Ecommerce initiatives in organizations are going strong with many attributing the efforts to incremental sales. As might be expected, mobile is a healthy part of the mix, with almost half of companies listing mobile commerce and payments as one of the top ecommerce activities they're involved in, based on a new study. The majority (66%) of companies are conducting more ecommerce initiatives than the previous year, according to the ecommerce insights report, comprising a survey 215 client-side marketers conducted by the Association of National Advertisers.

A key pillar of the customer experience is mobile commerce. Retailers are aiming to deal with that by moving to mobile point of sale systems and putting mobile capabilities in the hands of sales associates, based on a new study focused on overall customer engagement. Thanks to smartphones, consumers have a constant and unlimited amount of information at their fingertips. Consumers tap into their phones to research products, compare prices, make online purchases and, to some degree, pay in stores.

The location of shoppers with smartphones in stores is getting much more precise thanks to LED lighting with tracking technology built in. The connected lights already are installed and being used in a Carrefour hypermarket in France and are on the way to stores in the U.S. The system from Philips Lighting was shown to retailers at the National Retail Federation Big Show in New York this week and a U.S. pilot store is expected to be announced soon.

The holidays were good for mobile commerce. Consumers were active in using their smartphones and tablets both for visiting Web sites and making purchases. As a final holiday post mortem, Adobe Insights has tallied an impressive number of stats from the entire holiday shopping season.

Beacons are moving to bars. A lot of them Following countless implementations of beaconing to interact with shoppers in various ways at retailers of all types, beacons are moving into thousands of bars across the U.S. At CES this week, InMarket is introducing InBar, a new digital platform for entertainment venues, most notably, bars.