According to recent figures released by Strategy Analytics, 2014 marked significant milestones for the mobile industry. Global annual shipments reached 1.28 billion devices from OEMs to retailers and carriers for sale, and Android-based smartphones captured 81 percent of the worldwide market, accounting for more than one billion handsets. Android has become the first platform to surpass the one billion mark for shipments. Apple captured 15 percent of the market last year, shipping 193 million units. Continue reading Android Dominated in Global Smartphone Shipments Last Year

While Amazon may be best known for its fast delivery and massive product selection, the Seattle-based company has also devoted a great deal of effort to offering one of the best refund and return policies possible. In fact, Amazon currently leads all e-commerce retailers when it comes to cash back for items returned. Where some companies take days, even weeks to reimburse customers for returns, Amazon takes an average of 1.3 days, according to a new study by StellaService Inc.  Continue reading E-Commerce: Amazon’s Return Policy Jumps Ahead of the Pack

The NPD Group reports that awareness and satisfaction of UltraViolet is on the rise with American consumers. According to NPD’s “Digital Video Adoption Monitor Report,” 44 percent of U.S. consumers have heard of UV or recognize its logo. That marks a nine percent increase over last year. Consumers pointed to DVD and Blu-ray packaging as the primary source for raising awareness. NPD notes that 91 percent of current UV users indicate they are satisfied with the service, up eight percent from 2013. Continue reading UltraViolet Awareness and Satisfaction on the Rise, Says NPD

Major stores including Walmart, Gap, Rite Aid and CVS will no longer allow the use of Apple Pay. Instead, these companies are trying to push their own app, known as CurrentC, which would enable customers to pay directly with their checking accounts. CurrentC would save the retailers money on credit card transaction fees, but consumers seem to have already adopted ApplePay. In the first 72 hours of the Apple Pay launch, the service registered one million credit cards. Continue reading Retailers Block Apple Pay Despite Early Popularity with Users

Apple and Amazon, two of the world’s most successful retailers, find themselves struggling in today’s market to increase the sales of books, movies, music, and games because of a shift in consumer priorities. It seems that consumers no longer want to buy media; they want to rent it. The two companies can be considered largely responsible for creating the problem because they made it so easy to rent books and stream music that consumers didn’t feel the need to buy media anymore. Continue reading Consumers Transitioning from Purchasing to Renting Media

Artec, a Luxembourg-based 3D scanning company, began shipping 3D body scanners that capture every detail of individuals before allowing users to order mini replicas of themselves. The Shapify Booth, featuring multiple rotating scanners, captures the image in around 12 seconds. During a one-week test, 1,000 people were scanned so that replicas could be created. The results led to the Walmart-owned U.K. supermarket chain Asda to purchase 10 booths, which cost $180,000 each.  Continue reading Artec Ships 3D Body Scanning Booths for Replicas and More

In an era of system hacks becoming more common, JP Morgan is the latest to report a massive breach of customer information. While the company believed a few weeks ago that only one million accounts were affected, it now reports that 76 million households and 8 million small businesses were part of the data breach. While recent breaches have largely involved retailers, some analysts are more concerned about the JP Morgan case, especially since banks tend to have more sensitive data about their customers. Continue reading Why Analysts Are Concerned About the JP Morgan Data Breach

The Alibaba Group, China’s leading e-commerce operator, raised nearly $21.8 billion in its initial stock sale yesterday. While not the biggest initial public offering to-date, Alibaba did have one of the strongest stock sales on record, surpassing those for Facebook and General Motors. When it begins trading today on the New York Stock Exchange, it is poised to become one of the world’s most impressive Internet powerhouses, a compelling blend of Amazon, eBay, Google and other tech giants. Continue reading Alibaba Raises $21.8 Billion in IPO: Ready to Take On Google

E-commerce company eBay will launch a mobile ad network by the end of the year, allowing advertisers to target the 4.6 million daily users who spend an average of 150 minutes on the eBay app per month. Because eBay account holders have a single login assigned across their various mobile devices, the ad network collects data about user activity, including shopping habits. Triad Retail Media has partnered with eBay to place the ads across a variety of smartphone and tablet platforms. Continue reading New eBay Advertising Network to Capitalize on Mobile Users

Twitter has announced its trial run of a “Buy” button on tweets, which enables users to make purchases directly from their Twitter feeds. So far, Twitter has announced that it will test this new feature with a variety of retailers, nonprofits, and musicians, but movie purchases may not be far behind. Fandango, for example, has already launched a “Twitter Card” feature, which redirects users to the Fandango site so they can buy movie tickets. The “Buy” button is currently being tested by a select number of Twitter users. Continue reading Make Purchases from Your Twitter Feed with New Buy Button

San Francisco-based startup Shyp — “the easiest way to ship anything” — is aiming to simplify the shipping process. Rather than packaging an item and finding the cheapest company to ship with, the user simply takes a picture of the item to be shipped and adds the address. Within 20 minutes, a Shyp courier arrives to pick up the item and hands it off for another person to do the work. The app is meant to be a cheap and efficient way to ship items without doing any work. Continue reading New Shyp Service Reimagines How We Package and Ship Items

Apple plans to turn its new iPhone into a mobile wallet via partnerships with various banks, payment networks and retailers. The company has agreements with Visa, MasterCard and American Express, according to a person familiar with the plans. The new iPhone, expected to debut at Apple’s September 9 press event, will reportedly make mobile payments easier with a new NFC chip and the company’s Touch ID fingerprint reader. A mobile wallet could help keep consumers within the Apple ecosystem. Continue reading Will Apple’s New iPhone Help Pave the Way for Mobile Wallets?

LiketoKnowit is a website that allows Instagram users to easily locate items, such as clothing and jewelry, in an Instagram post and then purchase them online. After signing up on the website, whenever a user “likes” a post on Instagram that links to “liketoknow.it,” they receive the information about the product in their inbox with links to shop online. RewardStyle, a company that allows fashion bloggers and publishers to earn commissions on items they link to, developed the site. Continue reading LiketoKnowit Gives Instagram Users Easy Way to Shop Online

Toggle, a participant in the second annual Media Camp accelerator program at Warner Bros., has developed a small, affordable, Wi-Fi-enabled HDMI device that it claims acts as a “physical key” to UltraViolet lockers. Toggle believes that its dongle (which looks similar to Google’s Chromecast) would eliminate the need for retailers and content companies to create silos for delivering their content to television. Via Wi-Fi, the dongle would stream UV content to HDMI-equipped TVs. Continue reading Toggle Planning a New HDMI Dongle to Help Boost UltraViolet

New York-based startup Keep allows Internet shoppers to add any merchandise from across e-commerce sites to one unified shopping cart. Now, with the addition of the OneCart feature, users can add an item from any online store to the mobile app and check out with minimal effort. And rather than entering credit card and shipping information for every shopping site, Keep unifies the experience by allowing users to enter information just once to be used universally. Continue reading Keep’s OneCart Service Makes Online Shopping Even Easier