Facebook has announced that it will be shutting down its Facebook Gifts service in August. This service had allowed the social network’s users to purchase and trade gift cards from businesses like Starbucks and Fandango. Shutting down the Gifts service will result in no layoffs, as those working on this service will have their attention refocused on Facebook’s Buy initiative. Earlier this month, Facebook unveiled the Buy Button, which is meant to promote mobile and e-commerce. Facebook Gifts was launched in 2012 and was moderately popular among the social network’s users. Gifts and the Buy Button will serve a similar purpose that makes the …

Samsung Electronics is actively seeking to get into the Online-to-offline (O2O) business. O2O is an emerging business model combining online shopping and front line transactions, and global IT giants are eyeing the worldwide O2O market. The local O2O market is estimated to be 300 trillion won (US$291 million). According to industry sources and sources in Samsung on August 4, the company has decided to make inroads into the mobile commerce market using location-based services as part of its O2O business. The firm also established a strategy to expand trial services.

Amazon conspiracy theorists… you’re probably right about Jeff Bezos’s motive for entering the smartphone race. In a day when your smartphone needs to do everything possible but, well, have the ability to make a phone call (who does that these days?), the Amazon Fire Phone clearly is a device to drive its users to buy more from Amazon. UserTesting set out to answer one question: Could Amazon’s Firefly be an experiment? 

GameStop is attempting to fight back against Amazon and other online players by introducing real-time brand promotions, information, ratings and reviews to smartphone users directly in-aisle via beacons. Consumers who use GameStop’s mobile application this month in select Texas locations will trigger the transmission of expert content, relevant data and more when browsing a product area that interacts with Shelfbucks beacons.

An Israeli startup, Pronto.ly, is working on a technology that involves the use of high-pitched soundwaves to establish a contactless connection between two devices. It is being portrayed as an alternative to NFC. The technology requires only that the devices be embedded with a built-in microphone and speakers. No actual data transfer is involved; the technology simply uses ultrasound to identify and authenticate devices within proximity. The data transfer between the devices can then take place through cloud-based backend technology.

Anup Gupta, an information technology executive who uses radio cabs for airport transfers, was quick to spot a deal. TaxiforSure.com was offering a discount of Rs 50 on all bookings done through its mobile application. Gupta was quick to download the app on his phone, and now uses it every time he wants to book a cab. Businesses in India, especially e-commerce firms, are waking up to the potential that mobiles offer in this country and are pushing their mobile applications to smartphone users. Several e-commerce firms - Myntra, OLX, Quikr and Ola Cabs, to name a few - have …

One of the most attractive aspects of mobile commerce is its convenience. Smartphones and tablets let people make payments for goods and services wherever they happen to be at any given moment, and these people don’t even have to use a credit card or any kind of physical currency. Many mobile commerce platforms have been able to thrive because of their convenient nature. In the advent of wearable technology, that convenience could be taken to a new level.

Regional and community banks are advancing their mobile capabilities with new features that are helping them catch up to – and sometimes leap past – their larger counterparts as they react to customers’ mobile lifestyles. Features such as person-to-person payments and remote check deposits were not long ago solely the purview of larger financial institutions and online-only banking enterprises.

Not long ago retailers were afraid that showrooming would gut in-store profits, but now the implications of the trend seem to have reversed, according to a new report by L2 and RichRelevance. Unlike “showrooming” where consumers let in-store prices duke it out with discounted online prices, “Webrooming” occurs when consumers research online before shopping in-store. 

The number of Brazilians using mobile devices for purchase of products and services has skyrocketed with an 84.2 percent increase over the last 12 months, according to recent research. In June 2013, mobile transactions represented 3.8 percent of the total e-commerce pie in Brazil — by June 2014, that number had gone up to 7 percent. During that period, 2.89 million transactions were carried out, the equivalent to R$1.13bn ($497m), according to the report WebShoppers by consultancy firm e-Bit.