Many marketers were taken by surprise last year by the velocity and depth of new mobile shopping habits. But consumers may still be far ahead of companies that have been scrambling to catch up for this holiday.

The latest Borrell Associates research on SMB adoption of mobile marketing shows that those companies that dabble one year tend to double down the next.

Maybe mobile is about taking what look like small steps. As I listened to a keynote presentation at MediaPost's OMMA Mobile conference in New York this week, it became apparent that in many cases it can be the little things that can count most.

Mobile devices are not just changing the purchase path for consumers. They are recasting the roles of retailers and shoppers in the buying process.

Mobile is beginning to take center stage in financial services in Latin America. After addressing hundreds of IT and banking executives from throughout Latin America at their annual meeting in Panama last week, several executives brought up the issue of who will dominate mobile payments in the future.

Mobile code scanning for scanning's sake is so 2010. Creatively engaging that interested user after the activation is finally becoming more common.

It is not just the volume of expected purchases made via mobile, but rather the complex number of consumer behaviors that comprise the new shopping experience.

One of the earliest merchant adopters of foursquare check-ins, Tasti D-Lite has learned to get beyond harvesting local social behaviors. Surprise your loyal customers, listen to their feedback, and you may catch them doing victory dances at retail.

The impact of mobile on retailing extends well beyond the in-store experience. Much of the current research focuses on the effects of "showrooming" as well as its impacts. For example, 40 percent of mobile users use their device to price-shop while in the store, according to ExactTarget. GroupM this week also addressed the practice in a new report that similarly found that 44 percent of customers use mobile to shop in-store.

Despite the hundreds of thousands of apps now in the market, users and marketers can break most of them down to about ten key types of functionality and role in everyday life.