector delivered 7.5 percent growth in December 2011 compared to the same period last year, according to cloud-based analytics findings by IBM. IBM's findings follow a strong November where both Black Friday and Cyber Monday delivered double-digit growth over 2010.

Smartphones are turning millions of Americans into mobile shoppers, and retail is the fastest-growing category for mobile content, but retailers still have a long way to go before they make the most of mobile. When in-store mobile retail solutions firm AisleBuyer surveyed retailers in December, about 20 percent said they had a mobile app that enabled usage of their e-commerce site.

Celerant Command Mobile and jQuery platform

Building on the Celerant Command Retail Platform, Destination Baby has positioned itself on the leading edge of m-commerce.

Online shoe and apparel retailer Zappos has paired the ease of tablet publishing and the convenience of online purchasing by launching Zappos ZN, a new iPad app that showcases its products in the form of an editorial magazine. While most tablet magazines feature advertisements of different products and brands, most or all of them do not feature immediate access to on-the-spot purchasing within the first moment of contact.