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Advantages and Features of Mobile Web Design – What You Need to Know

By Victoria N Brown in Mobile Applications

2011 is being touted as the year when mobile technology really comes to the fore. So what are the characteristics, advantages and disadvantages of mobile web design? Which web development features are mobile friendly and which are not? Lastly and most importantly, how do you find out how mobile web design could work for your business?

Advantages of Mobile Web Design

* A well developed mobile website can mean an increased range of web visitors to your web site who will be happy to use your site to full effect and appreciate that it functions in the right way.

* If your business targets people on the move (e.g. a restaurant or hotel), you’ll most likely pick up business with good mobile web development.

* Even if your business isn’t a natural fit with mobile technology, giving thought to good mobile web design can present your company as a professional, cutting edge outfit which embraces new technology.

* Developing for mobile can expand your brand and product beyond your website into apps and software programs. The possibilities with mobile technology are growing by the day.

Disadvantages of Mobile Web Design

* You have to know what you’re doing. If done properly, there shouldn’t be any disadvantages to having a mobile web designed site. However, there are a few potential pitfalls which might annoy your mobile customers and have a detrimental effect on your search engine rankings for your web site as a whole.

* Things are always changing. You can’t expect to invest in your mobile web design and leave it there. Mobile web technology is growing and expanding. When a new smartphone comes on the market, you need to be prepared to grow and change to meet the new demands.

* It may not be appropriate for your business. As with any investment of time or money, you need to decide whether the ROI merits the effort you will put in. Businesses don’t all fit one mold, so you need to do your research before embarking on developing a mobile site to ensure that your expectations of the returns are met.

How to go about developing your mobile site – some of the characteristics of mobile web design and development

1) Check Your Stats

Before developing a mobile site, your first port of call is Google Analytics or similar program, where you can identify sources of traffic to your website. Google Analytics lets you know what percentage of your visitors are using mobile to access your website and which specific devices people are using. This will help you decide whether it is worth allocating resources to building a mobile web site for your business and which devices to use when testing your website design.

2) Create a Mobile Stylesheet

The best way to manage a mobile site is to use a different CSS stylesheet from the one you use for your browser pages. This technique is preferable to any other because it avoids duplicating content within your site (which can damage your search engine rankings) and makes it easier to update your site in one fell swoop.

3) Avoid Duplicating Content

Google can penalize your website for having lots of pages with the same content, so if you do decide to develop a different set of webpages for mobile phones, make sure that the content is specifically different from that for your browser website. If you need a full reference of dos and don’ts from Google, Webmaster Tools is a good place to start:

4) Keep Images to a Minimum

You need to work to your lowest common denominator and you don’t know what connection speeds you are dealing with on smart phones. If you can do so, keeping to a few small images will provide a more enjoyable experience for your customers visiting by phone.

5) No Flash… end of

Flash is not a feature of web development which is considered mobile friendly. It doesn’t work on iPhones and because of security constraints, may be phased out of many web browsers in the future, so it’s best avoided in any case. Additionally, Flash can’t be read by search engines so you won’t be scoring points on Google or Bing. If you want a phone-and search-engine-friendly Flash look-alike, why not try jQuery? It works using JavaScript, which is available on the vast majority of browsers and phones and your text can be read by search engines.

6) Apps

Depending on the nature of your business, you may wish to develop an app. An app is a small program which is either free or can be purchased (the usual price for an iPhone app is £0.80). Apps sit as icons on the iPhone or other smartphone, so as well as providing a useful service to your web visitor, they are a great ongoing advertisement for your website and business.

6) Test It Out

Don’t have a smartphone? Opera has a great mobile emulator which allows you to see how your mobile site will look to your visitors by phone. With the Opera mobile emulator, you can try out different phones, vary screen sizes and resolutions and test out touch and keypad phones.

Happy mobile web development!

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Victoria is an experienced, professionally qualified freelance web developer and web design professional based in Cambridge, UK, committed to delivering bespoke, elegant and reasonably-priced web solutions to small and medium-sized businesses across the UK.

