Tag: smartphone shopping

Recent Target mobile commerce purchase shows serious interest in tech

| November 19, 2014

The retail giant has now acquired a technology company based in Pittsburgh for its digital shopping experience.

Target Corp. has now taken another step that reveals that the retailer is getting very serious about mobile commerce, as it has purchased a company based in Pittsburgh that is known for its software platform.

The m-commerce shopping platform turns an in-store experience into something closer to Amazon.

The software platform from the company, Powered Analytics, is said to have “an Amazon-like shopping experience,” that can be provided to shoppers while they are within a brick and mortar store location. This could considerably enhance the mobile commerce offerings from Target, and could make it a more appealing experience to shoppers who enjoy the benefits of their smartphones when they shop, but who like to actually make their purchases in stores, as they always have.

The actual purchase of the mobile commerce and shopping tech platform company has been officially confirmed.

Target - Mobile CommerceThe co-founder of Powered Analytics, Collin Otis, along with a company spokesperson confirmed that the business had been acquired by the Minneapolis, Minnesota based retail giant in the second half of last week. That said, by the time that this article was written, none of the terms of the deal had yet been revealed.

What Otis did say was that the Powered Analytics, which was founded back in 2012, will keep its current headquarters, in Pittsburgh. It is the Fabric product from Powered Analytics that has drawn the attention to its door, as it brings together mobile technology with machine learning and location data in order to make it possible for a retailer’s mobile app to be able to work in tandem with the in-store shopping experience for customers.

The system converts in-store shopping into a multi-channel experience that brings together all of the advantages of mobile commerce, but with the opportunity to see and touch the actual physical and purchase it right away without having to wait for it to be shipped. This is appealing to many consumers who are already using stores to check out products while they use their devices to learn more about them, such as where to find the best price or what customer reviews have to say.

Mobile commerce is becoming popular within the Hispanic community

| November 12, 2014

A new research study has revealed that these shoppers are enjoying the opportunities that smartphone shopping provides.

According to a report that has been published by eMarketer, retailers that are hoping that their holiday shopping sales will be better than ever, this year, will likely want to look into targeting more mobile commerce campaigns toward shoppers within the Hispanic community.

The research revealed that Hispanic shoppers within the United States are using m-commerce to buy.

The eMarketer report revealed that in the U.S., Hispanic consumers have a greater likelihood to make a purchase by way of a smartphone or tablet than their non-Hispanic counterparts. The research was conducted in August and showed that 52 percent of Hispanic shoppers had purchased clothing over mobile commerce within the month prior to the survey. Comparatively, only 38 percent of non-Hispanic shoppers had done the same.

That said, there were many other areas in which Hispanic shoppers used mobile commerce more than non-Hispanics.

mobile commerce in communitiesAmong those areas of m-commerce where Hispanic consumers were shopping more included electronics, music, as well as movie tickets. Moreover, making purchases wasn’t the only shopping activity that was conducted over smartphones and tablets by consumers within this demographic. They were also reading reviews of the products that they were considering (53 percent). Non-Hispanics read reviews over mobile devices only 44 percent of the time.

As Hispanic shoppers informed themselves about products they were considering, they also looked into expert product ratings and not just those left behind by other shoppers. Thirty six percent of shoppers within that ethnic background had searched for the advice of an expert when deciding whether or not they would buy an item or service. Among non-Hispanics, that figure was only 26 percent.

Online videos and social media about products were the two other most important areas where Hispanic shoppers were seeking out information when they were considering a purchase over mobile commerce. That said, among all of the American shoppers, regardless of ethnic background, almost half of the participants in the research had made purchases over a smartphone or tablet during the month previous to the study.