m-Commerce - Amazon Mobile hits $1 Billion

Amazon announced Friday that its revenue from mobile sales had passed $1 billion per year (total sales are $6.57 billion) – most of which came from smartphones, particularly the iPhone. So what are Amazon doing to drive sales?


Amazon has it’s own application for all the major smartphone platforms, plus very effective mobile internet site. Whether you’re on an iPhone, Android, Blackberry or Nokia, you can access an optimised mobile site where you can search and buy products. Amazon has as utlised other mobile technologies in its US application, with built in scanning feature it will recognise and search for that product – so if you see something that in store can scan it, check the Amazon price, and buy it all over your phone.
Amazon realised if a mobile app isn’t as easy to use as your website, you wont use it. So they took the 1-Click payment system from the main site and made sure it worked in the mobile application. So once you’ve set up your account, you can make an order over your mobile just as easily as you can on the web.

To App or not to App....not say M&S

Marks and Spencers, the retail of choice for everything from underwear through to food has plunged into mobile. But unlike many others they have NOT launched an app. Customers can now shop on a site that has been developed specifically to enable them to browse and buy easily from any web-enabled mobile phone.

The site syncs with the main M&S website so that customers can log into their regular web-account and manage their shopping basket from their mobile. There is no need to download an app or any software, users simply type http://www.marksandspencer.com/ into their phone’s Internet browser, and end up on m.marksandspencer.com.

The market is seeing a number of websites taking this approach, as it means they only have a single site to maintain. Another approach sees sites having a mobile application that is little more than a phone desktop link to the mobile site.

Ultimately it will be consumers that decide which approach is a winner.

WIN are able to support clients who want to take this approach by offering consultancy around the design and functionality of the site.

So long 2009... Year of the App Store?

People would be forgiven for thinking that 2009 was the year that the Application Store was invented. It is certainly true that Apple's iPhone made App Stores and Apps the big mobile story of the year, but there have been many App Store before, and the grand daddy is probably GetJar.

GetJar is the world’s largest cross platform app store with over a half billion downloads since launch in 2005. The site provides more than 50,000 mobile applications across all major handsets and platforms to consumers in more than 200 countries. The name of the site refferes to the JAR (or Java ARchive) file format that is used to distribute Java applications.

So why not give the site a try and see what they have for your phone... first you'll need to set your handset so that you get the right apps.

Just click on the phone icon (top right) and select your device. The selection process is very slick, and much better than many other sites. If you browse to http://www.getjar.com/ on your mobile it will auto detect your handset.

There are lots of free applications, and plenty of pay ones too, for pretty much every handset, just remember to ensure you are on a data tarrif before downloading them all. If you try one may be you could post a comment about the download, and if it was any good.

Happy New Year.