Author: Stephen

Amazon continues showing interest in mobile commerce

| July 29, 2014

Company’s new smartphone may help it better understand the mobile space

As one of the world’s leading digital retailers, Amazon is highly interested in seeing where the e-commerce space is heading. The company has been spending time investigating trends that have emerged in the commerce space, hoping to determine the evolution of commerce and how people are shopping for and purchasing products. Amazon has seen the commerce become more mobile-centric, and this is one of the reasons behind the company’s development of its Fire smartphone.

Amazon Fire will provide more insight into a new era of digital commerce

Amazon unveiled its Fire mobile device earlier this year. The smartphone includes a variety of features, many of which are actually meant to promote mobile commerce and make shopping from a mobile platform easier for consumers. The mobile device is meant to serve as Amazon’s way of understanding how important mobile commerce is becoming to consumers and whether or not it is a simple trend or the way of the future in digital retail.

Amazon is losing money, but is investing heavily in a promising future

Mobile Commerce - AmazonAmazon has announced that it has managed to lose $126 million during the second quarter of this year, but the company’s sales grew by a staggering 23% during the same period, reaching $19.3 billion. Mobile commerce played a major role in higher sales. Amazon is not troubled by its losses, however, because it is investing heavily in the future of commerce through its Fire smartphone and various other ventures.

Mobile commerce is beginning to shape the future of the retail industry

Mobile commerce is becoming a very powerful trend that is dictating the course of the retail industry. Many companies are rushing to engage mobile consumers through new commerce platforms and services, hoping to make a lasting impression on a demographic that is notoriously fickle. Amazon is no different, but the company has been able to leverage its massive following to find significant success in the mobile commerce field. The Amazon Fire smartphone may further establish the company as a major player in the mobile space and a rival to companies like Apple and Samsung.

Lullapalooza to support mobile payments

| July 25, 2014

Major event will utilize wearable technology to allow people to pay for goods

Lullapalooza 2014 will be supporting mobile payments through the use of wearable technologies. The event’s organizer has announced that those attending the festival in August will be able to use high-tech wristbands to make transactions. This represents one of the largest events in which mobile payments and wearable technology are combined. While wristbands with imbedded RFID chips are not something new to mainstream events like Lullapalooza, they are most typically used to grant people access to particular areas and not for mobile payments.

RFID-equipped wristbands will make mobile purchases possible

Plastic wristbands equipped with RFID chips are to be used to the festival. Once a visitor enters the festival grounds, they will be able to use these wristbands as a way to pay for goods at the various stalls at the event. These wristbands can also be used at the events bars and payments are made through the use of mobile terminals that are capable of reading the wristband’s RFID chip.

Festival goers need to upload their financial details to the Lullapalooza website before they can use their wristbands

Mobile Payments - ConcertBefore the wristbands can be used, festival goers will have to upload their financial information into the Lullapalooza website. Once this has been accomplished, the wristbands will be sent out before the beginning of the festival. The wristbands will not only accommodate mobile payments, of course, and will function as a way to monitor festival entry as well. This is one of the more common uses for such wristbands and RFID chips are typically used to admittance more so than for mobile transactions.

Wristbands could make paying for goods at the festival safer and easier

Mobile payments have become quite popular in a variety of sectors, but they are new to prominent events like Lullapalooza. Making transactions easier for festival goers is one of the reasons the event has opted to use its new wristbands. The wristbands also remove the need for people to carry around physical currency, which could cut down on the instances of theft that occur at the festival.