Mobile Commerce

PostcardsandInvitations.com has released a new product that creates a more personal connection by combining traditional print with online content. By adding QR codes with templates, the full line of greeting cards, postcards and invitations are more versatile and interactive. Postcards and Invitations is the first company to assist their customers in generating their own QR code.

Jonathan Stark, a programmer and entrepreneur, has decided to try a new social experiment that's circled around the take-a-penny leave-a-penny mantra. After all this talk about mobile wallets and such we’ve seemingly forgot about the mobile Starbucks card application. 

Tommy Hilfiger is offering Glamour readers 20 percent off their next online purchase via a mobile bar code initiative. Glamour is featuring SpyderLynk tags throughout its September issue, where advertisers are placing the mobile barcodes on their static ads to engage readers and offer them deals.

Office Depot announced the release of a new iPhone app designed specifically for its contract customers. The Office Depot Business Solutions mobile application has been specifically designed to bring the brand’s B-to-B website to procurement and administrative professionals within a smartphone device.

Gap is bolstering its mobile presence by placing mobile barcodes on its static ad in Glamour magazine. It will offer consumers a discount when they scan the tag.

This video presents key findings from The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Consumers, a study from Google and conducted by Ipsos OTX, an independent market research firm. The findings come from research conducted at the end of 2010 among 5,013 U.S. adult smartphone users. Google commissioned this research with the objectives to better understand how smartphones are used in consumers' daily lives and how smartphones have influenced the ways consumers search, shop and respond to mobile advertising.

The Sportsman’s Guide, a sporting goods brand in the portfolio of Redcats USA, today announced the launch of a redesigned mobile website, offering a state-of-the-art design that optimizes mobile access to the site, making shopping from a mobile device faster, easier and as convenient as shopping from a home computer.

Verizon Wireless and American Express announced they're partnering to let customers order goods through their phone by typing in their phone number. During the coming months, Verizon will start integrating American Express' Serve, a digital payment and commerce platform, into its phones and tablets. Unlike other initiatives, designed to let consumers pay by tapping their phone to a payment device at a store, Serve will let buyers make online purchases while on the phone.

Cabela's, an outfitter of hunting, fishing and outdoor gear, has announced the launch of its iPhone and Android rich app to complement its mobile-optimized website, which launched earlier this year through mobile commerce provider Digby.

Flush with $100 million in new funding, Square is continuing to grow like a weed in the mobile payments space. The company is now processing $4 million in mobile payments daily and is on track to reach over $100 million in transactions in July. And COO Keith Rabois says that he expects the company to double this volume by October.