Category: Mobile Commerce

Mobile payments iPad app accidentally released by Groupon

| May 16, 2013

Groupon - Mobile Payments App AccidentThe application had been available in the Apple App Store for a few hours but was then removed.

Groupon made dozens of mobile payments headlines, this week, when an app was released for the iPad at the App Store and that looked as though the company would be taking on Square in direct competition, but it the application was soon removed from the website altogether.

This has lead many in the industry to believe that the app was released prematurely.

The iPad mobile payments app had been called the Groupon POS. This looked as though Groupon was declaring itself ready to jump into the tablet transaction arena. The apparent launch of the app spawned a great deal of confusion, as there had not been any form of official announcement to accompany the release.

Though the mobile payments app was clearly live at the store though the company had been silent.

This didn’t stop the Groupon mobile payments app from being noticed, downloaded, and reviewed by a solid handful of people, who have already formed opinions about it, even though it has been removed from the App Store. So far, the consensus on the app that may not be its completed version, was that it is a simple and attractive way to manage business transactions and accept payments at rates that are lower than the competition.

Users found that it was extremely simple and fast for a company to be able to set up its offerings, and that the checkout process should be possible within a matter of seconds. Real-time analytics can be instantly viewed, to allow companies to keep a close eye on how things are doing from one moment to the next.

The Groupon POS mobile payments application can also work with an optional printer and cash drawer, for businesses that are looking for greater simplification and automation of their point of sale. Reviewers have been able to identify a wide variety of different uses for the app and the service, for a broad range of different types of merchants, from cafes to hair salons, and from florists to delis.

M-commerce is an important contributor to online shopping

| May 16, 2013

infographic-april-062An infographic released by Shopzilla has indicated that smartphones and tablets having a meaningful impact.

In the official launch of Shopzilla Inc.’s new monthly online shopping research initiative, the company has published an infographic that has pointed out a number of key trends, including the importance that m-commerce is having to the sales that are being made over the internet.

The first issue of this monthly report is the start of the tracking of key shopping trends online.

The data presented in this e- and m-commerce report and infographic is based on a survey that was conducted directly following purchasing from the Bizrate Insights Network. That network includes more than 5,200 American and Canadian online retailers. This study data was collected from April 24 through April 30, 2013 with the participation of more than 9,000 buyers.

Among the findings of the online and m-commerce trend survey which were included in the infographic were the following:

There were a number of surprising trends from consumers over various e- and m-commerce channels, such as:

• More sales were driven by emails from stores than magazines, Facebook, and blogs and content sites.
• Though desktops continue to lead the way (used by 85 percent of the respondents), 11 percent of the online purchases came from an iPad tablet device. This figure was 20 percent for those with HHI $150K+.
• iPhones performed far less than their Apple tablet m-commerce counterparts, with 2 percent.
• That said, Android phones performed equally to iPhones, at 2 percent, but Android based tablets were far behind iPads, at less than 1 percent.
• Tablets and smartphones based on other operating systems both came in at less than 1 percent.
• Among the respondents, 75 percent said that price helped to influence their buying decisions.
• The respondents said that they’d rather spend than try to be frugal in 28 percent of the cases.
• Thirty one percent felt that they would be spending more in the month following than they did that month.
• Seventeen percent of online purchases were made from the workplace.

The complete findings of the Shopzilla study are available on their website.