mobile shopping

In a move to help its partners better serve mobile shoppers, drive revenue, and increase brand loyalty, Billeo, Inc. created the ShopSmart iPad app.

ShopSmart represents a specific browser application that allows businesses to optimize rewards and loyalty programs by layering offers directly into people's search results to alert shoppers when a relevant discount is available. Besides, the application links shoppers to their friends which enables financial institutions to be part of online conversations already happening around shopping and daily deals.

The use of mobile phones to access websites and applications is rapidly growing with 33% of people using their handsets to access a retailer website and an additional 26% saying they plan to access retailer websites or mobile apps by phone in the future, according to a new report from ForeSee Results.

“It looks like more than half of all shoppers will soon be using their mobile phones for retail purposes,” said Kevin Ertell, vice president of Retail Strategy at ForeSee Results and author of today’s report.

Steve Yankovich of eBay who is responsible for mobile initiatives, hopes to make eBay the first place that people look on their phones when searching for a product to buy.

"I want to replace Google as the de facto 'Where do I start,'" he said.

Until the middle of last year, eBay users couldn't make a purchase from their mobile phones. They could bid on auctions, but if they won they had to pay later. There was no option to purchase non-auction items immediately, either.

John Donahoe, eBay CEO, told this week that its mobile application for Apple iPhone has been downloaded 10 million times which might bring $1.5 billion to $2 billion in transactions this year. Donahoe said that the iPhone app was responsible for $600 million in volume last year.

"The digital wallet is going to be a way that will facilitate e-commerce growth," Donahoe said at the All Things Digital conference on Wednesday.

C$ cMoney, a Houston-based technology company, has entered into a strategic alliance agreement with US Dataworks, located in Sugar Land, Texas, to conjointly launch C$ cMoney mobile payment application.

Google launched a new free application called Google Shopper to enable Android phone owners to become smarter consumers. Using the application shoppers can easily look up product specs, check out reviews, and compare prices.

Google Shopper features recognition abilities offered by Google Goggles along with the barcode-scanning feature Google Product Search for mobile introduced in May. Besides, it has also a functionality of some voice recognition.