Self-scanning checkouts in grocery stores have proved only a mixed success, so it's only natural that some supermarket chains now want to create even more "opportunity" for customers to handle the tedious checkout chore themselves.

Kroger, Stop and Shop and Giant grocery chains in the US are in various stages of testing or rolling out handheld wands that you wave at bar codes as you take stuff off the shelves and then bag things yourself in the cart. It keeps a running tally, and — presto! Because most of those nasty traditional functions of the checkout process already have been taken care of, exiting the store becomes almost as quick as swiping your credit or debit card at the cashier.

At least that's the idea, Kroger executives told WCPO in Cincinnati. Not surprisingly, other retailers are testing how to use smartphones to do the scanning, to eliminate the cost and complication of the wands.Continue reading...

The world has gone mobile and PayPal is going with it.

The company is getting ready to introduce a new mobile payment platform and wants merchants to check out the new in-store payments service in a retail setting. To help build awareness and comfort among retailers, restaurants and other local businesses, the online-payment service is opening a pop-up store in New York's Tribeca neighborhood to demonstrate it.Continue reading...

Google Wallet was announced in May—an app that makes your phone your wallet—with Citi, MasterCard, Sprint and First Data. With Google Wallet, you can tap, pay and save using your phone and near field communication (NFC). Following testing, today today Google released the first version of the app to Sprint, with the app available on all Sprint Nexus S 4G phones. Google also announced that Visa, Discover and American Express are joining Citi and Mastercard in signing up for o future versions of Google Wallet.Continue reading...

How much is that doggy bed in the window? Shopkick knows.

The mobile application, which melds in-store and mobile retail, rewards consumers for just walking in, with further deals for scanning partner brand products at more than 250,000 stores across the U.S. 

Launching a year ago this month (it officially turns one on August 17th), its users have surpassed 6.5 million product scans as 12 new major brand partners sign on: CoverGirl, Disney, General Mills, Levi’s, Libman, Mead Johnson, Meguiar’s, Mr. Clean, Olay, Revlon, Tilex and Trident.Continue reading...

Zazum is a small start-up with a big promise: making television shows and movies instantly shoppable via its mobile app.

It’s a new kind of affinity marketing that puts brands in the sweet spot of impulse buying in the moment, as viewers spot and want to buy what they see.

“Unlike television shopping channels that are a string of promotional spots for products—nothing more than long ads—Shoppable Shorts are entertainment in their own right. They are definitely not commercials,” says Zazum founder and CEO Susan Rits.Continue reading...

Barcode scanning increased 800% in one year. No wonder AT&T is eager to own a bigger piece of that business.

Having joined forces on a mobile payment network with Verizon and T-Mobile, AT&T recently beefed up its mobility offering for enterprise customers via a partnership with Austin, TX-based startup Digby.

Now, AT&T is spreading the word that it's ready and able, with Digby's help, to create mobile commerce websites and rich applications leveraging barcodes.Continue reading...

That Dora-esque complaint could be the battle cry from merchants fed up with paying a substantial fee to the credit card companies in return for carrying their card-swiping and transactional business.

The mobile payments market could reach $618 billion by 2016, according to consulting firm Edgar, Dunn & Co., and the battle is heating up. 

Google has partnered with MasterCard and Citigroup to have the Nexus S Android smartphone, developed with Samsung, embedded with near-field communication (NFC) technology to enable purchases with a wave of the device across readers at the point-of-sale or check-out.

It’s the next territorial imperative for m-commerce as the financial-services, technology and telecom industries craft strategies and devices to get more of consumer spending via smartphones which are virtually transforming into electronic wallets.Continue reading...

When Will Robinson and Jacob Krupnick launched Subports in 2009 as a "techie, Brooklyn-based, text-to-buy business," they targeted artists, designers (including fashion label Vena Cava), and record stores (such as NYC's iconic Other Music) as partners for their mobile commerce startup. 

“It’s not designed for bulk buying at Walmart. You can only get one item per text message (except for event tickets),” as Krupnick told Dwell magazine.Continue reading...