Five Up-and-Coming Mobile Shopping Sites You'll Be Using

Why M-commerce Offerings From:
Amazon, Crate & Barrel, JCPenney, REI and Target Stand Out

You may not have purchased any Christmas gifts from your phone this year, but next year it's likely you will.

The number of online shoppers making a purchase from their phones increased more than five-fold this season to 11%, according to ForeSee Results. But significantly more than that, 33% of respondents said they had used their phone to access a retailer's site, many for the purpose of comparing prices or products. Likewise, barcode scanning and check-ins continued to ramp up over the holidays. ScanBuy, mobile barcode solution provider, estimates that between 30% and 40% of all smartphone users have downloaded a barcode-scanning app. And CheckPoints, a shopping app, just reported it has accumulated 1 million check-ins since launching in mid-October.

"It looks like more than half of all shoppers will soon be using their mobile phones for retail purposes," said Kevin Ertell, VP-retail strategy at ForeSee Results, a company measuring customer satisfaction. "Any retailer not actively working to develop, measure and refine its mobile experience is leaving money on the table for competitors."

Indeed, eBay reported mobile sales of nearly $2 billion in 2010, more than tripling 2009 levels. The retailer, which sells through a variety of apps, cited clothing, accessories, cellphones, collectibles, jewelry and toys as leading mobile purchases.

Plenty of retailers, big and small, are just beginning to wrap their heads around "m-commerce." But smart retailers are already figuring out how to market their wares, build loyalty and deliver advertising, from coupons to circulars to commercials via mobile phones. Here five mobile sites we'll be shopping in the coming year.

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