Tag: mcommerce

Dozens of retailers have come together to make the unique new shopping app and site.

Tinyview has reported that the mobile commerce element of their iPhone app has become exceptionally popular and that it has built the concept of a smartphone sized shopping mall that is developing into a growing trend.

At the moment, Tinyview is reporting that 90 percent of their app users are accessing this section.

What the company has discovered is that consumers like the idea of being able to use an app for mobile commerce purposes, but they don’t want to have to download applications for every store or brand from which they would like to make a purchase. Instead, they are enjoying the opportunity to be able to buy products and services from a range of different retailers all within a single location.

This mobile commerce concept allowed the idea of the smartphone shopping mall to be created.

The discovery that consumers prefer shopping at many mobile commerce stores through one app allowed the Tinyview startup to develop and has created the smartphone shopping mall which has been steadily growing in its popularity.

By February this year, the startup had both an iPhone app and a smartphone friendly website where consumers could browse, learn more about products, and make purchases from 50 different retailers within a single location. It is essentially a single user interface that is placed on top of a collection of the mobile commerce websites of each of those companies, including big names such as: Target Corp., Walmart.com, Amazon.com Inc., Forever 21, Macy’s Inc., Abercrombie & Fitch, Urban Outfitters, Nordstrom Inc., and others.

To use the mobile commerce mall, consumers choose the merchant they want from among the various available stores. He or she can the search for or peruse the various items available and can keep track of products of interest using a “save” button on the product page. Save lists can be kept through a one-time sign-in to a Facebook account. Those lists can be used for making their own purchases, or they can be shared with family and friends on the social network.

Mobile commerce companies will have an opportunity to prove themselves this year

This year is expected to determine whether mobile payments will become a widely accepted phenomenon or little more than a passing fancy. In 2013, several of the brands investing in mobile commerce solutions will have their platforms exit the testing phase, becoming widely available to consumers around the world. Those that can entice the interests of consumers are expected to thrive, whereas those that are not well received are likely to fail.

Consumers are becoming more mobile

Part of what makes this year so important for the mobile payments sector is the fact that smartphone and tablet saturation is reaching an all time high. More consumers have access to smartphones and tablets now than they ever have in the past. This makes them more susceptible to the allure of mobile commerce. Moreover, media consumption is beginning to favor the mobile space, meaning that more consumers are relying on their mobile devices for their daily content rather than other platforms. For mobile commerce companies, these trends are of vital importance.

Comprehensive mobile commerce services likely to find success

As more consumers begin to embrace the mobile world, large brands are beginning to invest more heavily into mobile commerce. Mobile startups are beginning to be put to the test and those that offer comprehensive and easy to use mobile payments services are expected to beat out their competitors. There is no shortage of competition, of course, as there are literally thousands of mobile applications that offer some form of mobile commerce service to consumers. The trick, however, is finding a business model that is able to capture the support of consumers.

Freemium model shows most promise

So far, the freemium model is among the most successful in the mobile commerce realm. Freemium refers to the practice of offering a free service with the absolute lowest level of features being offered to consumers. Consumers have the option to pay a fee to unlock new features or sign up for a subscription to access all the features that the platform has to offer.