Category: Mobile Commerce

This massive retailer is seeking to expand its reach by taking massive steps into mobile.

The largest retailer in the world, Walmart, has announced that it is attempting to use m-commerce technology to enhance the shopping experience that it provides within its stores while it continues to focus on pleasing its customers.

This, according to the company’s global head of mobile, Gibu Thomas, in a prepared statement.

By accomplishing this goal and maximizing the potential that m-commerce has to offer the retailer, Walmart believes that it will generate an additional $689 billion in sales that have been influenced by mobile, by 2016. The company is coming to recognize that the future of retail is about returning to the past values for a personalized experience.

It feels that m-commerce will help it to provide an experience that is customized to each consumer.

According to Thomas, “The future of retailing is the history of retailing — a personalized interactive experience for every customer delivered from a smartphone.” He added that m-commerce tools will be used for addressing the needs of consumers above all else, particularly in terms of saving them time and money.

Thomas added that “It doesn’t always have to be the cutting edge whizz-bang feature to get the kind of impact you want for your customer. It could be simple things that fit their everyday needs.” As 90 percent of the purchases made at Walmart are still occurring within its brick and mortar locations – despite heavy attempts to push its online shopping experience – it is clear that it is the in store experience that holds the greatest opportunity.

Therefore, Walmart is seeking to use m-commerce tools that are “indispensable” to customers for its in store shopping, as opposed to necessarily trying to drive online sales. That said, it is Walmart’s believe, said Thomas, that it will generate $27 billion in revenues over mobile by 2016.

He explained that the company feels that the best way to introduce m-commerce tools to customers is by adding new capabilities into tools that have already been in existence and that have already been adopted by the majority of consumers, such as creating a shopping list.

Latin America to receive new options in terms of mobile payments

Clip, a mobile payments company, has announced that it has successfully raised some $1.5 million in funding recently. The funding will be used to bring the company’s mobile payments services to Spanish-speaking parts of the world. Clip suggests that mobile point-of-sale systems are relatively uncommon in these parts of the world, effectively prohibiting numerous consumers from participating in mobile payments in any significant fashion. Clip expects that in offering its services to Spanish-speaking consumers will encourage these people to embrace mobile commerce.

Clip backed by powerful and useful experience in commerce

Clip itself is a relatively new startup, but the company is backed by talent personnel that have extensive experience in mobile commerce. The company was founded by Adolfo Babaya, whom had worked as PayPal’s Customer Engagement Latin America department in the past. Backed by this experience, Babaya is well equipped to enable Clip to engage a wide assortment of Spanish-speaking consumers throughout Latin America.

Mobile commerce has yet to establish foothold in Latin America

Latin America is a relatively unpopular market when it comes to the matter of mobile commerce. This is somewhat unfortunate given the high penetration of mobile technology throughout the region. Consumers in several countries in this region have shown their interest in shopping online, making use of the various e-commerce platforms that are available to them. Mobile commerce has yet to take hold in any significant fashion, but this is not just due to the lack of mobile payments services. Banks and other financial services firms throughout Latin America have expressed security concerns regarding mobile commerce as a whole.

Consumers expected to embrace mobile payments from Clip

With Clip introducing new mobile payments opportunities to consumers, mobile commerce may be able to establish a stronger foothold in a very economically active region of the world. Consumers are likely to respond well to the introduction of Clip’s services. Retailers are expected to benefit from the company’s services as well, as there are currently very few mobile point-of-sale solutions available to retailers in this part of the world.