Consistent with Informa's latest research, retailers are now making significant investments to integrate mobile into their in-store, online and call-center operations. Some big retailers, such as Walmart and Marks & Spencer (M&S), are investing to develop in-house expertise and resources to support their mobile strategies, while many others are fully outsourcing their mobile integration needs to specialist IT and marketing firms providing managed services.

Orange France teamed up with Visa Europe to launch a prepaid near-field communication (NFC) service for smartphone users across France in 2014. Called "Orange Cash," the service is designed to enable customers to make secure payments to retailers through their NFC-compatible mobile phones using a prepayment solution. Orange said the service is the first of its kind in France and uses contactless Visa technology pre-loaded onto all Orange NFC SIM cards. The service is designed and managed in collaboration with the Wirecard Group and Wirecard Card Solutions, which are members of Visa Europe. It will be available for Orange customers …

The latest annual holiday survey from Burst Media has revealed that consumers are already getting ready to start their shopping during the heaviest season of the year, and that while they plan to head to brick and mortar shopping malls and online shops, alike, they will be using mobile commerce in a number of different ways to help them throughout their purchasing journeys. For instance, this year, Hanukkah will be starting ahead of Thanksgiving, and for the first time since 2008, Cyber Monday will be occurring in December. This could be a defining pattern, particularly when it comes to mobile …

Pizza Hut has always been a technology friendly company, after having been one of the first companies to offer online purchasing and having had a mobile commerce app available for a number of years. From that point, Pizza Hut has continued to look to technology to help consumers to be able to order their products more quickly and conveniently. In 2009, it introduced its mobile commerce app, and the chain has continued to enhance its smartphone and tablet based experience since that time. It was the first ordering app in the pizza category and continually aims to make new firsts …

Premium Swiss chocolate manufacturer and retailer Lindt & Sprungli USA recently launched a redesigned Web site that leverages responsive design to streamline checkout for mobile users. The new Lindt.com site is more interactive and features a stronger visual look for both desktop and mobile devices. By streamlining the checkout process, Lindt has experienced a significant increase in ROI and mobile revenue.

A Nestl executive said that the recent Kit Kat Android partnership was one example of how the CPG brand leveraged different platforms and touch points to engage consumers. During the "Digital transformation the Nestl way" session the executive laid out four different pillars of Nestle and gave examples of different success stories. The Kit Kat Android partnership, for example, generated more than 1.3 billion Twitter impressions and two million views on YouTube within 72 hours. "There was a very big thing around the paid earned optimization and there was a thing around how do you leverage the platforms to really …

Groupon Inc. said more people are flocking to deals offered on mobile devices as the company transforms itself into a service offering thousands of discounts instead of a daily deal e-mailed every day. The e-commerce company, which said yesterday that it agreed to buy Ticket Monster Inc. in South Korea for $260 million in cash and stock, reported that sales rose 4.7 percent to $595.1 million in the third quarter, and a net loss of $2.58 million. While revenue missed analysts' average projection for $615.7 million, the loss was narrower than the prediction for $14.3 million, according to estimates compiled …

Shopping via mobile devices is predicted to account for more than 12% of total online sales in Europe this holiday season, according to a new report which identifies December 9 as the continent's largest online shopping day. The Adobe Digital Index 2013 Online Shopping Forecast analysed billions of visits to thousands of retail sites to project that 12.4% of online sales in eleven European countries - Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Spain, Switzerland and the UK - during November and December would come from smartphones and tablets, representing a 68% increase on the previous year. In particular, …

QVC is a mobile monster, ranked No. 3 in the 2014 Internet Retailer Mobile 500, behind only Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. And a steadily increasing number of QVC online shoppers continue to go mobile. In the third quarter of 2013, QVC's U.S. mobile commerce sales grew 63%, reaching $169.2 million, or 31.6% of total web sales, up from $103.8 million, or 21.7% of web sales, in the third quarter of 2012, reports QVC parent company Liberty Interactive Corp.

Mattel and Walmart are ramping up a QR code-driven virtual toy store program first introduced last year with more locations around Canada to help commuters shop for gifts this holiday season. The virtual toy stores are located in Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto and on trains. The stores will run for four weeks, enabling commuters to purchase some of the season's most popular toy gifts by scanning a QR code with their smartphones.