My web design and development website: http://www.rebelphoenix.com Find me on Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/rebelphoenixweb/

Mobile Payments Vs. Mobile POS Payments Race Is On! – A SPN Exclusive Article

By Rick Berry in Mobile Applications

Can Anyone Catch Square With Their $4 Billion + a Month Head Start?

The answer probably lies somewhere between PayPal and another mobile POS payment solution.

If you’re the owner or manager of a small to medium sized business, a key part of our national economic engine, then you recognize the importance of mobile and using today’s technology; and you want to utilize it and capitalize on the opportunity that it presents, however you’re not quite clear on a few things.

You’ve tried PayPal sometime back and you were astonished at what you found out.

In order to use PayPal you must first accept their terms of service.

By doing so, you in effect waive your rights to credit card consumer protection laws and you acknowledge that you cannot issue a chargeback for unauthorized use of your credit card and PayPal account.

If you do, they have the right to limit your account.

‘Phishing’ complaints signify the fraud problem to be rampant and your account can easily be compromised if you’re not very careful.

If a criminal accesses your account, PayPal will hold you monetarily and legally responsible.

PayPal can, will, and has in the past, completely cleaned out customer accounts, including checking and/or savings accounts, without any appeals process available.

Buried in the fine print of their “Terms of Service”, they disclose to you that PayPal can close your account for any reason what so ever, or no reason, and then you have to wait 180 days to get your money.

Think that’ll never happen? Think again. That’s what everyone thinks until it happens to them. It’s hard to run a business that way, that’s for sure.

If you’re a fine up-standing individual with hundreds of successful transactions, and someone pays you with a stolen credit card, your account is immediately flagged as being involved in “criminal behavior” and any money in that account can be, and often is, frozen and confiscated.

If a customer disputes the charge, the same thing has happened.

PayPal claims that they will fight chargebacks, however horror stories to the contrary abound.

There are websites claiming over 10,000,000 visitors dedicated to exposing how bad the PayPal customer service is. (See PayPalSucks.com)

Square seems to be headed in a slightly more customer and business friendly direction, or at least they may be in the future, however they’re very pricey for a business.

Card present swipe rates are 2.75%, card-not-present (CNP) rates are 3.5% + $0.15 per transaction.

Processing limits make conducting a busy brick & mortar business a real challenge, to say the least. For instance, as a first time or new Square user, you can’t process over $1000 in transactions per week.

All funds processed in one week over $1000 will be held for an undetermined amount of time.

If your transactions are card-not-present (CNP) then everything over the $1000 a week threshold will be frozen and unavailable for 30 days.

If you had a $12,000 sale, you may get $1000 put into your account and you may not receive the $11,000 balance for at least 30 days – very challenging for almost any business.

Although Square is willing to work with you by raising those limits, for a business that processes over $1000 right out of the gate, Square is distasteful as an alternative mobile payment solution for almost any busy business.

Large ticket sales are frozen and funds are unavailable for an undetermined amount of time as well.

Although Square recently exploded onto the payments scene, other mobile POS payment solutions that provide more traditional methods of payment transaction processing, such as ABC Mobile Pay, have enabled the technology to begin to become mainstream in the frenetic payments landscape.

By utilizing rich POS (Point-Of-Sale) features and a robust mobile platform, a merchant can utilize mobile without having to worry about processing limits, frozen funds, ticket sizes and various other headaches or impediments.

A busy merchant during this bustling holiday season can capture impulse decisions; provide a unique and pleasant customer experience and save invaluable time for both merchant and customer, by implementing a robust mobile POS payment solution.

Like Apple and Nordstrom, to name but a couple, merchants are utilizing mobile phones and other mobile devices such as iPods, iPads and other tablets and devices to revolutionize how we live, shop and even behave.

This new technology and these devices enable not only payment processing, they also provide features such as inventory control and barcode scanning, CRM (Customer Relationship Management), promotions, discounts and specials that can be marketed to your customers via email or SMS text messaging.

Signature and photo capture on the mobile device enables receipts to be printed and/or emailed instantaneously.

This is part of what makes the experience such a game-changer.

Mobile in retail has received a spectacular reception because it produces a much more pleasing customer experience for one reason.

It enables a purchase to be made anywhere on site while capitalizing on the impulse buying decision.

