MasterCard and PRIME Research have released a new study that highlights consumer behavior when it comes to mobile commerce. The study shows that people are quickly becoming very comfortable with the concept of mobile payments and shopping for products from a mobile device. This is partly due to the growing number of people that have access to smartphones and tablets. This increasing exposure to mobile technology is also causing an increase in the demand for mobile-centric services. The study suggests that mobile payments moved from a lofty concept to actual adoption in 2013. The idea of mobile commerce has been …

As mobile payments slowly pick up, companies such as Square, Samsung Wallet and Venmo are stepping up their mass advertising efforts to raise consumer awareness and drive adoption of their solutions. Square recently launched a series of six new television spots that highlight how mobile payments can help all sorts of consumers, including a music teacher, a surf instructor and a stylist. At the same time, Samsung Wallet has been pushing forward with print ads in Proctor & Gamble's newspaper insert, and Venmo is gaining a lot of buzz with its Lucas campaign.

Bank BBVA Compass recently leveraged beacon technology to help it drive 700 sports fans attending the NBA All-Star Game to visit a nearby booth where they could transform themselves into a virtual bobblehead doll. This is the second time BBVA has sponsored an in-stadium bobblehead station during a sporting event and the first time it is leveraging beacon technology to activate the sponsorship. Mobile users also received a coupon good for 20 percent off a purchase of an All-Star T-shirt at the stadium's team store.

Two of China's internet companies are joining forces against their common foe: Alibaba. Tencent is injecting its also-ran e-commerce units and $215 million in cash into JD.com for a 15 percent pre-IPO stake in the online retailer. More importantly, the two will collaborate on mobile commerce. Both have the same objective: erode Alibaba's dominant market share. Despite being one of China's largest internet companies, Tencent is a marginal player when it comes to selling goods online. The two businesses it is transferring to JD.com have net assets of just 398 million yuan ($65 million) and lost a combined 71 million …

I'm fresh back from Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, and since I posted an infographic before I went, I'd like to bookend the event with another. For the past four years, we've conducted a survey of MWC attendees. This year, we spoke to 300 people about the value and challenges in big data and mobile commerce and the drivers for the next generation mobile networks, i.e. LTE. You can read the press release that summarizes our findings , or just take it all in via the infographic below.

A 1800Flowers executive at eTail West 2014 indicated that initial tests around mobile fingerprinting were successful to the extent that the brand may have underinvested in the technology. Executives from 1800Flowers, Williams-Sonoma and Alex and Ani were included on the "Connecting the Data 'Dots' in a Multichannel World" session about how the brands attribute and track information about shoppers. 1800Flowers tested mobile fingerprinting last year, but now the brand's investments suggest that its investments in the tactic are growing and getting more aggressive in targeting cross-channel shoppers.

When booking a hotel, almost three-quarters of travelers look to a hotel's Web site and mobile application to make a decision, according to a recent report from Magnani Caruso Dutton. The "Seeing Returns: Building Loyalty at Hotels through Digital Customer Experience" report surveyed 1,000 travelers across the United States to learn what digital and mobile experiences they are looking for in a hotel stay. The report also looks at differences between hotel stays for business, for leisure and with family.

Although mobile shopping is on the up, a new report by research firm eMarketer suggests that beauty brands need to optimize their mobile shopping platforms in Europe if they want to profit.

Mobile payments have been on the verge of becoming mainstream for years now. The idea is attractive to people that have become very reliant on smartphones and tablets, but it has yet to take hold with most people. The idea of shopping from a mobile device is very similar to the concept behind e-commerce. Shopping online is, perhaps, one of the most significant trends to emerge in the retail and business sectors in the past decade. In general, however, those that would be considered consumers are warming to the idea of mobile payments slowly. While adoption may be sluggish, interest …

Imagine all the people sitting at their computers buying stuff. Amazon purchases of garbage bags and Canon 5Ds, felted animals on Etsy, Ikea rugs, trampolines from Walmart.com, diapers from Diapers.com, stamps from Stamps.com, etc. That's e-commerce, and it was a roughly $638 billion business last year. M-commerce is different: It's the stuff you buy on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. And we all know it is growing fast. Walmart's head of digital innovation told me that, last year, more than 50 percent of the visits to their website were coming on mobile devices. Last night, newly minted investor Om …