Walmart and EA Games are offering a unique promotion for the new Madden Football Game for Xbox via SMS and a phone's camera. If consumers buy the new game along with one more participating product, they can get $10 back by texting a picture of the receipt to 76477. It is not surprising that Walmart, one of the leading mobile marketers, is leveraging SMS for in-store and online promotions.

Wells Fargo on Wednesday raised its projected price range for Apple stock, citing expectations that the company will become more flexible with its carrier partners, and that the anticipated inclusion of a fingerprint sensor in the "iPhone 5S" will drive up adoption rates among consumer and corporate markets. Analyst Maynard Um boosted his price range for shares of AAPL to between $525 and $575, as he high expectations for Apple's acquisition of AuthenTec, which is expected to result in a fingerprint sensor included in the company's so-called "iPhone 5S."

Mobile payments are attracting strong interest in Japan. Consumers in the country appear to be very open to the idea of mobile commerce and have shown comfort with shopping online via their mobile devices. Indeed, the demand for mobile commerce services in Japan is on the rise and MasterCard is looking to answer the call. MasterCard has teamed with C-SAM and DNP in order to launch a new mobile payments platform that is based on NFC technology.

Mobile commerce sales have doubled in the space of a year and now account for almost a quarter of total online sales, according to a new report. It again highlights the growing importance of m-commerce at a time when many retailers are still struggling to develop effective, user-friendly mobile sites and apps.

Ace Hardware recently wrapped up a trial as the first retailer to test a mobile initiative that tracks a coupon from discovery to redemption. The hardware retailer ran a pilot program in northern California as part of a new mobile coupon specification from the Mobile Marketing Association's mobile coupon ad units standards committee. The effort was aimed at building up Ace's SMS loyalty program and increasing basket size.

Brands such as 7-Eleven are increasingly looking to leverage in-application reviews and feedback as a way to create stronger consumer-focused apps in the next iteration of their mobile strategies. Although the idea of in-app reviews and feedback is not new to mobile, marketers seem to be throwing more weight behind the features as they look to build out next-generation mobile strategies. 7-Eleven for example has been playing up a feature within its app called Idea Hub where consumers can submit comments to improve the app.

Join the Fool for a conversation with Harvey Kanter, who took over as CEO of online jewelry retailer Blue Nile (NASDAQ: NILE ) in March 2012. Harvey came to Blue Nile from Moosejaw Mountaineering, having previous worked at other retailers including Backcountry Travel, Michael's, and Eddie Bauer. Based in Seattle, Blue Nile specializes in engagement rings, and prides itself on educating first-time buyers about diamond quality. Harvey discusses the realities of being an online retailer, including projections for the growth of online commerce -- especially mobile -- and the prospect of an online sales tax.

When wedding search engine Loverly launched the first generation of its mobile app in April, the three-year-old company decided to focus its design around casual consumption. The data from prior mobile Web usage suggested that users wanted to browse photos but not necessarily save them for later viewing or click through to their original source, be it a one of the company's 30 weddings blog partners or its 2,000 brand and retailer sites like Nordstrom, J.Crew, and Kwiat diamonds. "If a woman sees our app as a consumption tool, that's perfect, and that's what we're going to give her," Loverly …

Customers at several restaurants in Toronto can now check-in via the PayPal application and pay at the point-of-sale using their smartphone. PayPal Canada has teamed with restaurant technology provider TouchBistro to integrate the former's cloud-based check-in functionality with the latter's point-of-sale technology.

JUMIA has launched its mobile Application in Nigeria, Morocco, Ivory Coast and Kenya, available for all Android phones, as part of its commitment to make online shopping even easier and totally flexible as well as enforce mobile-commerce in Africa. The app will offer international known brands and product assortment, fast and intuitive navigation, simple, flexible and secure online payment, push notifications for exclusive updates on new arrivals and special sales, a statement form the company said.