Auto glass repair brand Safelite has launched an improved Web site experience that includes reduced steps and faster functionality to obtain a price quote and schedule an appointment via mobile. The enhancement includes a more visual process to help customers enter the right information to ensure part accuracy, while also eliminating forced bail-outs that require follow-up phone calls. A series of videos featuring Safelite technicians further supports the self-serve capability, explaining what to expect during, before, and after service and also answering common customer questions about vehicle glass repair or replacement services.

A new report from Juniper Research has found that there will be 1.05 billion mobile coupon users by 2019, up from just under 560 million this year. The report, Mobile Coupons: Consumer Engagement, Loyalty & Redemption Strategies 2014-2019, claimed that the surge in user numbers would in large part be driven by increased retailer engagement with various mobile channels, as retailers are now integrating coupons into loyalty programs to a greater extent, while focusing on delivering coupons direct to consumers rather than relying on aggregator sites. 

Apple and Visa could soon announce an alliance in mobile payments, Pacific Crest Securities speculated in a research note Monday. Such an Apple-Visa partnership would be a negative for eBay's PayPal, Pac Crest says. Apple is expected to roll out the iPhone 6 in September or October. "We expect the iPhone 6 to be launched with near-field communications (NFC) and secure element technologies, which would provide Apple with a broad technology portfolio to disrupt mobile payments," wrote Pac Crest analyst Josh Beck.

TD Bank is offering mobile-optimized Web pages for opening an account to meet the banking needs of on-the-go customers. Mobile Account Opening is designed to help consumers opening an account easily and quickly no matter where they are. The optimized Web pages can be used to open checking, savings, money market or CD accounts by accessing TDBank.com using an Android or iPhone smartphone. “‘Prime time,’ or typical usage for a PC, is typically between 9am and 4pm,” said Spencer Jones, head of digital channels at TD Bank. “However, most people live a very busy life and are often not near …

At W.W. Grainger Inc., a Chicago-based business-to-business distributor of office and industrial supplies, mobile apps are big business. And that business is about to grow. Today, Grainger’s mobile app accounts for about 40%—$23.4 million—of the company’s 2014 Internet Retailer-estimated mobile commerce sales of $58.5 million. But within two or three years, Grainger’s mobile app, first deployed in 2012, could account for between 60% to 70% of all mobile sales. Grainger sells products ranging from paper notebooks to power tools and refrigeration equipment that companies use for their own maintenance, repair and operations—a category often referred to as MRO.

More than 2,200 movie theaters are enabling moviegoers to snap pictures of interactive ads in their lobbies and on the screen with their mobile phone and be redirected to shopping sites where they can shop the looks of the characters in their favorite films. Visual search platform Slyce has teamed with in-cinema marketing and media solutions company Screenvision to bring the experience to the theaters, including nearly 400 universities across the United States, through Screenvision’s partner theaters, such as Carmike Cinemas and Regency Theatres.

Times are good, at least potentially, for the two leading manufacturers of stand-alone point-of-sale terminals. The U.S. market is moving to EMV chip card acceptance, and there’s growing demand for terminals that can support advanced encryption and other security protocols to better protect transactions in transit. Yet when looking at what’s at stake for the region’s – and the world’s – two top terminal makers, VeriFone Systems Inc. and Ingenico Group, it seems VeriFone is the most vulnerable, at least in the U.S. Ingenico also recently took on a majority interest in mobile commerce platform provider ROAM as part of a …

With a 3.6 percent coupon redemption rate for a recent mobile coupon campaign targeting competitors’ customers in Providence, RI, Dunkin’ Donuts is expanding the program to new markets. Earlier this year, Dunkin’ Donuts rolled out the program to test the effectiveness of leveraging geofencing around competitors’ locations coupled with behavioral targeting to deliver coupons on mobile devices. The results were promising, with 36 percent of those who clicked on the offer taking some secondary action, 18 percent of these saving the coupon and 3.6 percent of secondary actions resulting in a redeemed coupon.

Mobile commerce company Paytm has opted for the 'quirky route' in its new campaign which features absurd, yet hilarious ways to recharge one's phone. Executed by Contract Advertising, one of the ads has a young girl tapping a man's bald head to get a recharge done, the other ad film showcases a young man who puts his phone under his cat's legs to get an instant recharge. Both end with a voiceover "Shayad recharge karna kabhi itna aasan ho jaye, tab tak Paytm hai (recharging phones may become that simple in future but till then there is Paytm). The campaign seems to have …

Great Britain’s next great e-commerce run up will be powered in large part by purchases on mobile devices, a trend that U.S. merchants can look at with envy or with hopes of learning a thing or two. In some ways, it’s hardly surprising that the UK is seeing such success in mobile, an area that has bedeviled U.S. retailers. While the United States is also seeing dramatic growth in smartphone and tablet adoption, the devices’ popularity hasn’t translated to wild increases in sales on mobile. Mobile sales are expected to make up 19 percent of e-commerce sales in the U.S. 2014, …