While many retailers have a mobile application at this point, few provide enough value to keep shoppers coming back. Some retailers are integrating apps with their loyalty programs to enhance relevancy, others are shifting focus to the mobile Web. Starbucks and Walgreens are two retailers that have discovered the power of apps to drive customer engagement and provide a competitive differentiator. Apple's recent introduction of iBeacon suggests that the next big step forward for mobile apps could be in-store.

W.W. Grainger Inc.will complete a migration, several months in the making, of the majority its customers to a new e-commerce platform, the B2B retailer of maintenance, repair and other products exclusively tells Internet Retailer. With updated navigation and order management tools, the platform, designed for Grainger's corporate clients, allows up to 1,500 staffers to log into a single business account and place, approve or track orders via the web or with one of Grainger's mobile commerce sites or apps, the merchant says. Helping to foster the platform's utility across devices, Grainger tomorrow also will unveil a new iPad app.

Mobile identity is becoming more important to businesses, especially as more consumers around the world begin to rely on smartphones, tablets, and other devices in their daily lives. Market research firm ResearchMOZ has released a new report concerning the growing importance of mobile identity and how businesses are beginning to invest more heavily in biometrics and other such technologies. The report cites the growth of mobile interactions and mobile commerce as the influence behind higher investments in mobile identity.

ITProPortal first met Steffan Aquarone at the Open Innovations forum in Moscow this year, where he headed up a discussion on the future of mobile commerce. As a technology entrepreneur, Aquarone co-founded mobile money platform Droplet, an app that allows customers to load money onto their phone and send payments for free. So he seemed like the perfect person to catch up with again as we draw closer to the final month of 2013, to talk about where the mobile payments industry is heading.

The first report of a three-country African Growth Market Study on mobile content and commerce by MEF, shows that Kenyan industry leaders are optimistic about mobile content and commerce revenue growth. A third of respondents saw mobile end-user revenues rise more than they expected last year. Perhaps unsurprisingly in a market with highly developed mobile money and m-banking offerings, mobile money was found to be the main source of end-user revenue at 53% followed by social networks (37%) and mobile commerce (30%).

HSN is getting a leg-up on Black Friday this holiday season by offering consumers mobile-only offers for shopping on the company's site and applications. The multichannel retailer is unveiling the mobile pre-Black-Friday offers on the two Fridays leading up to the big holiday shopping day. Last week, HSN leveraged push notifications and an SMS blast to its database of 900,000 subscribers to get the word out about the company's first mobile-only offer.

While online retail rose 13% year over year in the third quarter, growing more rapidly than the overall retail sector, mobile commerce is expanding at twice that rate, translating into some major shifts in consumer spending habits this holiday season. This is according to digital measurement and analytics provider comScore Inc., which shared this and other insights earlier this week during its U.S. Online Retail Economy Q3 2013 webinar. Panelist Andrew Lipsman, vp of marketing & insights for comScore, explained: "The key themes emerging [in holiday 2013] are what I call the 4 S's - social commerce, smartphones, sit-back shopping, …

Telecom Italia and Visa Europe have entered into a new strategic partnership in order to boost mobile payments throughout Italy. Both companies have shown a major interest in mobile commerce and have been working to break into this field for some time. Mobile commerce, however, is quite competitive and is filled with technology, telecommunications, and financial service firms that are all trying to grab the attention of consumers. It is for this reason that strategic partnerships are becoming more common in the mobile commerce sector.

Location-based sensor fusion technology for smartphones represents a "huge potential" for mobile advertising and retail, judges ABI Research. ABI Research forecasts that there will be one billion smartphones with location-based sensor fusion by 2016. Using location-based services, retailers can offer coupons on discounts to shoppers based on their location in shopping malls. In addition, indoor location services can be used by enterprises to track and manage assets: Location-based smartphone sensor fusion presents 'huge potential' for mobile commerce, says ABI -

Canadian e-commerce and m-commerce services provider AnywhereCommerce has signed a partnership agreement with Prosa, a merchant services provider serving Mexico and other markets throughout the region. Under the terms of the agreement, AnywhereCommerce will provide a mobile payment platform, including acceptance devices, software applications, and gateway services, to support Prosa's deployment of mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) services.Prosa will deploy AnywhereCommerce's 'aCommerce Gateway' for accepting credit, debit, cash, and gift card payments, as well as the company's payment accepting software application, and its line of mPOS devices, including the Walker model. Walker is EMVCo-certified and enables merchants to accept EMV as well …