Category: Apps

Snapdeal is showing rapid growth in its online sales over smartphones and tablets.

The Indian shopping marketplace, Snapdeal, has seen quite the difference over the last year in the percentage of online sales that is being brought in through mobile commerce as opposed to using a personal computer.

This most rapidly growing shopping site in India had seen only 5 percent of its $400 million in sales from mobile shoppers in 2013.

This year, the annual gross merchandise volume broke the $1 billion mark, according to Kunal Bahl, the company’s CEO, and mobile commerce is now accounting for 60 percent of its sales. Clearly, this is a tremendous rise in the share of the sales that are coming from smartphones and tablets in India. That said, this is a trend that is being sought after by online marketplaces around the world, including the giants such as Amazon.

Amazon recently revealed that it would be investing an additional $2 billion into its mobile commerce marketplace in India.

Equally, Flipkart, which is a privately held company, has announced a similar investment of $1 billion. Snapdeal has also been speaking informally with American bankers about the opportunity for an IPO in the future.

This is a clear indication that when it comes to the Indian online shopping marketplace, m-commerce is starting to play a very important role. Moreover, this type of insight suggests that retailers that want to remain competitive will need to make sure that they are providing a strong mobile optimized experience so that consumers can shop over their favorite devices.

There has been some hesitation among certain companies, simply because there is risk involved. This remains a relatively immature market, as much as it has been taking off rather quickly. That said, because the trend is clearly showing that people in India are more than willing to make purchases on their smartphones and tablets, it is becoming increasingly evident that this is a channel that is likely to stick around and only become increasingly important, as opposed to being a passing fad.

Mobile commerce is soon to be a highly competitive and meaningful market and companies that fail to keep up may miss out on a considerable opportunity.

The new mobile application for consumers and businesses is powered by Google.

Jiveocity is an interactive social networking mobile app that utilizes geolocation technology, giving consumers the ability to view and interact with each other at any location and also enabling businesses to send out direct messages to any user who is within 200 feet of the business establishment.

The location based social networking app provides both types of users with many convenient options.

Being a dual app, this allows Jiveocity to provide both consumers and businesses with the power to use social networking to its full potential. For consumers, this means interacting with one another when they are out and about in any bricks and mortar location and having the ability to take advantage of offers sent to them by companies within their vicinity and communicate with them, as well. For business users, they can attract potential customers to their establishments by automatically sending out offers, promotions, etc.

More specifically, how Jiveocity works for consumers is it lets them see who else may be in the physical building with them. They can send greets, messages, friend requests, go invisible for privacy, join friends’ locations, establish favorite locations, and even join any location’s chat room.

As for businesses, the dual location based social networking application gives these users the ability to view who is at their location and enables them to contact consumers who are up to 200 feet from their establishment. They can send videos, photos and coupons. Also, company’s can broadcast their live cams and chat with customers using the Jive chat rooms.

The geolocation app aims is aiming to take networking to a whole new level.

According to the Kickstarter page for the Jiveocity mobile application, one of the developer’s goals is “to increase social networking by allowing users to easily and securely connect with one another in any real-world establishment.” Jiveocity’s head of product development, Thomas Hines, has called the app “a method of networking that will change the world.”

Currently, the geolocation social networking mobile app can be downloaded for free at Google Play and on iTunes.