Executives with youth apparel retailer Pacific Sunwear of California say they will prioritize improving online and mobile sales in the year ahead. On a recent analyst call discussing the company’s third quarter earnings, CEO Gary Schoenfeld says the company will focus improving its web business—particularly its mobile sales—in the new year. Pacific Sunwear is No. 306 in theInternet Retailer Top 500 Guide. “I don't think we are executing online as well as we can,” Schoenfeld said, according to a transcript of the call from Seeking Alpha. “We do recognize our consumer lives more and more through these different channels. 

Yahoo Style has dipped its toe into e-commerce with the launch of shoppable gift guides, the first of which features picks by Joe Zee. It’s the latest glimpse into a broader strategy by the tech giant and its chief executive officer Marissa Mayer to gain relevance and grow revenue via original content and an offering Zee said gives the online magazine an edge over traditional print media. “Gift-giving can be tedious and can be hard and sometimes you don’t even know where to start, so for me, editorially, this was a no-brainer,” Zee said.

Seoul-based Coupang, an online retailer, announced today that it has raised an impressive $300 million in new funding led by BlackRock Private Equity Partners, with participation from Wellington Management Company, LLP, Greenoaks Capital Management, and Rose Park Advisors. In an interview with TechCrunch, Coupang’s founder Bom Kim says that the capital will be invested in two key areas: the technology behind its mobile apps, which generates 70 percent of Coupang’s revenue and 80 percent of its total traffic, and its logistics network, which can provide delivery within the same day (or several hours in some parts of South Korea).

On Monday in Washington D.C., as the 2014 mHealth Summit commenced, mobileStormFounder and CEO Jared Reitzin announced the launch of a newly-formed healthcare-focused spin-off called mPulse Mobile. In an effort to address the new challenges and opportunities in healthcare communications, this mobile communications startup “will focus on helping health plans, hospitals, pharmacies, wellness companies and exchanges better engage their consumers and tackle some of the most expensive and complex challenges impacting the nation’s health.”

Volkswagen China has collected more than 300 qualified sales leads in just 10 weeks through branded mobile games. The gaming series Sports Car Challenge contains an in-game link that connects potential customers directly to Volkswagen CRM agency. Through an interactive experience, Volkswagen use mobile to turn fun into direct conversion.

British department store Selfridges is building awareness for its in-store helpers this holiday season through a gaming effort. Selfridges’ “Elfridge and the Enchanted Forest” game, available on desktop or as an application for Apple devices, allows the consumer to play as one of the retailer’s in-store helpers to save Christmas. 

Papa John’s continues to be a force to reckon with in mobile ordering with its digital and mobile channels recently reaching a new milestone to account for more than 50 percent of sales in the United States. Papa John’s claims to be the first brand in its industry to surpass the digital and mobile sales milestone.

While some consumers have already started shopping over mobile commerce and many retailers and restaurants have been jumping on the bandwagon to provide apps to make that process easier than using the mobile web, recent research is starting to show that this may not be as safe as some think in terms of keeping sensitive data protected. illions of people across the country are now using various types of mobile commerce apps to be able to research products, find deals, compare prices, and even pay for the purchases that they make online or in-store

It’s not easy to describe what Melbourne-born startup Localz does without making it sound a bit sinister, but here goes. Say you have bought a microwave on Click & Collect and you head to the store to pick it up. On arrival – provided you have agreed to receive correspondence – a jolly message will ping on your smartphone: “Welcome! Would you like to pick up your microwave?” If you answer yes, another message will tell you when it will be ready. If there’s a wait, you may be offered a complimentary latte. Eventually, the process will become so streamlined …

China is going through a mobile commerce boom. As per a recent report by Alipay, 54% of the total transactions on Alipay, during the first ten months of this year, were from mobile devices. The Alibaba-backed payments service handles more than 80 million transactions per day. Last year, mobile oriented transactions had accounted for only 22% of all the payments. Alipay has over 300 million registered users and over 190 million downloads of its wallet app. This year, China witnessed mobile internet access overtaking desktop internet access as well. Interestingly, according to the report by Alipay, differing trends were observed …