Sears’ new 'Back to School, Back to You' campaign offers members of its Shop Your Way loyalty program the ability to communicate one-on-one with a store associate through the program’s mobile app or website. Associates respond directly to individual inquiries. Shop Your Way members can also digitally browse products, create catalogs, poll friends and have kids create wish lists. In addition, the personal shopper feature from Shop Your Way allows members to get free personal shopping advice from shopping experts across a broad range of product categories.

TripAdvisor, a massive travel site and booking platform, is acquiring Viator, a leading resource for researching and booking destination activities. MMW was briefed by sources close to the deal who tell us that Viator now features more than 20,000 bookable tours and attractions and more than 600,000 reviews, photos, and videos submitted by travelers. “Viator will be a great addition to the TripAdvisor family, as online and mobile bookings for attractions and activities represents a huge opportunity for our business,” explains Stephen Kaufer, CEO of TripAdvisor.

E-commerce giant Amazon is all set to release its own mobile-based credit-card reader, according to 9to5mac, which discovered a leaked Staples document referring to the introduction of an “Amazon Card Reader” around the week of Aug. 12, 2014. Amazon has been taking slow, definitive steps toward an opportunity that is 10 times as big as e-commerce. Last year, we learned that Amazon acquired GoPago, which produces a mobile app that enables consumers to pay for goods before picking them up at a store, with the retailer POS processing the orders.

Ecommerce boutique retailer Rue La La has implemented a credit card scanner on its mobile application to further simplify the payment process for members. Much similar to a check scanner on most banking apps seen these days, the tool uses a smartphone camera to photograph the card, alleviating the tedious typing of the 16-digit card number. The implementation reflects Rue La La’s constant push to bring the most innovative technology to mobile shoppers.

Yoox, the official ecommerce partner of Kering, is teaming up with Chinese social communication application WeChat to enhance its consumers’ mobile shopping experience. As part of the global partnership, Yoox created new official accounts for the United States and Italy on WeChat, as well as revamping its existing Chinese account. Tapping into WeChat’s platform for social shopping will allow Yoox to make the mobile commerce experience more personal for consumers, giving access to live chat and messages from the retailer.

Lullapalooza 2014 will be supporting mobile payments through the use of wearable technologies. The event’s organizer has announced that those attending the festival in August will be able to use high-tech wristbands to make transactions. This represents one of the largest events in which mobile payments and wearable technology are combined. While wristbands with imbedded RFID chips are not something new to mainstream events like Lullapalooza, they are most typically used to grant people access to particular areas and …

The Priceline Group Inc. has successfully completed its previously announced tender offer to purchase all outstanding shares of common stock of OpenTable Inc. for $103 per share in cash. The all-cash transaction is valued at $2.6 billion. The Priceline Group expects to complete the acquisition of OpenTable on July 24 through a merger. As a result of the merger, all remaining eligible OpenTable shares will be converted into the right to receive $103 per share in cash. 

The latest study from Nielsen found that consumers who use their smartphones to make purchases in physical stores, prefer to make mobile payments that involve QR codes, and that 45% of the 3,784 respondents said that they use this particular system to check out with their mobile phone. The over 3,700 survey participants were made up of individuals who were 18 years of age or older and who had used their mobile device (tablet or smartphone) for banking, shopping, or paying within 30 days of the survey taking place. 

In a discussion with Amit Goel from Let’s Talk Payments, CEO of LoopPay Will Graylin spoke about the strategic investment they have received from Visa. What are the biggest reasons for Visa to invest in your company? There are three big reasons:  It is the first scalable payment solution that works with existing POS infrastructure. It is believed that consumers are not going to change their behavior and would stick to wallets and plastic cards. Keeping this in mind, LoopPay, as a solution, works towards enhancing customer experience while being in sync with their existing behavior.

Deem, a San Francisco mobile commerce company, raised $50 million from China-based private equity fund Hony Capital. The company led by CEO Patrick Gradysaid it will use the funds to accelerate its network growth, expand globally and make acquisitions. Deem also announced earlier this week that it completed its recapitalization financing but didn't say how much money was involved.