For instance, a customer in a dressing room with a number of different items or sizes now instantaneously checks out right when the impulse develops.

No gathering up of packages and trudging over to a waiting line of bustling customers at the point-of-sale, where by the time the clerk gets to them, an impulse decision may evaporate and a sale can be lost.

The customer now simply hands the attending sales clerk the desired item(s), the clerk scans the product with a mobile barcode scanner and payment card-swiping device (which encases an iPod or iPhone).

Then the clerk swipes the payment card and hands the device to the customer, the signature is captured (and photo if desired) on the device and it’s automatically embedded on the printed and/or emailed receipt.

Of major concern to both small regional businesses and large national chain stores alike, is the ability for the mobile payment solution to integrate into existing back-end accounting/bookkeeping software solutions such as QuickBooks, SAP, Oracle, and SAGE, which can now be easily accomplished with the proper solution.

The mobile POS payment solution that a business decides to go with should seamlessly integrate into any front-end point-of-sale software solution such as Micros or Aloha, when required.

Ideally the mobile payment application or solution should also be customizable as well, in order to provide valuable feature sets that are specific to an industry or niche market.

We have recently seen PayPal fire a shot over the bow of retail payments in the brick and mortar space by implementing a POS solution that operates on their platform.

Educated speculation says we will see Square improve and add features designed to attract the business sector and the race is on.

We expect to see different mobile payment variations with feature sets designed specifically for niche markets. Value will be developed by a few select mobile payment solution providers, who will all compete for market share with newer iterations of both PayPal, Square and/or other mobile POS payment applications or solutions yet to be heard of.

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Rick Berry is president/CEO of ABC Mobile Pay, a mobile technology provider based in Valencia, CA. ABC Mobile Pay provides white labeled/private labeled mobile payment solutions to Processors, ISOs, Agents, Financial Institutions and Resellers of all types and sizes around the world.

ABC Mobile Pay is located at 26650 The Old Road Suite #130, Valencia, CA. 91381 – 661-259-2185 – rick@abcmobilepay.com – http://www.abcmobilepay.com

Mobile POS Payments Could Save Your Business Life – A SPN Exclusive Article

By Rick Berry in Mobile Applications

Honest Restaurant Owner Held Responsible For Fraudulent Transactions

Here’s a true story that you may be able to relate to. You’re a merchant running a large local or national restaurant or other retail business. You work very hard and you’ve been fortunate to attract quality people along the way, people that are loyal and very hard working, people that have become family.

You have 5 different locations and the management team that you’ve finally assembled in place does a great job and despite the challenging economy, you are beginning to do quite well again. Mostly due to your cost saving efforts and hard work.

You’re comfortable and the future looks good when all of a sudden and without warning your business checking account is debited nearly $200,000. The money literally disappears overnight without notification.

You only find out because your morning coffee purchase at Starbucks was declined on your company debit card, which should have just over $185,000 available on it.

You’re calm on the outside and anxious on the inside because in this economy every sale counts and you’re certain there’s a mistake that someone must have made.

After several attempts you’re finally able to make contact with the bank manager and to your horror the banker calmly answers your question about the available funds, “your money is gone and we can’t help you get it back.” Your $185,000 is gone.

You find out for the first time that a couple of your customers had their credit card accounts compromised over a year ago. The cardholder information used to perpetrate the fraud was traced back to your point-of-sale location.

Unbeknownst to you, a card-skimmer had been attached to your point-of-sale device(s). A criminal conspirator with a laptop computer wirelessly collected the cardholder data required to perpetrate fraudulent transactions with each and every swipe of your customer’s credit cards.

Within a period of about 2 weeks a series of online and retail purchases totaling the $185,000 had been quickly executed using the compromised cardholder data that was obtained.

Although the criminal investigation began shortly afterwards it was completed approximately 1 year later. Because the electronic terminal that the cards were swiped through wasn’t PCI-DSS compliant as required and because the cardholder data was obtained at this point, the merchant, you, became responsible and liable for the fraudulent transactions.

