TGI Fridays is among the merchants using a new mobile loyalty platform leveraging beacon technology to deliver notifications about special offers and rewards when a customer enters a store. With interest in beacon technology quickly growing, LoyalBlocks has signed up more than 30,000 new small and mid-sized merchants, including Pizza Hut and Subway franchises since the beginning of the year. At the same time, the number of options available to retailers to leverage beacon technology is growing, with Motorola Solutions introducing MPact this week, an in-store loyalty offering using both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

Long sunny days and refreshing foods and beverages were meant for each other, says Starbucks. This is especially true at the ubiquitous java giant, which is bringing unique flavors to customers around the world during warmer months. To help get the word out about everything from its savory new Lcuma Crme Frappuccino to the presumably irresistible Banana Frappuccino, Starbucks is one again going mobile - a territory it knows well and, arguably, has mastered.

Nordstrom has launched nordstromrack.com, a new e-commerce site and mobile app, built on a shared platform with HauteLook, Nordstrom's flash sale business. The new site gives customers access to shop Nordstrom Rack merchandise alongside HauteLook's signature flash sale events. The site experience is designed to offer an integrated way for customers to browse and buy merchandise either through Nordstrom Rack or through limited-time, limited-inventory flash sale events powered by HauteLook. Customers are able to shop both sites through a single login, shopping cart and can combine items into one easy checkout. "Our customers have been telling us for some time …

Cub Foods has upped its mobile and digital initiatives around its My Cub Rewards program so that consumers can find and redeem deals more easily. Cub Foods has added additional mobile and digital coupon options to its iPhone and Android application that can be redeemed in-store. My Cub Rewards members can load coupons and offers that they find online or via the company's app directly onto a virtual loyalty card. "At Cub, we are always looking for ways to make the shopping experience faster and easier for customers," said Luke Friedrich, spokesman at Cub Foods, Stillwater, MN.

Consider the typical B2B buyer: following a hard week at the office, she goes home, maybe binge watches the latest season of House of Cards and spends hours in a consumer's paradise of fun, engaging, anytime, anywhere shopping experiences. On Monday morning, she heads to the her shop, and after her second cup of coffee kicks in, she decides to refill the stick with the required supplies and inventory for the next couple of months. Does she start calling vendors for pricing? Browse the stack of print catalogs collecting dust on her bureau? Maybe fill out an internal procurement form? …

Kwoller is taking the swipe-to-judge gesture that's been popularised by dating app du jour Tinder and applying it (initially) to women's fashion. Swipe left if you hate the shoes, right if you love them enough to buy them. Rinse, repeat. The main competitors to Kwoller are not just other shopping apps, say co-founder Tim Bernal - rather it's competing for attention with the likes of Instagram and Twitter and Facebook, hence its focus on speed and sticky simplicity. If you swipe right an item is added to your 'love list' and the Kwoller koala mascot (selected because koalas are famously …

Qualcomm has been into expanding its payment portfolio through various technological and business initiatives: In December 2012, it upgraded its NFC technology to make it into an ultra-low power consumption product. v In December 2013, Gimbal, the company's beacon brand, was launched and later was positioned well into the market through Qualcomm's Retail Solutions with retail companies like Suja adopting it. v In 2008, the company tied up with Obopay to develop mobile payment solution for the BREW solution. v Currently, in 2014, the company is in the phase of acquiring Firethorn, the m-banking enabler. The NFC upgradation was accomplished …

Mobile commerce firm Paytm is targetting a user base of 15 million by the end of this year on the back of growing smartphone market. "We currently have 7 million subscribers using the application on their smartphones and are targetting to have 15 million by the end of this year," Paytm Founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma told PTI. The company which started by offering mobile recharge and utility bill payments is now offering a full marketplace to consumers on its mobile application available on iOS and Android operating systems. The application will be available on Windows phones by June …

Mobile commerce continues to gain momentum throughout the world as society becomes more reliant on mobile technology. Consumers around the world are beginning to use their smartphones for nearly everything in their daily lives and new generations are coming up steeped in technology of all kinds. This is promising for the mobile commerce market as smartphones are having a sort of revolutionary effect on global economics as well as how people interact with one another and the world around them. MarketsandMarkets, a provider of market research reports, has released a new report concerning the future of the global mobile commerce …

Manish Chandra took a big bet on mobile when he launched Poshmark in 2011. The Silicon Valley-based fashion re-commerce shop opened its virtual doors exclusively on an iOS app. So far, Poshmark's enabled the sale of 1.5 million products solely on mobile, and the company says its users upload $1 million worth of new merchandise daily and raised over $16 million in funding from Uber investor Shervin Pishevar, celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe and Ashton Kutcher's A-Grade investments. Though Kutcher's involvement doesn't necessarily spell success even lack of a Midas Touch can't stem the tide of people using the device in …