Foodland Super Market Ltd recently launched a new mobile app for both iPhone and Android. The app, built in partnership with mobile commerce provider DoubleBeam, debuted on Jan. 29 and has more than 19,000 downloads in the first three weeks. The Foodland app was designed to make the grocery shopping experience more convenient and save customers time and money. Foodland customers can load their Maika'i loyalty cards to their mobile devices, view their Maika'i point balances and track their progress toward earning My Rewards certificates for free product, grocery discount, or HawaiianMiles. In addition, customers can create personal shopping lists …

You open up Glamour magazine at the dentist's office and spot a green leather tote you desire to buy then and there. So you fire up a mobile app that detects the product and directs you to purchase and ship the accessory within a couple of taps. The app is not from Amazon or ShopBot - it's powered by a bank. That's the future of shopping U.S. Bank is envisioning. The Minneapolis bank is creating technology that allows consumers to quickly purchase via a mobile app a product they see in print or on television or hear on radio. The …

The People's Bank of China (PBOC) issued an edict late yesterday that bans two particular things: epayments made via QR codes, and online 'virtual' credit cards. The move appears to hit out at China's web companies, who rely especially on QR codes to make face-to-face, cash-less mobile payments. Tencent's WeChat and Alibaba's Alipay are hit most hard by the new ruling. Both WeChat and Alipay use QR codes for many aspects of in-store mobile payments. Alipay has been using QR and barcode-scanning codes since 2011. WeChat is a relative newcomer as the messaging app has evolved into a sort of …

Bain & Company, a global management consulting firm, has released the results of a new survey that focuses on mobile commerce. Throughout the world, mobile shopping and payments have become quite popular among consumers. These people tend to be quite reliant on their mobile devices, using smartphones and tablets quite frequently in their daily life. The su rvey from Bain & Co. accounts for 25,000 respondents across five countries and aims to shed light on how their view mobile commerce as it exists today. According to the survey, more than half of respondents noted that they were aware of mobile …

E-commerce startup Mulu has unveiled a new mobile application that it calls "The Latest." The application is designed to connect consumers with merchants more adequately by exposing them to products that they may be interested in. The application asks for information concerning what a user likes and uses this data to find products and services that align with these interests. The application can also direct users to content pertaining to their interests, linking to popular news sites and other online media. The application is meant to make it possible for consumers to shop for items that have been mentioned by …

Dr Muhammad Saleem, member commercial of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), has said that the use of mobile banking will help tap 20 percent unbanked people by 2020. Speaking at the 7th International Mobile Commerce Conference, here on Thursday, he said that the impact of mobile financial services by the year 2020 would be more beneficial for the country's economy. "It is expected that it will increase GDP by three percent, create one million new jobs, create upto 600,000 new businesses and increase remittance services by 24 percent at international level," he added. The one-day conference was organised by Total Communications …

Tencent's mobile IM and social network, WeChat, has been growing reasonably well since being launched internationally in 2012. In India, it is being promoted by Ibibo, in which Tencent has a stake. Backed by aggressive promotions, including endorsements by Bollywood actors such as Parineeti Chopra and Varun Dhawan, WeChat is looking to gain a foothold in the Indian IM market. The application, which is highly popular in China and boasts of almost 100 million users there, has a bouquet of m-commerce services, including online payments, a proposed wealth management solution, virtual credit cards, etc. However, the company feels that the …

Wix emerged in 2006 as part of a new generation of startups on a mission to do for website creation what Blogger, WordPress and Tumblr have done for bloggers and content creators. Riding the increasing demand for easy-to-use, DIY website builders, Wix is now one of the largest platforms of its kind on the Web, along with Weebly and SquareSpace. With over 40 million people now using its free web design tools, in November, Wix debuted on the Nasdaq as part of an IPO that valued the company at just under $800 million - representing the largest public offering for …

Outdoor gear and apparel retailer The North Face continues to see strong results from its use of natural language and voice-enabled search, helping its sites across mobile and desktop in several European counties to deliver a 35 percent increase in search conversion rate and 24 percent increase in revenue from search. As mobile use continues to grow, consumers are increasingly looking for streamlined on-site search experiences from their smartphone, which natural language and voice capabilities can provide. The North Face introduced the enhanced search capabilities on its sites in the United States and Canada in late 2012 and to the …

Mobile payments users spend nearly twice as much through digital channels overall than people not buying on mobile devices, according to a survey of 25,000 U.S. and European consumers carried out by consulting firm Bain & Company. However, concerns over security, privacy and convenience keep 80 percent of consumers from changing their payment behavior and using mobile payments, Bain found. The survey results, covering consumers in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany and Spain, appear in Bain's "The Consumer View of Mobile Payments" study. While more than half of consumers on average, and more than 70 percent in Western Europe, are …