While disintermediation is already a major concern for mobile operators in the West, there are two reasons why it is not likely to be an immediate threat in India: Electronic Funds Transfer (through a credit or debit card) is still limited to a small segment of high earning, banked users who primarily transact physically or over fixed internet connections. According to Hindustan Times, there are only some 20m credit cards in use in India. The quantum of EFT spend over mobile is extremely low. Whilst the mobile spend is growing rapidly in percentage terms, the relative amounts are small compared …

Online grocer Peapod is taking its "virtual grocery store" concept on the road in a new promotional campaign. The company unveiled the concept at commuter rail stations in Chicago and the Northeast less than a year ago. Peapod, a division of Ahold USA, will field trucks installed with digital billboards of grocery aisles at community recreation centers, coffee sleeves at local cafes, concert venues and other places.

The good news: China's mobile commerce industry is growing at a tremendous pace - meaning there's an opportunity for you to profit as an investor. The bad news: The one company crushing mobile commerce also dominates the country's $177 billion e-commerce industry. Unfortunately, that's the one company you can't invest in because it's private. Of course, I'm talking about China's dominant e-tailer, Alibaba.

In the last 2 months, the founder and president of Start Today, the operator of Zozotown, has been tweeting teasers for a new online venture called Wear.jp, creating a great deal of excitement among Japanese fashionistas. Start Today owns Japan's biggest dedicated fashion shopping portal and has an unrivalled loyalty among true fashion devotees. Wear is a 'mobile first' social commerce concept aimed, at least in theory, at driving fashion lovers into stores. The service, which still hasn't launched, will leverage Zozotown's large database of nearly 5 million fashion consumers and massive collection of product code numbers from its merchant …

A little over three years ago, a skyrocketing startup called Groupon was ready to enter the European market. There was just one problem: while Groupon had been building its American business, a trio of German brothers named the Sawmers were building an analogous one in Germany called CityDeal, hastening to copy Groupon's success. And so Groupon had to pony up what was reported to be around $100 million (later reported to be in the form of a huge chunk of Groupon stock) to acquire its German clone and competitor. Setting aside the many woes of Groupon today, the lesson still …

Woolworths has now announced that it is rolling out QR codes, as of the start of this month, that will allow customers to be able to access details regarding the local growers who supply the stores with the fruit and vegetables that they buy. The program is called Meet the Grower and includes a number of different kinds of media for information.

Australians have adopted smartphones and tablets into everyday culture faster than consumers in many other developed economies There are several explanations as to why. Geography is one factor. Like the United States, Australia is a continent-sized country, and mobile communication offers busi

The e-commerce sector in China is on track to become the largest in the world. It already has 214 million online shoppers, more than any other country. By 2015, it is predicated that those consumers will be spending $1000 per year online - the same as current US levels.

Kmart is relying on its SMS database to push out mobile coupons and offers to not only drive sales, but also to encourage application downloads that build a stronger one-on-one relationship with shoppers. Last week, Kmart sent out an SMS message that encouraged its opted-in users to click a link in exchange for receiving $5 off of a $50 or more purchase. Additionally, the retailer is tying the coupons to a time-sensitive component through Apple's Passbook app.

One of Taiwan's leading telecommunications companies has signed two Memorandums of Understanding with telecommunications operators in Japan and Hong Kong this week. The companies in question are Japan's KDDI and Hong Kong's PCCW, prominent mobile network operators that account for a significant portion of the telecommunication services of their representative regions. Through these agreements, Chunghwa Telecom has plans to accomplish its ambitious vision concerning NFC-powered mobile payments.