Tag: mobile commerce

UK mobile payments spark innovation and the founding of new companies

The United Kingdom is emerging as a hub for innovation in the world of mobile payments. The country boasts of high penetration when it comes to mobile technology, with a massive number of consumers having access to smartphones and tablets. Several of the country’s largest retailers, including Tesco, have begun embracing mobile payments very aggressively, making mobile commerce much more popular among British consumers. The growing popularity of mobile payments has lead to the emergence of new companies that aim to establish a formidable force in the evolving state of commerce. Droplet is one such company.

Droplet finds success in UK mobile commerce

Droplet is a mobile payments firm, which released a mobile application of the same name earlier this year. The Droplet application allows users to purchase goods and services using their mobile device. Users can transfer funds to others as well, free of charge. Droplet recently closed a successful beta testing phase for the application, wherein it saw significant success in consumer adoption. Backed by this success, the application is heading to London, where it aims to spark a commerce revolution.

Droplet sees major growth through beta testing phase

Commerce is becoming increasingly mobile-centric. Many consumers in the United Kingdom are becoming more comfortable with the concept of mobile payments, making it more likely for these consumers to make purchases directly from their smartphones and tablets. In Birmingham, where Droplet’s beta phase was focused, more than 60 merchants signed up for the firm’s services and more than 2,500 consumers downloaded the Droplet application in order to make mobile payments. In London, Droplet expects to see those numbers rise exponentially.

Mobile payments to become more attractive in London

Droplet will become more than a mobile payments platform in the coming weeks. Droplet Tools is currently in development and will serve as a platform that will enable applications developers to create customized features for merchants. Through these features, merchants will be able to leverage loyalty programs or provide consumers with special offers. The fact that Droplet is fee-free is also expected to attract a great deal of attention from London’s merchants.

The largest American in-mall digital network has now added both the barcodes and the contactless tech.

Adspace Digital Mall Network has just announced that it is installing both QR codes and NFC technology into 140 malls across the United States, within their network, in order to improve the shopping experience.

This new initiative will use the mTAG platform from Blue Bite on the mall Smart Screen.

The new feature will allow clients to view advertising with QR codes that they can scan with their smartphones, or they can tap the screen to activate the NFC technology. The mTAG placard that is located on the side of the Smart Screen units provide a considerably higher level of interactivity for shoppers.

The QR codes and NFC tags will become available to advertisers in the malls as of April 15, 2013.

As of yet, it is has not been announced whether there are plans to expand this QR codes program to the rest of the 206 total malls in the network if it proves to be successful. It is also not yet known whether the company intends to use data collected from the scans, such as the number of successful scans and which campaigns prove to be the most successful in terms of the activity that they generate. It has also not yet been announced whether the use of the barcodes will be compared with that of the NFC technology.

The QR codes and NFC tags are designed to facilitate a number of different types of interactions between brands and consumers. The mTAG experience is meant to be a rich one that offers content such as app, ebook, mp3 and movie trailer downloads, as well as web based games and applications, social media integration, coupons and other promotions, maps, and more.

With the scan of the QR codes or the use of the other mobile features on the Smart Screens, this information can be downloaded or viewed directly on the user’s own device. The barcodes were included because while NFC technology is considered to be the ideal choice for this interactive mall feature, there are still only a small percentage of device owners whose smartphones are enabled with those chips.