The mobile payments picture continues to evolve with an increasing number of options becoming available, not always from expected sources. Mobile startups like Square and the well-established PayPal have been disrupting the traditional payment landscape for some time. Then along came Apple Pay, finally adopting NFC (near field communication), so anyone with an iPhone 6 could use their phone to quickly pay in the places that accept that form of payment.

Consumers continue to bounce around digital access devices as they shop this holiday season. In yet another indication that consumers are researching many ways before making decisions about what to buy comes a study showing that shoppers are turning to multiple devices while they shop.

Tablet domination of mobile commerce may be coming to an end as smartphone purchasing moves up in the transaction chain. The leadership of purchasing transactions by tablet rather than smartphone has been well-documented by numerous research studies. Now, with larger screen sizes and consistently higher usage, smartphones account for the majority of mobile transactions for retail and travel in the U.S., based on a new study.

Showrooming may be somewhat alive over the holiday shopping seasons but more people are likely to research online before heading to the store. While fewer than a third (30%) of consumers are expected showroom over the holidays, almost half (45%) plan to go online to check out a product before purchasing it in a physical store, according to a new study.

Mobile payments may be on uphill climb. And as if the hill wasn't high enough, along comes a piece of insight showing that most shoppers are totally fine with using their credit and debit cards, thank you very much. While about half (52%) of smartphone owners like the idea of having new mobile payment options for in-store shopping, fewer than a third (31%) plan to use them for holiday shopping, based on a new survey.

The boost in mobile payments may occur quietly as masses of consumers are provided with easy order and payment options from places they regularly frequent. I've long thought that the most successful mobile payment plans would involve places where recurring payments happen. Paying by phone on a one-time basis can be more of a novelty and not add any real value beyond the wow factor.

Stats around the impact of mobile on holiday shopping continue to show increases from months and years past. Mobile traffic is approaching the halfway point with desktop visits dropping below half for the final days of November, based on the latest in a series of tracking studies.

Mobile shopping is coming to a movie near you. Just like the apps Shazam and SoundHound can identify a song in a matter of seconds, there's now an app to do essentially the same thing for some hit movies playing in theaters or on DVD.

While many shoppers aren't using their phones in stores to help them decide what to buy, most of those who do would rather turn to their mobile device than a salesperson for help. While shopping in a store, the majority (58%) of mobile shoppers prefer to look up information on their smartphone or tablet rather than talk to a store employee, based on a new study.

In the world of mobile commerce, all attention has been focused on holiday sales recently. This is understandable, with mobile playing such a prominent role in Black Friday and Cyber Monday online activity. For Cyber Monday, mobile traffic accounted for 41% of all online traffic, an increase of 30 percent from last year, according to the IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark, which is becoming the behemoth in the real-time tracking of online sales.