A Hautelook executive at eTail East revealed that in addition to seeing an uptick in mobile traffic, the medium is also converting significantly. The "What's Next in Ecommerce: The Evolution of the Industry and its Impact on Your Retail Business" keynote panel session included executives from Urban Outfitters, C. Wonder, Hautelook, RetailMeNot and Replacements, Ltd who spoke about the next wave of online and mobile commerce for their businesses. One of the key takeaways from the session was that in addition to mobile traffic growing for retailers, conversions and transactions seem to catching up, evidenced by Hautelook's mobile numbers.

Sporting goods retailer Sportsman's Wearhouse is deploying a new tool from Honeywell's Honeywell Scanning and Mobility group in time for the holiday shopping season. The chain will equip workers in its 46 stores with Honeywell's new Captuvo SL22 for iPod Touch mobile digital devices. "The Honeywell Captuvo SL22 is a great fit for our low-key shopping environment: it extends our workers' product and inventory expertise, and is much easier for customers and our workers to use than a traditional aisle-based check-out lane," said Mike Van Orden, chief technology officer, Sportsman's Warehouse, Midvale, Utah.

More and more online purchases are being made from mobile devices, and retailers are doing whatever they can to make the experience as effortless as possible. Fashion retailers like Sephora, Norstrom, eBay, and Net-a-Porter are experiencing large increases in mobile sales, and Forbes reported that U.S. mobile sales are expected to reach $31 billion by 2017. As mobile devices become a major player in the e-commerce game, retailers are pouring more and more energy into creating streamlined mobile interfaces that make it easy than ever to spend (sorry, scroll).

Australia has set the pace for smartphone and tablet penetration. Yet it is lagging on ecommerce. Latest local figures are hard to come by but Nielsen data released this week in the US suggests that only around a quarter of smartphone owners user them to make purchases. It would be a surprise if that figure was any higher in Australia. Arguably that's because they either don't like, or don't trust the payment infrastructure, or providers simply haven't made it simple and attractive enough. MasterCard is hoping to change that by tying on some new bells and whistles to its digital …

A Macy's executive at eTail East said that as the retailer gears up for the holidays, the company plans to make a harder play into email, SMS and responsive design. During the keynote panel "Investing in the Future: Creating Optimal Customer Experiences and Generating New Marketing Programs to Reach Tomorrow's Consumer" session, executives from Macy's, Shutterfly and Criteo discussed how they prioritize budget spend across multiple marketing platforms. The session was moderated by Mark Flaherty, senior vice president of North America sales at Criteo, Paris.

An Office Depot executive at eTail East said that in-application messaging and sharing features are two ways that the big box retailer differentiates its mobile strategy, especially for the business-to-business market. The "Personalizing and Differentiating Your Customer Experience to Actively Compete in Today's Market" session gave attendees a look at how both bricks-and-mortar and online retailers can stand out today as consumers continue to rely on their mobile devices as a guide in the shopping purchases. For mobile specifically, the company sees some unique opportunities with its business-to-business shoppers that are different from consumers.

The European Commission has cleared the creation of a mobile commerce joint venture between the Spanish telecommunications operator Telefonica and two Spanish banks, it said in a statement on Wednesday. The banks are CaixaBank, controlled by La Caixa-Caja de Ahorros, and Banco Santander. The venture will focus on digital advertising, peer-to-peer payments and digital wallets, which allow users to make secure online payments to merchants, according to a Commission statement.

Mobile money outfit Monitise has teamed up with Canadian cooperative financial institution Desjardins to develop and deploy NFC mobile payment capabilities to its members and clients. Through the agreement, Monitise will develop the NFC-enabled mobile payment application for Desjardins in collaboration with EnStream, an m-commerce joint venture between Canada's major mobile network operators. EnStream was created by Canada's mobile network operators to facilitate the development of the country's mobile payment market through a cooperative effort.

The UK behind the US in making purchases with smartphones, according to new research from Judo Payments, UK card payment provider for mobile commerce. The research shows that 22 percent of UK smartphones users have attempted purchases on their smartphones, compared to 60 percent in the US. The survey shows that around 7 million UK adults have purchased goods or services via smartphones.

Visa has been showing a great deal of attention to the emerging mobile payments scene in Asia. The region has become one of the most active places in the world when it comes to mobile commerce, largely due to the aggressive steps that retailers are taking and the growing proliferation of smartphones and tablets. Visa is one among several financial service firms that have been working to establish a strong presence in the mobile payments sector of Asia and the company sees a great deal of promise in several of the markets located within this region.