The influence points around mobile commerce continue to expand. Mobile commerce is not only about mobile payments, of course, but about the entire path to purchase throughout the Mobile Shopping Life Cycle. Foursquare's announcement that it will send users recommendations automatically is yet another indication that some influence points can materialize at various parts of the path. The idea is that Foursquare will send users who want it proactive recommendations based on the phone's location.

Maybe, just maybe, mobile commerce is having an effect on those traditional, printed circulars. I just came across a rather interesting stat from Catalina, the marketing firm noted for its shopper history database. In a study being released later in the fall, Catalina found that while grocery stores spend as much as 70% of their ad budgets on circulars, they aren't being overly effective these days.

Consumers may not be swarming to mobile payments but they seem to be interested in getting through store checkout more quickly. And before accepting any mobile payment system that may ease the checkout process, consumers want to make sure of its security, at least based on another new nationwide survey. When asked how important security is for checking out using mobile checkout or a cash register, the majority (57%) said it was their top concern, according to a new survey.

While mobile commerce may not be front and center for all merchants, that doesn't mean it isn't happening in a big way and across the board. Mobile shoppers are increasingly tapping into retailers' websites from their mobile devices and it turns out there's a correlation between what's viewed and the viewing device. In a new look at mobile commerce, comScore is delving more deeply into behaviors in an attempt to identify the differences in sales by product category based on device. And this matters, since the researchers found that on a monthly basis, about a third (35%) of the top …

Making a smartphone purchase looks like it's still at the end the mobile commerce line. In a new back-to-school shopping study, location analytics company Placed found that making a purchase was the lowest intended smartphone use. The study reviewed how parents are approaching the back-to-school shopping landscape, including planning, advertising preferences and smartphone usage. When asked how they plan to use their smartphone for back-to-school shopping, deals tops the list, mirroring numerous other studies of mobile shopping behaviors.

There are mobile payments and then there are mobile wallets. As many consumers go about their daily lives, they are hardly pining for either, even if they knew which one did what. Many industry heavyweights, such as banks and credit card companies, are investing heavily in the future of mobile payments, since where it goes could determine where much of their business goes.

There's still some serious distance between the mobile and the physical worlds. On a recent trip through Dallas, I experienced yet another disheartening disconnect. As background, I must confess that I'm a diehard check-in user of Foursquare and have been since the app launched a few years back.I used to get a charge out of earning a new badge for hitting a certain number of check-ins within a category, like a road warrior badge for passing through so many airports within a designated timeframe.

Over the course of three days at the MediaPost Mobile Insider Summit, one of the phrases that came up almost as much as the word omnichannel was geoconquesting, That, of course, is the idea of using location technology to target consumers when they're at or near a competitor's location. The top uses of location-powered media are auto, retail and QSR (quick service restaurants), James Smith, chief revenue officer of location-based mobile ad firm Verve, noted in one presentation.

Mobile shoppers continue to shop everywhere and all the time. In a presentation on the everywhere shopper at the MediaPost Mobile Insider Summit yesterday, we saw yet another piece of evidence of all-the-time commerce. Bill Romania, senior vice president, shopping and retail strategy at GfK, one of the world's largest research firms, laid out some of the company's research from its annual tracking study. It comprises research of shopper insights from 14 countries. The majority (57%) of U.S shoppers say they are less loyal to any one retailer since they shop around more to find the best value, based on …

The first time I bumped into mobile startup Scanbuy was at a MediaPost conference in New York several years ago. After a demo, I had some difficulty getting the QR-code scanning app to work effectively on my BlackBerry (yes, I had one too) and was told by the Scanbuy executive that it worked better on Apple and Android devices. Fast forward to today: no longer a startup, Scanbuy essentially just took over the scanning business of Microsoft. Besides the obvious messages here that mobile startups can win and scanning has legs, it highlights one of the major tenets in mobile …