Research firm yStats has released a new reportconcerning digital commerce in Europe. The report notes that clothing has become the most purchase physical product in many European countries, including the United Kingdom, Spain, and Italy. In some countries, clothing stands out as having the highest sales volume of any other product category and this category represents the majority of cross-border purchases being made on the Internet. The report also notes that mobile commerce has helped make this possible. Retailers have begun to focus more heavily on the mobile space, launching new strategies that are designed to engage a new generation of …

Target continues to build its mobile prowess both in-store and online, as reflected by the retailer dropping its free-shipping minimum to $25 and newly revealed results showing that 25 percent of shoppers used its in-app product location maps during the holidays. The new shipping threshold is effective immediately and comes on the heels of positive customer response to the retailer’s free shipping options during the holiday season. Guests that prefer to shop online or via mobile devices will likely take advantage of this offer during sale times or seasonal events, while Target also ramps up in-store sales via the new …

One prominent online activity during the Spring Festival or Chinese New Year holiday in China was massive distribution by various e-commerce operators of virtual red envelopes of money or hongbao, which attracted the participation of 810 million person/times at its peak time of 22:34 on Feb. 18, Chinese New Year's eve. Despite the hefty sums paid for the campaign, e-commerce operators have cultivated via the campaign large numbers of potential customers, both individual and corporate, for their mobile payment service, according to news website www.ce.con. The familiarity with mobile payment will facilitate further development of mobile e-commerce, a burgeoning sector …

In September 2014, Jane.com, a daily deal e-retailer that specializes in apparel and accessories for women and kids, integrated into its Apple iOS universal app for smartphones and tablets one-touch checkout capability for consumers using PayPal or the Venmo mobile wallet. The merchant simply grabbed the one-touch software development kit, or SDK, from the firm that handles its online and mobile payments, Braintree, and integrated it into the code of its universal app. That month, about 10% of Jane.com's total sales stemmed from the app. By year's end, during the busy holiday season, sales via the mobile app peaked at 35% of …

Within the next two years, approximately 300 percent more retailers plan to deploy mobile point-of-sale tactics into in-store strategies, according to a new report from Boston Retail Partners. After slowly coming to terms with the importance of mobile in a bricks-and-mortar setting, retailers are now embracing the opportunities this technology presents. Mobile devices have become omnipresent in the lives of consumers and have had a significant impact on retail and the shopping experience, causing retailers to adapt to catch up with modern behavior.

Pizza chain Little Caesars is parodying how some of its competitors are putting a big focus on mobile technology in a new television ad that also pokes fun at the staged technology launches for which marketers such as Apple have become known. In the commercial, the pizza chain tries to undercut the significance of online and mobile ordering and voice command technologies by reintroducing the idea of walking into a store and picking up a pizza in an ad that uses satire and comedy to make a connection with consumers. 

Bendigo Marketplace shopping centre is planning to expand its use of beacon technology after a successful family-oriented marketing campaign last month triggered new levels of customer engagement and foot traffic. The shopping centre initially started working with proximity marketing consultancy, iProximity, on a trial beacon technology last year using retail offers delivered via its HelloLocal mobile app offering, marketing manager at Colliers International, Dannielle Downs, told CMO. The HelloLocal app is a white-label app which rebrands itself based on where it is being used and can be used for retail offers, communications and more.

The rollout of the Beam Wallet contactless experience begins in the UAE, with more than 1,100 retail outlets now operating Beam Beacons at checkout.  Fitted with the latest BLE technology, iBeeks Beacons supplied by BluVision offer immediate engagement with the more than 100,000 customers already registered with Beam Wallet, by sending a passive alert to the retailer’s point of sale (POS) system notifying of the customer’s presence in store. The consumer receives a personalised notification through their Beam Wallet app, welcoming them and highlighting dedicated offers and immediate rewards available. Payment transactions are simple and streamlined, and contactless for both …

Recognizing that smartphones are becoming the go-to device for making shopping lists and finding deals, Target recently beefed up shopping list features in its mobile application with a bigger focus on deals and offers. The mass merchant updated its iPhone application with the new features last week as a follow-up to the app’s relaunch last fall, when lists were featured prominently. The latest update includes the ability to add Cartwheel offers directly from a list in the Target app.

According to research and advisory firm, Gartner, mobile data traffic will grow 59% this year. With the global population increasing at around 1.14%, this figure shows how much more data mobile users will be accessing over the course of this year and how dependent more and more people will become on mobile data. Gartner released the mobile data projections and other related data in a Q&A style release which featureda its research director, Jessica Ekholm. Among key trends highlighted by Jessica include the fact that mobile apps will be the biggest driver for the growth in mobile data traffic this …