Mobile Commerce

Catalog Spree will donate 5 percent of all purchases made through the app on Free Shipping Day to Heifer International, which will help those in need around the world. Catalog Spree is the highest-rated catalog app for the iPad and is the only catalog shopping app that offers free exposure to charities who publish catalogs.

On Black Friday, JoS. A. Bank's mobile checkout saw an increase of over 3,000 percent compared to its previous daily average. The exceptional holiday sales demonstrate consumers' growing comfort with purchasing high-consideration goods on their mobile.

Best Buy announced that its third-quarter net income fell 29 percent to $154 million from $217 million in the year-ago period, worse than analysts had expected. The company had 20 percent growth in online sales and 9 percent growth in mobile phone revenue in the United States, along with brisk sales in tablets, appliances, e-readers and movies.

Retailers and manufacturers are pondering whether in a world of augmented shopping via mobile devices we will see a shift away from traditional e-commerce. The evidence shows that m-commerce is arming consumers with a personal shopping assistant and offering new forms of customer rewards, while also providing retailers and manufacturers with valuable digital advertising.

Houston is the nation’s No. 1 city when it comes to “mobile shopping savvy,” according to a new study by the Interactive Advertising Bureau. New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Dallas/Ft. Worth were the other top m-commerce cities among the nation’s 15 largest DMAs.

Verizon — the only official carrier for the Google Galaxy Nexus phone — said it will not support Google Wallet in its phones. Google confirmed that Verizon asked the company not to include the feature in the Galaxy Nexus phone.

Mobile commerce is still small compared to the overall e-commerce market, but m-commerce sales are on a steep upward trajectory thanks in part to increasing adoption of smartphones and rising mobile internet usage, according to a new forecast by eMarketer.

Walgreens is offering holiday shoppers one of the largest mobile-only coupon programs to date from a major retailer. At more than 7,700 locations, Walgreens' customers can bring their smartphones to the checkout to have mobile coupons scanned directly from the device.

Cyber Monday shouldn't change its name to Mobile Monday. At least not yet. As it has in all other areas of retailing, mobile commerce has made its presence felt during the Black Friday-to-Cyber Monday shopping period. Mobile devices are the gateway to retailer websites for 13.3 percent of consumers, and 8.5 percent are using these devices to make a purchase, according to an IBM Benchmark Alert.

eBay CEO John Donahoe told The Wall Street Journal it had a "record" Black Friday but provided no further information. eBay did share its mobile growth rates for Thursday and Friday, some data about which products and categories consumers were shopping, and somewhat interesting data about its Black Friday deals.