Buoyed by an increase in mobile usage in the country, online retailers like eBay, Flipkart and Yebhi are seeing greater traffic from mobile phones. Consider this: eBay India, which is seeing more than 25% of the visitors accessing the site from mobiles, gets two transactions every minute compared on this form factor and expects the traffic to rise to 40% next year. Similarly, Yebhi.com gets 4% of its revenues and 15% of the traffic from mobile and apps. As per Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), there were 91 million users accessing the internet on mobile devices in June …

Mobile commerce has been gaining ground throughout Europe, but its adoption may be being slowed by slow Internet connections. Many people have come to rely on their mobile Internet connection, so much so that any device that cannot connect to the Internet is typically ignored by consumers. Exposure to the Internet and the convenience it can offer to the world of commerce has lead to a dramatic rise in the demand for comprehensive mobile commerce services. The problem, however, is that these services may not be as popular with consumers as they could be due to slow Internet speeds. Orange, …

Users of five high-profile mobile commerce apps for smartphones spent more time in the apps this year on Black Friday compared with Black Friday last year, according to mobile analytics and wireless data management app firm Mobidia. Following are the smartphone mobile shopping app, time spent in minutes on Black Friday 2013, time spent in minutes on Black Friday 2012 and percent increase, among consumers who indicated using the respective apps, according to Mobidia's analysis of 114,000 U.S. Android smartphone owners:

Mobile played a big role for Sephora this past weekend thanks to personalized mobile tools that make consumers feel more comfortable buying from their smartphones and tablets. Sephora has developed several new initiatives and tools in the past year that are developed specifically with smartphone and tablet shoppers in mind. As more retailers increasingly turn to mobile to streamline the shopping experience, Sephora is seeing that mobile can actually be used for conversions. "I think the larger trend is that shopping from mobile is really not a myth," said Johnna Marcus, director of mobile and digital store marketing at Sephora, …

EBay has spent many hours and lots of money pinpointing the locations of thousands of retail stores so the e-commerce company can capture sales from smartphone wielding shoppers. Now the company's PayPal division is using a new technology know as Bluetooth Low Energy to get even more accurate location information inside stores through a gadget called Beacon. The first PayPal employee tests of Beacon are happening at Spice Hut, a restaurant and food truck business in Silicon Valley, Telegraphe Cafe in New York and Get York Coffee in Sydney, Australia. Accurate location information is becoming more important as the rise …

With only 38 percent of retailers investing in mobile marketing this year - down from 50 percent last year - a new report from BDO USA suggests that momentum is dying down for the medium as marketers find that they cannot prove mobile's ROI. BDO's "Retail Compass Survey of CMOs" report asked 100 retail CMOs about their marketing plans for this year compared to 2012. Despite mobile's influence in a multichannel marketing mix, the report implies that mobile is still in the early days of proving its worth for retailers. "Overall, retailers have focused heavily on developing superior in-store offerings …

Near-field communication (NFC) aims to revolutionize mobile commerce, but just how close the technology is to becoming a widely adopted reality is unclear. Many questions remain around standards and security. Gartner for one noted that the technology has been slow to gain traction. Now, a new paper highlights the concerns that have many businesses shying away from the technology. Researchers from the University of Surrey were able to retrieve sensitive data from contactless payment cards by hiding an antenna for wireless data theft in a shopping cart, says a paper published in The Journal of Engineering. What's more, the data …

Kentucky Fried Chicken UK and Ireland is ramping up its mobile payment ambitions through a new initiative with PayPal that cuts down on the number of steps that it takes consumers to place an order. KFC UK and Ireland has expanded its Fast Track mobile application and site by integrating PayPal as a way to pay. The goal behind leveraging PayPal as a payment option is to help consumers feel more comfortable paying through their mobile devices. "From the very first order, PayPal users have a streamlined check-out experience and can check-out with PayPal," said Jeremie Leroyer, CEO of Airtag, …

With mobile payments and digital wallets increasing in popularity with each passing season, this young industry is now heavily influenced by a handful of players deemed most trusted by consumers. According to Forrester data based on a survey of more than 4,000 respondents, 31% of US online consumers who own a mobile phone are interested in or already use mobile payments for in-store purchases, up from 18% in 2011.

E-commerce is picking up momentum in the U.S. Custora, a provider of commerce marketing analytics, has released a new platform, called the E-Commerce Pulse, which provides real-time information concerning the U.S. e-commerce scene. Pulse shows that more people are taking to shopping online, but many are not doing so from their home computers. A rapidly growing number of consumers has opted to shop from their mobile devices, showing favor for the convenient options offered by various mobile commerce platforms. According to Pulse, beginning November 1 of this year, holiday e-commerce revenue throughout the U.S. has grown by 18% over what …