Loyal customers tend to like mobile apps. However, loyalty marketers seem to be a bit behind when it comes to using mobile for reward delivery. After all these years of mobile marketing, it would be expected that retailers had developed solid mobile relationships with their best customers.

While consumers continue to make the most of their retail purchases in physical stores, the influence of mobile along the way has been well documented. And for customer journeys across a range of industries, retail dominates in terms of engagements in a range of channels, based on a new study.

Big league mobile payment ventures aren't having a particularly good time these days. Major ventures by monstrous business entities just haven't been able to crack the mobile payment code. First it was Softcard, the failed mobile payments venture of Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile, which called it quits early last year.

Retailers trying to sell something to mobile shoppers better be using photos of their products. They also should expect that those shoppers are using their phones to do research and checking to make sure they're getting the best price. In addition, there better be a mobile-friendly version of the website, since many more mobile shoppers are going there rather than to the retailer's app, according to a new study.

There are mobile payments and then there are mobile payments. While various mobile payment providers have been trying to entice consumers for years to use their phones to pay, it just hasn't been readily adopted by shoppers who can just as easily use cash or credit cards. Of course, many mobile payment options require that merchants update their point-of-sale equipment to be able to handle mobile, which has been gradually happening around the globe, though a slow, tedious and expensive process.