E-Commerce Blog

Google has introduced a mobile version of its Product Search tool that lets users check on a product’s availability in local participating stores. Product Search for mobile with local inventory lets a user see if, say, a Nikon Coolpix camera is in stock at a nearby Best Buy or Sears — two of the retailers participating in the program — and then provides basic directions to get there. The search results also show how far away shoppers are from the store if they have enabled the “My Location” feature.

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Google’s New Mobile App Lets Shoppers Peer Into Retailers’ Stockrooms

There are currently more than 270 million cellphone users in the U.S., and 82 percent of them never leave home without them, according to a recent study. With that many people walking around with mobile phones, it is time to get smart about mobile marketing efforts and engage customers via their favorite outlet. In recent years, restaurants and retailers have started using mobile technologies to drive sales. By simply adding an interactive SMS messaging campaign to existing marketing campaigns, they found a new way to engage with customers.

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Marketing to the Ubiquitous Cellphone

As the number, power and flexibility of mobile devices has increased, so has their use for shopping. In 2008, a Nielsen survey found that 9 million people in the United States “have used their mobile phone to pay for goods or services,” and many more expect to do so soon. In a 2009 survey by Deloitte, 45 percent of respondents said they would use their mobile phone to research prices, and 25 percent said they would use their phone to make purchases.

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Sidestepping Swindlers in the New M-Commerce Frontier

2009 is expected to be the first year when mobile phones start gaining real traction in holiday shopping. Nearly one in five consumers will use a mobile device to assist in their holiday shopping this year, according to Deloitte’s most recent Annual Holiday Survey of retail spending and trends Shoppers will use their mobile devices to find store locations, research prices, find product information, get coupons, read reviews and more. An estimated one in four consumers will even make a holiday purchase with their phone, representing a sizable chunk of potential sales.

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Reeling In Mobile Web Shoppers With a Better Hook

Ten years after national commercial platforms for mobile commerce were launched in the Philippines and Japan, the United States is slowly beginning to creep into the field. Residents in rural parts of the Philippines and other developing nations routinely pay bills through their smartphones, while people in Japan and Europe can buy products as well as train and airline tickets using their mobile phones. Meanwhile, Amazon.com and PayPal both just recently opened up their payment platforms to let application developers create mobile commerce apps.

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Teaching Mature Markets New M-Commerce Tricks