Category: Featured News

PopSugar seeks to leading mobile commerce fashion platform

| February 17, 2016

The company is hoping it will be the shopping cart of choice for completing sales on behalf of retailers.

PopSugar Inc. is now setting its sights on the creation of a form of universal mobile commerce shopping cart that would make it possible for consumers to make their purchases of fashion products through any retailer, all in one digital basket.

The focus on the company’s content has been greatly aimed toward the female market.

As of yet, PopSugar has managed to generate considerable affiliate marketing revenues by way of its ShopStyle business, which provides women with a specialized mobile commerce shopping engine through which they can purchase clothing and accessory products. PopSugar acquired that product in 2007 and managed to drive revenues topping $1 billion for its retail partners in 2015. This, according to the data shared by the founder and CEO of the company, Brian Sugar.

As of April, the mobile commerce experience through PopSugar’s ShopStyle will undergo a major change.

Mobile Commerce FashionCurrently, shoppers use it to find what they want, at which point they are redirected to the retailer websites in order to complete their purchases. After April, users of the m-commerce platform will be able to complete a profile, including their payment information, so they can make purchases all in one place, even when their orders are from any number of dozens of different participating fashion retailers. These will all occur by way of the mobile app and website from ShopStyle.

This move is helped to transform the mobile shopping experience it provides from directing people to the right places, to become an actual marketplace-like location where they can conduct all their transactions without ever having to leave. In order to make this process even easier, PopSugar acquired Cosmic Cart, a mobile shopping technology business. That purchase was made in November 2015.

The current commission that PopSugar gains from every purchase made after a customer has travelled through their mobile commerce experience in order to buy something on a retail site is around 15 percent. It appears as though that agreement will be remaining the same when the new version of ShopStyle is launched, in April.

Retailers have specific demands for mobile wallet adoption

| February 16, 2016

A new ACI Worldwide report has shown that there are two major priorities for these payment apps.

The results of a new ACI Worldwide survey have now been released and, within them, it has been revealed that retailers considering mobile wallet apps are most interested in two major issues: security and the ability to use rewards programs.

That said, between those leading issues, it is the mobile security features that tops the list.

Among the retailers who responded to the survey, two out of every three said that the security aspect of mobile wallet apps is their leading concern. This demand from retailers for mobile payments solutions that provide adequate security should help to assuage some of the concerns that consumers have also expressed with regards to adopting these new types of transaction technologies.

That said, beyond security, there were a number of other expectations retailers had for mobile wallet apps.

Mobile Wallet AdoptionSeventy two percent of the surveyed retailers said that security was their top issue for their mobile commerce apps, in general, but when it came to payments, that figure rose to 75 percent. However, just slightly less – 71 percent – said that they wanted the integration of loyalty options into m-commerce apps, while 55 percent were concerned about that issue with mobile payments apps. Another 55 percent said it was important to be able to achieve seamless ordering through the use of the shopping applications but for wallet apps, that was seen as important only among 46 percent of the respondents.

According to the ACI Worldwide vice president, product line manager, Lynn Holland, in the company’s release on the study, “The proliferation of retail digital channels demonstrates the trend that ‘clicks upstage bricks,’ but even consumers shopping at traditional brick and mortar stores are increasingly using in-store browsing capabilities, which puts the power of information in sales associates’ and consumers’ hands.”

Holland also pointed out that no matter the channel, the results of the research indicated that over m-commerce and mobile wallets, payment security remains a top concern among retailers considering the use of this tech, especially in issues such as point-to-point encryption and tokenization.