Taking Amtrak trains to New York or Boston over the years I've watched the gradual inclusion of mobile in the ticketing process. There was ticket purchasing via online and then through the quite functional Amtrak app. By functional, of course, I mean it provides quite accurate train arrival times. Now I wish it could just make those trains not always late, but that's another matter.

While many merchants support various aspects of mobile commerce, most of them say the primary way consumers actually pay ultimately is through a credit card. And the distant second choice is paying by PayPal, according to a new survey. With all the mobile choices available, 63% of consumers prefer to pay by credit card, according to a survey around mobile payments and fraud.

There are consumers who use their phones for various banking activities and then there are those who actively use their phones for banking. The migration of banking to digital over the years has been apparent, with now only a small number (4%) managing all of their banking needs in person at a bank branch or ATM, according to a new survey.

Mobile is inching closer to the halfpoint point of all online traffic but sales are not rising. Almost half (46%) of all traffic originated from a mobile device in the first quarter, up from 44% in the previous quarter, based on the latest in a series of tracking studies.

No matter what anyone thinks is the state of mobile commerce today, the massive number of data points around it can make it look muddled, at the very least. Over the last few weeks, we've received a firehose of mobile research studies showing various aspects of mobile commerce, regarding shopping behavior, mobile payments and revenue measurements. I thought it might be helpful to aggregate some of this research into one place, so here's a roundup of some of the recent research, sorted by percentages, to give you an idea of the direction of at least parts of the market.

While the great majority of consumers prefer to shop in stores rather than online, most of them are doing it with a bit of a mobile-shopping assist. In yet another study looking at in-store shopping behavior, the majority (75%) of consumers use their phones while shopping. Almost all (90%) of those 18 to 35 years old use a phone, compared to 77% of those 36 to 49 years old and just over half (52%) of those 50 to 65 years old, according to a study by InReality.

More shoppers walking by are going into stores and, once inside, are spending more time there. Of total foot traffic, about 1 in 10 consumers enter a store, based on the tracking of mobile phones in and around malls and stores. And once inside the store, shoppers are spending 31 minutes, an increase from 26 minutes in the same month last year.

Even though most consumers prefer to go to stores to shop, online retail commerce is booming. Online sales globally increased to $840 billion as online retailers expanded globally and physical retailers entered new markets through e-commerce, based on a new study. Global online sales, including those from mobile and desktop, will reach $995 billion this year and $1.1 trillion next year, according to the Global E-Commerce Index by A.T. Kearney.

The gap between retailers that conduct a lot of mobile commerce and those who don't is widening. Those at the top of the mobile commerce sphere saw dramatic growth in commerce just over the last three months while the laggards stagnated, based on a new study. The mobile share of commerce transactions of retailers at the top grew from 35% to 38% in the first quarter, according to Criteo, which measured and analyzed 1 billion transactions in 3,000 online retail and travel businesses.

Despite the recent wave of research showing the massive migration of consumers over to mobile commerce, delivering on mobile is hardly at the top of the business menu. While many companies are focusing on customer experience, the issues that mobile shoppers clearly and repeatedly identify as important to them are not top of mind, based on a new worldwide study.