PayPal has launched a new mobile payments service in order to embolden its presence in the Asian market. Asia has proven quite attractive in terms of mobile commerce due to the growing degree of smartphone and tablet penetration and the increasing number of retailers entering into e-commerce. In order to tap into this promising market, PayPal has launched mo.bi.pay, which stands for "mobile built-in payments." This new service is designed to appeal to small and medium-sized enterprises. Merchants throughout Asia are becoming quite interested in mobile commerce. They have found that consumers enjoy shopping from their mobile devices and those …

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 …

Mobile commerce is now the key focus of e-commerce and online shopping providers because of the wide adoption of smart devices - both smart phones and tablets - and integrated social-media marketing.

A company that develops and markets mobile commerce solutions, has announced an agreement with Signifi (Mississauga, ON, Canada), a provider of interactive vending machines, under which Spindle's MeNetwork mobile wallet payment capability will be incorporated into Signifi's SpotShop machines. The accord was announced during the National Retail Federation's 103rd annual "Big Show" Expo at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center here. According to Spindle, the integration of the MeNetwork mobile wallet functionality will enhance payment options for consumers, enabling them to pay for purchases at SpotShop vending kiosks using their smartphones. Customers can rent or purchase DVDs, videogames, Apple-licensed products, …

According to industry data published last week, one sector where there was a clear growth during the holiday season was the online sales of non-food products, which grew 19.2 percent, the highest growth in the past four years. Data published by IMRG shows an 18 percent year-on-year growth, with British consumers spending 11 billion pounds online in December 2013, up from 9 billion pounds spend in December 2012. However, a report published by Jumio, credentials management company, indicates that although British retailers enjoyed the most successful mobile holiday season to date, they still missed out on nearly 1.5 billion pounds …

Service revenues or fees from m-commerce transactions are expected to reach US$37 billion by 2016, according to the latest research published by Informa Telecoms & Media. New data on m-commerce predicts that values of transactions globally could reach $37 billion by 2016. The biggest opportunity to earn service revenues, according to the research by Informa, will be from the mobile remote payments for physical goods and services and international mobile money transfers.

Do mobile devices really make our lives easier? It depends. Some things, like sending email, isn't necessarily as easy as it could be. But online shopping is another story. It's one of the things mobile devices do pretty well. However, given that mobile commerce is still a relatively new phenomenon, companies like SAP are working to create even more engaging shopping experiences to combat things like showrooming.

On Tuesday, a venerable brand name in pizza confirmed that which has been suspected for more than a few years now: The mobile channel has proven critical for Pizza Hut's marketing efficacy. What's more, just two weeks into 2014, Pizza Hut has already set two digital sales records. The first two Fridays of the year have earned the company the two biggest days in company history for sales received by a method other than traditional phone calls, Pizza Hut said in a statement shared with MMW.

Mobile technology firm iMobile3, has designed a new system that will make mobile commerce easier for those with iOS devices. The new system is being integrated into PassMarket, which was first launched in 2012. PassMarket has operated primarily behind-the-scenes, providing retailers with a way to connect to mobile consumers through their digital wallet applications, such as the Apple Passbook. This platform has initially focused on loyalty programs, but mobile payments are becoming much more common among consumers and people are beginning to look for new services that can meet their needs.

Throughout the holiday shopping season, Blinkbox - a video streaming service owned by Tesco - experienced a massive increase in its mobile commerce sales, to the point that they were considerably greater than their overall online sales. The company reports that its sales through smartphones and tablets increased by a massive 674 percent. That said, including its mobile commerce sales they saw an overall year over year increase in their revenues over the same period ( November 25 through January 5) of 245 percent, when taking all channels into consideration. That said, the increase specifically over mobile devices reflects both …