This kind of a financial hit will put most of us out of business. These sudden fund disappearances from merchant accounts have been occurring more and more, since the migration of fraudsters operating in EMV mandated Europe to the unprotected shores of the U.S., where EMV is finally about to begin, but isn’t in use yet.

Merchant accounts have been debited a few hundred dollars, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and yes, even millions of dollars literally overnight and without notice. This can often mean the difference between business life and death.

The quickest and most reliable solution for a business owner/ operator is to immediately implement a mobile POS payment solution that is PCI-DSS compliant. These systems and devices are now available in different formats from a few select providers.

Upon use of PCI-DSS compliant terminals to process your credit card transactions, the burden of financial responsibility shifts immediately from the merchant to the processing company and/or the issuing bank, eliminating your financial risk.

By utilizing iPads, iPods, iPhones, Windows and Android powered mobile devices that provide powerful and robust POS features, the merchant can capture an increase in sales and enhance the customer experience, while maintaining PCI-DSS security and safety.

This new technology and these mobile devices are quickly reshaping how we conduct business across the country and around the world. To name just a few, Apple, Nordstrom, Home Depot, Lowes and many more have recently instituted various forms of mobile POS or mobile payment functionality.

By enabling mobile POS payments you can accept payments from your customers right wherever they are on the sales floor or in the warehouse, and you eliminate potential 3rd party compromises. The devices are mobile and in possession of your trusted personnel, so they won’t ever be compromised because of your security and control policies.

The devices don’t cost an arm and a leg and an operating system or technology such as that in use at national Apple stores can be quickly and easily obtained and implemented through a reliable and trustworthy provider.

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Rick Berry is President/CEO of ABC Mobile Pay, a mobile POS payment solution provider. Rick is an expert in both the payments and the mobile space.

ABC Mobile Pay can be contacted at 26650 The Old Road, Suite #130, Valencia, CA. 91381 – 661-259-2185/877-258-5223 – rick@abcmobilepay.com – www.abcmobilepay.com

How To Use Mobile Marketing To Improve Your Business

By Cathy Quel in Mobile Applications

Did you know that over 91 % of people in the country have a mobile device? Twenty percent of these people, which consists of more than 50 million people, have an internet-capable “smart phone?” These smart phones are iPhones, Androids and Blackberry phones. There are more than 150 billion mobile text messages that are being sent every month by these mobile devices and a rather amazing ninety percent are being read within one hour of being sent.

Now that you know how many people have smart phones and how many people are sending and reading text messages, just envision how a mobile marketing plan could grow your business. Mobile advertising is a perfect way of getting your message to your target audience. By sending out text messages to your audience, your information is being hand-carried right to their front door. You will want people to subscribe to your list or to your publication and this is a great way to stay in front of them and get them used to hearing from you.

It doesn’t matter what type of business you have, potential customers will always wish to hear from someone who has new, helpful ideas. They don’t want to be bombarded with useless messages but if your messages are beneficial, they will choose to hear from you on a regular basis. This is a very powerful way for you to increase your business. Just like email messages, customers can unsubscribe from your lists using their mobile devices. But similar to email marketing, this is the way it works.

As part of your total marketing strategy, you need to also have a mobile marketing strategy to reach all of your customers who are going mobile. Here are some mobile marketing points to keep your mobile customers glad and excited to open your text messages:

1. You should make available a text message service to all of your customers.

2. Put the offer on your website, in an online advertisement or in your emails.

3. Your text message should contain a catchy slogan. Clarify what the benefits are to them if they subscribe.

4. Make sure that your text messages are valuable and relevant to your customers’ needs.

5. Offer your customers a great deal. You can offer them a markdown on your services when they send your message onto a family member or a friend. Tell them that the offer applies when they subscribe. If you have a brick and mortar store, you could give your customers a bar code message in your text message. When you send the bar code to your customers, let them know that your offer will expire in a week or 10 days.

When your customers come to your store, they can show the bar code on their phone and the discount will be automatically applied. There is no requirement for them to produce a coupon. This is another powerful way for you to grow your business through mobile marketing.

You should begin to understand just how powerful a mobile marketing strategy would be to your business if executed the right way. More and more people are getting great deals through mobile marketing so join the club and put together a mobile marketing strategy for your business.

