At a Christmas gathering among friends in Singapore, I was surprised to learn that a couple of them have begun selling second-hand stuff on Carousell, a consumer-to-consumer mobile marketplace app. Neither are in the internet industry, and only got to know about the service through word-of-mouth. One friend has already sold over S$600 worth of items, and most of the goods he's put up has at least one enquiry. That got me curious. So I checked out the app, and it turns out that I have quite a sizable group of non-tech female friends who are using it to sell …

Allied Market Research has released a new report that focuses on the growing value of mobile wallets. Mobile commerce has taken hold in many countries around the world, which has exposed consumers to mobile wallets. These tend to be simple applications that are designed to store a consumer's financial information as well as digital information being provided by retailers and merchants in general. This information typically takes the form of loyalty rewards, but mobile wallets can also be used to store digital versions of tickets to events and travel passes. While mobile commerce has helped boost the popularity of mobile …

Mobile devices don't discriminate between veggie lovers and meat lovers, and more fans of both varieties of pizza are turning to smartphones and tablets to order their next pie from Pizza Hut. This year, approximately 50% of all digital orders for Pizza Hut came through smartphones and tablets, with the greatest growth coming via the Pizza Hut mobile site, not the chain's mobile apps. Sales through Pizza Hut via mobile devices have grown 4,000% in last three years, says Rohit Kapoor, chief information officer for Pizza Hut. Kapoor says Pizza Hut invests between 15% and 20% of its total e-commerce …

The percentage of airlines that accept mobile payments has grown significantly in the past year and is only expected to grow more as consumers depend on their tablets and smartphones to buy airfare tickets, according to a new report from WorldPay. WorldPay's "Alternative Payment and Distribution Landscape" report looks at the different forms of payments that airlines are accepting, with mobile as one of the fastest-growing areas. One year ago, only 10 percent of airlines surveyed accepted mobile payments compared to the 25 percent offering it today.

Moms are increasingly relying on mobile to manage their schedules, email and social media, according to a new report from BabyCenter. Eighty-seven percent of moms use smartphones, up 34 percent from last year. Savvy marketers are targeting this consumer group, finding ways to use mobile to simply mom's lives.

Seattle bakery The Confectional is now able to better understand its customers and stock its stores after switching over to a mobile point-of-sale system. The cheesecake shop implemented ShopKeep's mPOS in May 2012 and has since been able to better stock its four locations based on consumer preferences and other data from the mobile system. For instance, The Confectional dropped its coconut cherry chocolate and cookies and mint flavors after sales were not great for those specific cakes. "ShopKeep has helped us greatly with our wholesale accounts and keeping track of those," said Destiny Sund, co-owner of The Confectional, Seattle.

Mobile messaging apps have been one of the biggest success stories of 2013. The growth of Snapchat, WhatsApp, Kik, Line, WeChat and others has inspired Twitter to refocus on its near-jettisoned private messaging service, and Instagram to introduce 'Direct' messaging. But what of the future? What's next for messaging apps? The answer is a long and complicated one (we'll have some lengthier thoughts on that soon) but essentially the potential is pretty endless since messaging apps are platforms, and thus capable of delivering any kind of service that is in demand. Be that gaming, music, marketing, and - for this …

The number of French using M-commerce rose in the third quarter by 1 million (quarter-on-quarter) to 4 million, according to a study by Mobile Marketing Association France (MMAF), conducted together with comScore, GfK and Mediametrie. Around 60 percent of mobile users use their smartphone every day to check out sites or applications. The number of tablets rose by 1 million from the previous quarter, and by 127 percent year-on-year. Android moved to 16 million users from 15.2 million in Q2, while Windows Phone moved to 1.7 million from 1.6 million. Apple iOS was stable at 6 million. Other operating systems …

Target says that online traffic continues to grow at double-digit rates, with mobile sales growing more than 100% for the holiday period. Target.com experienced two of the strongest days of sales in its history on Thanksgiving Day and Cyber Monday. In addition, Target was recently ranked as the most-browsed retailer on mobile over the past six months, according to a new report from Mobiquity. Cartwheel, Target's omni-channel promotional program, has gained more than 1 million new users this holiday season, and now 4 million customers have signed up since Cartwheel launched in May

Mobile commerce provider Spindle Inc. said it has entered into a agreement with iPayMobil Inc. that enables the two companies to provide micro-lending services to merchants. The service will be offered as a part of Spindle's existing payments suite. Merchants will be able to offer Spindle's free, downloadable mobile wallet app to their customers to facilitate credit approvals for time payments at competitive rates, according to the companies. IPayMobil, a developer of mobile payment solutions, will also license seven of its e-commerce patents to Spindle. These patents cover virtual currency and gaming, the processing of transactions by bridging customers and …