Social Media Writing for Smart People » e-commerce

1-800-Flowers.com launches e-commerce store inside Facebook

Ivan — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 06:08:57 +0000

1-800-Flowers.com launches e-commerce store inside Facebook. This lets shoppers (from inside Facebook) buy product online by clicking the “shop” button. You can also browse items, add to the shopping cart, add a delivery date and send it out.

Japan’s DOCOMO to Launch Mobile Payments Service

Ivan — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 02:07:09 +0000

Japan’s NTT DOCOMO released a new service that will enable an subscribers to use their DOCOMO mobile phone to send money to another DOCOMO user, from July 21. PayPal Mobile offer a similar service in the US.

Customers of DOCOMO’s i-mode™ mobile Internet service on the FOMA™ 3G network will be able to remit up to 20,000 yen (about 208 U.S. dollars) per transfer, basically just by inputting the payee’s mobile phone number.

How it works

1. The payee receives a mail notification via their DOCOMO mobile phone and is given the option of depositing the money in a domestic bank account or having the amount credited to their monthly DOCOMO phone bill.

2. The payee can receive remittances totaling up to 200,000 yen (about 2,080 U.S. dollars) per month.

3. In addition to anytime, anywhere convenience, DOCOMO’s mobile remittance service does not require the payee to register for the service or open a new bank account.

4. As the payer only requires the payee’s phone number to make the remittance, the payee does not have to divulge any private banking details.

DOCOMO hopes that customers see the service as an easy way to take care of money matters with friends and acquaintances, such as transferring money to a family member or settling up one’s cost of a dinner with a group of colleagues.

The charges per payment (including consumption tax) will be 105 yen for the payer and 65 yen for the payee.

The payee is not charged, however, if the remittance is deposited into a Mizuho Bank account or credited to their monthly DOCOMO phone bill.

Report on 2008 Global Digital Economy – M-Commerce, E-Commerce & E-Payments

Ivan — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 01:52:35 +0000

E-commerce is now an important part of the economy, particularly in the developed markets. While e-commerce is still in its infancy in many emerging markets, this is set to change in the coming years especially in Asia. Here are some interesting facts for anyone considering developing mobile application and/or content for mobile devices.

Key highlights:

• By 2012 it is expected that more than 1 trillion will be spent online by B2C consumers. B2B spending will exceed this considerably.

• E-payment solutions are an important part of e-commerce transactions; however security issues continue to tarnish the industry.

• Asia Pacific leads the world in terms of using mobile phones for m-payments, accounting for around 85% of customers worldwide.

• BuddeComm estimates revenue from mobile content and services (excluding SMS), accounts for around 7-10% of total mobile revenues worldwide. SMS remains popular and accounts for a further 10% of total mobile data revenues.

• Online advertising growth is set to continue for the next few years, but will slow slightly in the wake of the US financial crisis. It is expected that online advertising will eventually account for around 20% of all advertising spend in some markets.

• Search services are central to almost everything that users do online, and this places leading search companies such as Google and Yahoo at an advantage. In the emerging Chinese market, Baidu and Alibaba also have a good foothold.

• Google is still the most popular website property worldwide; however individual countries and regions show unique differences with many local sites remaining popular. Other web properties proving popular across multiple markets include Yahoo, Microsoft and Wikipedia sites, Apple Inc, eBay and Amazon.

The report adds that mobile commerce is potentially important for a wide range of industries, including telecommunications, IT, finance, retail and the media, as well as for end-users. It will work best in those areas where it can emphasise the core virtue of mobile networks – convenience.

Read more here: http://companiesandmarkets.com/

Posted via web from ivanwalsh’s posterous

What does it mean? You have requested an outdated version of PayPal

Ivan — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 07:21:51 +0000

I got this error message when I clicked on the Help button when logged in the PayPal Button Designer.

‘You have requested an outdated version of PayPal. This error often results from the use of bookmarks.
Who wrote this I wonder?

You have requested an outdated version of PayPal.

What versions of PayPal are there?

This error often results from the use of bookmarks.

Maybe.

Or maybe the PayPal content management system hasn’t synced the different releases, which is probably the real reason.

Even so, I’m surprised these error messages blame the user (me!) rather than just saying ‘we messed up’ and are now looking into it.

Is that too difficult?