Discount retailer Target is driving product sales through colorful images on Twitter and Instagram with a high engagement rate. The retailer’s social media accounts are full of aesthetically pleasing pictures featuring products it sells with a focus on color, especially on Instagram. The Target products are photographed in a unique way with bright hued backgrounds or text and shared on applications with links to shop items. “At Target, we’re always looking for fun ways to engage with guests and deliver great design, newness and innovation, [and] that’s true in stores, online and in social media,” said Eddie Baeb, spokesman for …

Amazon may not yet have the same number or quality of mobile apps that are available through the Google Play store, but it hasn’t given up on being able to become an important competitor in the application marketplace. The idea behind the Amazon Unlocked service would be that consumers would be able to subscribe with a monthly fee and would be able to gain access to a range of different premiumpaid mobile apps, without any additional cost. Moreover, what may make this offer even more appealing to many consumers is that many in-app purchases would also be included with a monthly …

John Lewis today announced it is continuing its hunt for the 10 best retail tech startups in the UK and Europe with the launch of JLAB 2015. JLAB, the 12-week accelerator programme run by John Lewis, is designed to bring innovators together with a large retailer so that products and services can be developed that will shape the retail experience of the future. The program provides startups with the opportunity to get office space and mentoring over the summer, while the winner will also be awarded £100,000 and a possible contract with John Lewis.

Supermarket chain Kroger is tightening the integration between the planning and in-store stages of grocery shopping through new upgrades to the shopping list feature in its mobile application that make it easier to find products. Users of the updated app for iOS and Android can now find even more specific products for their shopping list thanks to the addition of popular items to the predictive text search capability. In addition, shoppers can now sort their shopping list by aisle location in their preferred store.

The service is a big step towards m-Commerce in the local market, where customers would be able to purchase and receive goods and services from their wallets. The service was being launched with National Foods, and would in future be rolled out further to include other suppliers, Econet said. EcoShopper will allow EcoCash subscribers to choose from a wide selection of grocery hampers from the EcoCash menu to be sent directly to the recipient, the company said at the launch. The service was available via the normal USSD menu, a mobile website and an Android application downloadable for free from …

Google’s mission to organize the world’s information is now targeting your physical mailbox. The company is currently working on a project that will allow Gmail users to more easily receive bills in their email inbox instead of their mailbox. Called Pony Express, the service also is designed to let people pay their bills within Gmail, rather than having to go to a telecom or utility company’s website to complete a payment. Those details are outlined in a lengthy document viewed by Re/code. The new service is scheduled to start in the fourth quarter, according to the document. It’s not clear whether …

Fujitsu Laboratories announced the development of a thin, light-weight beacon, weighing 3 grams with a thickness of 2.5 millimeters, that does not require battery replacement or other maintenance and is flexible enough for installation on round objects, corners, and curves. Previously, beacons that did not require battery replacement needed power-supply components, such as power-management ICs and secondary batteries, as control circuits to ensure adequate power on activation. These components, which are relatively thick and occupy a large area, make the beacons themselves rigid and large, limiting locations to which they can be attached.

CBS Local Digital Media launched a new photo gaming application for iOS named Pingo from which different brands across the board will benefit.  Users are compelled to engage with a specific brand for each challenge by completing picture tasks that correlate to the brand.The game features various scavenger hunt-like challenges in a bingo board format in the different categories.

Some bank customers would actually pay to use their lender’s mobile app, according to the results of a new survey – and customers of Charlotte-based Bank of America are the most open to the idea. Research company SNL Financial last week released the findings of the survey, which asked customers of nine large U.S. banks if they would be willing to pay $3 a month to keep using their banks’ apps. Among Bank of America customers, 33 percent indicated a willingness to pay the fee, the highest percentage for any bank. Citigroup customers came in second, at 31 percent. It’s …

Tokenization is a leading driver behind the adoption of mobile payments, according to Visa. The company’s global head of mobile products, Bill Gajda, believes that the introduction of tokenization is making the mobile payments space more secure. As such, consumers are more likely to participate in mobile commerce and businesses are feeling more comfortable about protecting the information of these consumers. More platforms are expected to adopt tokenization in the coming years, with the newSamsung Pay service supporting digital tokens when it launches later this year. Tokenization is a relatively new practice in the mobile commerce space. The process involves attributing …