Best Buy is driving holiday shoppers back to its stores for repeat visits through exclusive cash-back offers in the Ibotta mobile savings application. The electronics retailer is the first to offer exclusive cash back offers on Black Friday via Ibotta, which rewards consumers with cash for interacting with brands and making purchases. Best Buy first started working with the app last December.

Unilever’s Shield deodorant brand achieved one-to-one engagement with customers by letting them make a free call with a short code that triggered a callback, an audio ad and a coupon offer before the call was put through, driving up to 5,000 calls an hour at one point. The 15-second audio ad included a call to action that gave the caller the option of receiving a discount coupon to buy the product.

Department store chain Neiman Marcus is helping consumers stay in-the-know at select stores during the holiday season through a mobile messaging campaign. Neiman Marcus has deployed iBeacons, which will send messages to consumers who download the store’s passes in Apple’s Passbook application, letting them know about events and offers in-store when they are nearby.

Two guys from Sydney have received an extra $50 million in funding for their ecommerce startup, Bigcommerce, with the company's valuation hitting $500 million. The Series D funding was led by SoftBank Capital, investors in the outrageously successful Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba, with Telstra Ventures, American Express, as well as existing investors General Catalyst and Revolution Growth behind the boost. This brings the company's total funding to $125 million which will allow them to compete in a market dominated by the likes of Amazon and eBay.

The wallet wars are just getting crazier. Google wallet has already spent $400-500 Mn dollars. But if the earlier investment was not enough, Google just pumped in $200K more. A campaign was launched where a Google Wallet user could gain a $5 credit by introducing a friend/peer to Google Wallet. This credit worked if a user sent money to someone who didn’t yet have a Google Wallet Balance.

A new major day in the UK retail industry’s calendar has been identified by analysts, with Sofa Sunday joining Cyber Monday, as a 24 hour period during which more consumers carry out safe shopping online than at other times of the year. Sofa Sunday is set to fall on November 30th this year, but unlike other periods of significant online activity, it is expected that m-commerce usage will be through the roof. The last Sunday in November is a time when people will be really thinking about the Christmas holiday ahead. And because consumers now have access to online shopping …

EBay’s  new location-based mobile application called Close 5 looks to innovate consumer-to-consumer online commerce, an area that is attracting a growing number of competitors such as Threadflip, Classy and others. Close 5 launched this week in San Diego, enabling residents to sell items to others in their area. EBay and Threadflip are leading the way in C2C solutions as technology is enabling consumers to buy and sell in ways most convenient for them

Mobile usage among consumers in the United States is expected to rise during the prime shopping season this year, according to a new report by Criteo. The look at shopping behaviors from the past year determined the data points for this holiday season. On the eve of the holiday shopping season, it is important for brands to understand the trends of shoppers when it comes to online spending among their U.S.-based consumers.

Confidence in mobile commerce is on the rise with almost half (42%) of online consumers completing  financial and travel purchases via smartphones and tablets and over half (54%) booking hotels via mobile devices, according to a joint study by Unique Digital and YouGov. The study, which reviewed consumer use of apps for  booking hotels, car hire, banking, purchasing insurance and flights found the development of mobile has resulted in a quarter of consumers now completing  a quarter of consumers will turn to their smartphone or tablet when finalising a purchase. - See more at: http://performancein.com/news/2014/11/18/confidence-mobile-purchasing-grows/#sthash.SLUSuPQw.dpuf

This year, Groupon has made a number of moves - including the launch of Gnome, Snap, Deal Builder, Pages, and Getaways - to prove that they are more than just a daily deals site for businesses and consumers. Today, they continued this identity shift with the acquisition of Swarm Mobile, a customer engagement platform and analytics dashboard for brick-and-mortars. Through WiFi, Bluetooth, and infrared technology, the San Francisco-based startup helps retail stores connect with and track customers while in-store. For example, with Swarm, stores can send timely, relevant promotions and information directly to a shopper's smartphone. ("Hey Will, it's freezing outside and you're at Old Navy; pairs of long …