An AIM-listed provider of mobile commerce, loyalty and payment software solutions declined sharply on Thursday after predicting a full-year loss for 2013. For the 12 month period, losses (before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) were expected to total GBP3.6m on revenue of around GBP0.83m. 'Management believes the adoption of mobile commerce, loyalty and payments will accelerate throughout 2014, allowing for rapid revenue growth in 2015 as our customers move from pilot based projects to full commercial release and revenue streams increasingly shift from 'fee for service' to 'event based' revenues,' a statement from the company read. It said it had …

A market research firm based in the United Kingdom has released its latest 2014 Trends to Watch report, which predicts that Apple will finally enter into the mobile commerce market this year. Apple has approached the mobile commerce space with caution due to the security issues that exist therein. It had been speculated that the iPhone 5 would include NFC technology, but Apple has little faith in NFC, especially when it comes to using the technology for mobile payments. According to Ovum's report, Apple is expected to release its own mobile commerce platform this year. Ovum suggests that Apple has …

eBay posted a profit of $850 million, compared with earnings of $751 million a year ago, for its fourth quarter, ended Dec. 31, 2013, while revenues rose 13% to $4.5 billion, fueled by strong mobile results. In reporting its results, the company also said it has received a proposal from activist investor Carl Icahn seeking to spin off PayPal as a separate company. The company's Marketplaces and PayPal units achieved record mobile results overall in 2013, each exceeding $20 billion in mobile volume. Mobile users represented 40% of eBay's 36 million new users and accounts in 2013. "We feel good …

Eventually, mobile will be everything, according to PayPal President David Marcus. That might have been a bold statement a year or even six months ago. But based on traffic and ad revenue figures experienced by some other tech giants lately (see Yahoo and Facebook, for starters), perhaps it's just stating the obvious at this point. During a sitdown conversation with ReadWrite Editor-in-Chief Owen Thomas on Tuesday evening, Marcus reiterated a prediction made one year ago that within five years, consumers in dense metro areas in North America, Europe, or Asia will be able to complete all payment transactions with a …

McDonald's is expanding its mobile couponing effort through a branded application by rolling out a new round of pilot programs in California and Nevada. The new California and Nevada markets are the latest areas where McDonald's is testing mobile coupons through its McD app. The goal behind the app is to test how consumers in different markets within the United States respond to mobile coupons, which presumably will be rolled out as a larger mobile program in the near future. "We are still early in our work with McD App, and it would be too early to provide initial learnings," …

Corporations and massive enterprises have traditionally been the leaders when it comes to being on the very cutting edge of technology, but when it comes to mcommerce, a major push is being supported by small and medium sized businesses that are not held back by the solid infrastructures and red tape restricting their larger counterparts. SMBs often find themselves in a position in which they can move quickly, making it possible for them to try out various forms of tech, such as mcommerce, and to keep up with the latest developments over these channels. Because of this, businesses in this …

A recent Sears SMS blast offered Shop Your Way members $15 off of a $100 purchase, reflecting how the retailer is using personalized mobile offers and driving redemptions rates up. The retailer is able to take into account real-time customer feedback along with hyperlocal and transactional data to deliver more personalized offers and messages to customers. The platform is powered partly by Pikato and other Sears technology components, with retailers leveraging Pikato's offerings seeing up to a 1,100 percent increase in redemption rates.

Merchants are increasingly choosing multiple platforms to meet their e-commerce needs, according to Magento. A merchant may choose one platform for their core site, but marketing head at the e-commerce company, Craig Peasley, said an entirely different one may be selected for another purpose. A reason for this approach is to get into international markets quickly and at a cost that works for the merchants. "In order to support new business models and global growth opportunities this year, flexibility, speed and choice will be critically important for merchants to achieve success," Peasley said.

Five of the United Kingdom's largest banks are set to embrace mobile payments. First Direct, Nationwide, Santander, Metro Bank, and HSBC are moving to provide their combined 18 million customers with the ability to make mobile payments leveraging QR codes and NFC technology later this year. This will be made possible through the use of Zapp, a mobile commerce platform from VocaLink. The five banks have adopted the platform as a way to make it easier for mobile customers to manage their finances and pay for products they are interest in. Zapp has managed to establish a strong following among …

As always, the NRF Conference & Exposition went by in a blur, but looking back on three jam-packed days of industry insight and networking, a few trends kept coming up again and again. Seamless retail, full mobilization of customers and employees, and item-level RFID tagging stood out as topics of interest among exhibitors and attendees. Following are a few thoughts about each of these trends that will help shape the direction of retail in the year ahead. The retail industry has by and large reached the "acceptance" stage in dealing with the death of the channel. Omni-channel means unifying your …