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Article by Cathy Quel. If you would like more information on how to use mobile marketing to grow your business, then download my free report, http://workonlinesuccess.com/Mobile-Content/index.html

Making The Most of Mobile Advertising

By Tamara Jacobs in Mobile Applications

Mobile marketing increased by 75% between 2009 and 2010, the highest marketing jump of any platform – social media marketing increased by 32% and internet marketing by 14%.

What does that mean for advertisers? It means that they have to start becoming active and creative with their mobile marketing campaigns and that will involve a strong understanding of how consumers interact with their mobile – when they use them most, how long they spend on them, and what they are using them for.

Research indicates that the average mobile app session is 4.3 times longer than the average website session, this is likely due to the fact that people using mobile apps are doing so while they’re waiting in lines, sitting on the bus, or dottling until it’s time for their next appointment. Moreover, the average number of apps per smartphone device is almost one hundredth of the total number of apps available for IOS and Android devices and less choice means more focus.

How can brands take advantage of consumers in these instances? Some suggestions are:

1. Personalised experiences for shoppers:

By tracking down consumers once they visited a retailer’s site, brands can show them products according to the parts of the site they clicked on. It is of significant importance that all products and offers are relevant to each consumer since mobile shopping sites display little information.

2. Social integration:

This is good for both consumers and retailers. Consumers obviously love spending time on social media sites – 30% of smartphone users accessed social networks via mobile browsers in 2010. More specifically, the number of mobile subscribers accessing Facebook increased by 112% between January 2009 and January 2010, and the number of subscribers accessing Twitter rose by 347%. For brands integrating social into their mobile shopping experience is great because it means that consumers can easily share products they like with their friends and family.

3. Mobile advertising:

Store location and hours are key for mobile marketing as are Google maps and advertisers would be silly not to take advantage of them.

More than advertise to them, brands should think of creative ways to interact with their audience via mobile. Knowing that they might be standing around killing time might inspire them to create some sort of game where, if they win, they have access to a discount code they can use towards a purchase. With an idea like this brands are reaching out to their audience, entertaining them, engaging them, and offering them a good reason to come to their store or make an online purchase. If they ask for the users email and phone number to give them the discount code, they can include them on their email list and continue the conversation at a later date.

There are a lot of fun and innovative marketing ideas brands can come up with for mobile, and it’s high time to get going on them.

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Article by Tamara Jacobs. Adaptive Consultancy is a London-based digital agency specialising in website design, eCommerce, and internet marketing, including SEO, PPC and SMO. For more on ecommerce solutions visit http://www.adaptiveconsultancy.com/e-commerce/

Apple Store Mobile POS Payment Technology Gaining Momentum – A SPN Exclusive Article

By Rick Berry in Mobile Applications

Businesses Large and Small Clamoring for New Technology

The advent of mobile technology and the iPad in particular, along with other tablets, have ushered in an era of innovative solutions in the retail space that is revolutionizing how people shop, buy, sell and even communicate.

Innovative mobile solution developers such as ABC Mobile Pay are helping to blaze the trail by providing a robust mobile POS payment solution that enables merchants of any size from large national chain stores to small ‘mom-and-pop’ stores to capture payments on iPads, iPods, iPhones, Windows devices (Android devices by summer’s end) and almost any other mobile device.

What is exciting to both large Level 1 national merchants, with yearly transaction volumes of over the 20 million mark, and to small ‘mom-and-pop’ stores that process under a million transactions a year, is that they can utilize this technology to increase sales and profits by employing POS features traditionally found only in large national chain stores, the cost of such systems being so high that most smaller merchants can’t even consider their use.

Although large national merchants such as Apple, have already begun using the technology in their national retail stores, others like Sketchers are rumored to be rolling out an in-store mobile POS payment solution by the end of the year. Yet others such as Best Buy are stirring up the rumor pot even more, by shopping for payment devices that are only used in the mobile market, according to a source in the payments industry that shall remain anonymous, per their request.

The technology brings merchants POS features such as inventory control and product barcode scanning, customer-relationship-management (CRM) software, email and text message marketing, and signature & photo capture embedded on receipts. It also delivers audio and video entertainment and promotional messaging through the POS and streams to anywhere on site.

