If you're still not convinced about the impact a mobile app or online shopping platform can have on your business, a new report on Australia's spending habits may give you that extra push. One in three Australians surveyed by eBay stated that they have shopped online while watching a movie, while one in five admitted to making purchases while in the bathroom.

Some predictions are saying that by the year 2018, AR technology applications will be worth investments of $2.5 billion. According to a recent market forecast issued by ABI Research, by the year 2018, developers will be making investments of more than $2.5 billion in augmented reality apps, particularly in the marketing and retail spaces.

PayAnywhere, a leader in mobile point of sale solutions, is receiving high praise in response to the launch of its innovative and freshly revamped merchant portal known as PayAnywhere Inside. The company touts its PayAnywhere Inside platform as a robust merchant portal that gives merchants an inside track on their sales, with new features.

Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), the retailer-led mobile wallet initiative that was launched last year, has added Kohl's and Circle K convenience stores to its merchant network. Collectively, the organization's 30-plus retailers operate nearly 90,000 stores and process more than $1 trillion in payments annually. MCX also announced its selection of FIS, a global provider of banking and payments technology, to provide a payment processing, routing and settlement for mobile commerce transactions. The FIS technology will integrate with mobile wallet software being developed for MCX by Gemalto, offering consumers a personalized payment experience that includes offers, promotions, loyalty and other services.

Mobile shopping is gaining more and more acceptance among consumers. In a new study, nearly half of the Indian respondents (49 per cent) believe in the security of in-store mobile payments. Meanwhile, 68 per cent have downloaded their banks' apps on their mobile devices.

While there is a large amount of research and actual data on m-commerce available for more mature markets such as the US, there is surprisingly little information available on the emerging market countries. In South Africa, we found some interesting statistics in the "World Wide Worx Mobile Consumer in SA 2012" survey. Per the survey, phone-based purchases of physical products that are delivered to the buyer are made by only four percent of urban cell phone users.

Rolf Weber and Dan Jarosch took the plunge and started brandsExclusive (BEX) in August 2008. It was probably fortunate that they were in a Berlin bar at the time, celebrating Weber's birthday. The good vibes of the surroundings may have temporarily helped diminish the scale of the challenges facing the co-founders. The global financial crisis had been simmering for a year, and would come to the boil a month later with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Bank. This increased the challenge for the Australian-based Germans of attracting capital Down Under, where there was initial resistance to their business concept.

Watchmaker Bell & Ross is taking its print advertisement to the next level by placing a QR code on the page to allow consumers who are interested in the product to find more information and purchase products from their mobile devices. The latest Bell & Ross ad for its WWI Chronographe Monopoussoir with a QR code is found in the July 2013 issue of Robb Report. The QR code takes consumers to a mobile-optimized site where they can learn more about the timepieces and make purchases.

Mobile point-of-sale is not just for small merchants any longer. Increasingly, large retailers such as department stores are also embracing mobile to streamline in-store transactions and enhance customer relationships. Of merchants with 500 or more employees, 61 percent have either already deployed mPOS technology or plan to do so some time in the next 12 months, according to a recent report from Yankee Group. The trend will be in evidence during the upcoming holiday season, with numerous department store associates equipped with mobile devices to complete transactions.

Smartphones are transforming the way we pay for things online and offline, but mobile payments still have a long way to go before they're ubiquitous. People are shopping on their phones more so than ever before, and yet conversion rates remain low. During discussions on the future of mobile payments at MobileBeat 2013 today, executives from PayPal, Stripe, Braintree, and PocketChange shared what obstacles are standing between us and a world in which all you need to buy a beer, a diamond bracelet, or new house is your phone.