While marketers are consistently exploring original and innovative tactics to engage consumers, building a narrative via messaging applications is shaping up to become a staple marketing tactic, but the focus needs to be on personalization. Brands such as WetSeal, Universal Studios, Clarks and the Insidious film franchise have all dabbled in in-app messaging to engage and excite social media users, proving the method is an effective strategy in alluring consumers, especially millennials. These brands have pulled in a substantial amount of younger consumers, a demographic that is hard to placate, with personal approaches through messaging platforms. 

In a move to diversify its business, Silicon Valley-based payments and financial services company Square Inc. has added payroll services for small businesses to its roster of products. Founded in 2009, Square markets software/hardware products & services like the Square Register and Square Reader. The Square Reader is a small plastic device which plugs into a smartphone or tablet and reads magnetic stripes. It then uses the Square Register app service which allows individuals and merchants in the United States, Canada and Japan to accept card payments on their smartphones or tablet computers. On the iPad version of the …

Pinterest on Tuesday officially started its foray into e-commerce. The social networking giant has started rolling out a “buy it” button on its pins on iPhone and iPad apps.  It also is launching new shop categories, including "Shop our picks," a curated selection of seasonal goods, and "Shop" for the latest buyable Pins. Pinterest first announced the feature, called Buyable Pins, in early June, and named a few partners, including Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores. In the coming weeks, “pinners” will have access to 30 million products available for purchase from a variety of retailers, including Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, and Nordstrom, along with …

Alibaba is close to pouring in another $600 million for 20% stake in Indian firm One97 Communications, which owns and operates the rapidly-growing mobile commerce platform Paytm. In February, Alibaba's financial arm Ant Financial picked a 25% stake in Paytm. If the deal goes through, Alibaba will own 40% stake in One97, emerging as the largest stakeholder in the Indian startup, two sources familiar with the negotiations told Reuters. The latest funding round would value Paytm at close to $4 billion on a post money basis. An inside source told The Economic Times that Paytm will be Alibaba's play in the fiercely competitive Indian e-commerce market. The Chinese …

As Indian mobile app usage outpaced global app usage, mobile app usage in India grew 131 per cent, as per Yahoo's latest report. Growth in app usage far exceeding its global peers, driven by country's obsession with mobile app shopping, which contributed to 19 per cent of their time spent on their smartphones (second only to gaming, which took 25% of user's time). App growth in Asia stood at 77 per cent. "The shift from e-commerce to m-commerce is accelerating, with Indians engaging wi .. 

As e-commerce players battle it out for buyers’ attention, Amazon India has caught up with Flipkart and overtaken Snapdeal in terms of monthly unique visitors in May. According to data from Internet analytics firm comScoreData, Amazon India had 23.6 million unique visitors in May, edging past Flipkart narrowly. While Flipkart saw 23.5 million unique visitors, Snapdeal had 17.9 million in May this year. An annual comparison shows that Amazon has seen over a 142 per cent jump in the number of unique visitors since May 2014 while for Flipkart, it’s nearly 80 per cent surge. For the same period, Snapdeal …

As Apple Pay gears up to launch in Britain in July, Barclays Bank – one of the region’s major financial institutions – remains an important holdout while ramping up its own wearables-based contactless payments strategy. Barclaycard first introduced the bPay wristband last year and is now adding a key fob, a sticker that can be adhered to a smartphone or other flat surface and a mobile application, enabling users to make and manage contactless payments. While the financial institution is angling for a dominant role in Britain’s emerging mobile payments market, the strategy could be hampered by restrictions on the …

The UK is turning into a leading light when it comes to mobile shopping, with 46 per cent of all online purchases now carried out via smartphones or tablets, according to a new report from Criteo. This means that only Japan has a higher rate of m-commerce usage, allowing the UK to overtake other countries, such as South Korea, to take second place. Moreover, it looks like British consumers love carrying out safe shopping online from their portable devices so much that the proportion of people doing so may soon overtake the current frontrunner. This is because the UK was …