Perhaps most exciting to Level 1 and Level 4 merchants alike is the fact that the solution will work flawlessly with any legacy software system and it will seamlessly connect to any back-end bookkeeping or accounting system such as QuickBooks, Sage, SAP, Oracle, Peachtree and many more.

The solution is customizable for niches such as the restaurant space for pay-at-the-table, where the menu can also be displayed on a mobile device such as an iPad. When the bill comes, the device can be handed over to the patron, who then swipes the card, signs right on the device and emails or prints them a receipt. All of it is done very safely, easily and as quickly as a handshake.

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Rick Berry is President/CEO of ABC Mobile Pay, a merchant services provider and a registered ISO/MSP of Wells Fargo, N.A. Over the last decade Rick has earned the title of ‘Expert’ in the payments space and the mobile technology arena while developing customized products and services for the mobile payments sector.

ABC Mobile Pay brings a robust mobile POS payment solution to retailers and wholesalers of all types and sizes around the world like the one in use at retail Apple stores. www.abcmobilepay.com | 877-258-5223 | rick@abcmobilepay.com | http://www.abcmobilepay.com/demos.html

Just Like in a James Bond Film – A SPN Exclusive Article

By Rick Berry in Mobile Applications

In late 2008, electronic payment service RBS World Pay revealed that a gang of hackers had broken into its computer systems, stolen information to help them create cloned debit cards, boosted their withdrawal limits and stolen huge amounts of money from ATMs around the world.

Mules operated by the gang stole a total of $9 million from more than 2,100 ATMs in at least 280 cities worldwide. All it took them was a jaw-dropping 12 hours to pull off their coordinated heist.

Some were wearing disguises with wigs and facial hair altering their appearance. They dressed nicely while others dressed shabbily, creeping around trying to go unnoticed. Mostly they were brazen, boldly executing the crime as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

A key member of the cybercriminal gang arrested for the crime wasn’t your typical low-profile underworld gangster. Among other things, he purchased a luxury car and two apartments in the Russian city of Novosibirsk before being caught in 2009.

At the time of the robbery, acting United States Attorney, Sally Quillian Yates, said that it was “perhaps the most sophisticated and organized computer fraud attack ever perpetrated.”

The criminal gang is alleged to have created counterfeit cloned debit cards with the stolen information, but they didn’t stop there.

They are supposed to have cracked the encryption security used to protect RBS World Pay PIN numbers and raised the level of funds available on compromised accounts.

Some accounts reportedly had their daily withdrawal limits boosted to up to $500,000.

This is said to have allowed low-level members of the gang to steal over $9 million from more than 2,100 ATMs in at least 280 cities worldwide, in less than 12 hours.

The sheer audacity of this criminal plot is mind-boggling. The crime ring stole an extraordinary amount of money over a short time in a well-organized heist that involved split-second timing.

The criminal scheme was executed by means of electronic subterfuge via computers; even then the number of criminals it took to successfully pull off the brazen heist must have been numerous.

2100 ATMs divided by 280 cities around the world equals 7.5 ATMs per city on average. In order to withdraw $9,000,000.00 in under 12 hours from 2100 ATMs around the world, that would entail hitting an average of almost 3 ATMs every minute during those 12 hours.

At 3 ATMs a minute it would take one crook per each ATM in order to execute the transactions successfully, which would be 3 bad guys multiplied by 280 cities, totaling 840 thieving conspirators.

Perhaps we’ll be hearing about the latest exploits of James Bond after all as he saves the world economy from dastardly villains committing a dramatic modern day true-life caper.

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Rick Berry is President/CEO of ABC Mobile Pay, a merchant services provider and a registered ISO/MSP of Wells Fargo, N.A. Over the last decade Rick has earned the title of ‘Expert’ in the payments space and the mobile technology arena while developing customized products and services for the mobile payments sector.

ABC Mobile Pay brings a robust mobile POS payment solution to retailers and wholesalers of all types and sizes around the world like the one in use at retail Apple stores. www.abcmobilepay.com | 877-258-5223 | rick@abcmobilepay.com |http://www.abcmobilepay.com/demos.html

QR Codes: To Scan or Not to Scan

By Allison Kahn in Mobile Applications

Have you seen those crazy looking black and white checkered boxes lately? They are not just in the Sunday paper, mail inserts, or at stores for fun. They are called QR Codes and they are the next generation of online advertising. These little boxes connect the consumer from a Point of Purchase directly to the product’s website in seconds. A Point of Purchase is a form of signage in a store that draws the consumer to a particular product and gets them interested. The signage may have information about the product, but lately they can also have a code on them.

Recently, my boss Laurie went to Home Depot to pick up some flowers to landscape her yard. When doing so, she noticed QR codes on each information tag for each plant. If you scanned the code, it would take you directly to a mobile Home Depot site with tips on how to plant that particular flower and videos of Martha Stewart giving floral tips. So, not only do you get to buy your beautiful flowers right at the convenient Home Depot, but you also can get free tips from the pros on how to make your yard beautiful. It’s a win-win.

Another cool use of the codes I noticed was when my husband and I were browsing through a Best Buy late last year. We both have smartphones and saw the codes on every hang tag for every electronic item. The reason these tags were so efficient is because they kept the information simple and organized in bullet points about the item. If you wanted more detailed information about the item, just scan the code that is conveniently located on the hang tag. We were really excited to see that Best Buy was paving the way for this modern and efficient use of technology.

When it comes to marketing, QR Codes can be very beneficial to business. You can offer coupons that are only available when scanning one. You can give more information about your product directly to consumers like Best Buy does, or you can even give free how-to’s like Home Depot does. There is a plethora of ways to make the codes valuable in your business. Be creative. Send out post cards in the mail about your business and say, “Scan this QR Code to receive 20% off your next purchase!” Consumers will feel the urge to scan it in order to save money, and it will help your business earn more traffic to your store and website.

Do not be concerned about QR Codes not taking off. They are. According to D3 Interactive Marketing, “In a 2011 survey, 65% of respondents had seen one and 49% had scanned one. 70% of smartphone users would be interested in scanning a QR Code. 63% would use a QR Code to access more information. Usage grew 1200% in just 6 months from July – December of 2010. 57% of Facebook users have scanned one at least 1 time in the past year. With 40% having done it 5 or more times. 66% of smartphone users actively surf the internet for content using their smartphone.”

So what does this mean for your business? It means if you don’t already have a mobile website and a way for users to access it, you need to start now. Create a mobile site and QR Code that directs the consumer to it. You will generate more traffic and leads to your business. QR Codes are a win-win!

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Allison Kahn is the Marketing Assistant at Princeton Marketing Group in Greensboro, NC. She has a BA in English Literature from Wesley College in Dover, DE. She has a passion for Social Media Marketing.

Mobile Payments Market to Almost Triple InValue By 2015

By Rick Berry in Mobile Applications

Mobile Payments Market to Almost Triple in Value by 2015 Reaching $670bn, According to New Juniper Report HAMPSHIRE, UNITED KINGDOM–(Marketwire – Jul 5, 2011)

A new study from Juniper Research has determined that the total value of mobile payments for digital and physical goods, money transfers and NFC (Near Field Communications) transactions will reach $670bn by 2015, up from $240bn this year. These forecasts represent the gross merchandise value of all purchases or the value of money being transferred.

The new Mobile Payments Strategies report revealed that all segments will exhibit 2x to 3x growth over the next five years. This growth will be driven by the rapid adoption of mobile ticketing, NFC contactless payments, physical goods purchases and money transfers as people in both developed and developing countries use their devices for everyday transactions. Some 20 countries are expected to launch NFC services in the next 18 months, resulting in transactions approaching $50 billion worldwide by 2014.

Meanwhile the need for financial access in developing countries is such that active mobile money users will double by 2013 and drive transaction values accordingly. Senior analyst David Snow explained: “Our analysis shows that emerging segments such as physical goods payments, NFC and money transfers will fuel market growth by a factor of 2.7 times by 2015. Digital goods is the largest segment and, although forecast to more than double, it is not growing as quickly as some of the newer segments.”

Other key messages from the report include: The top 3 regions for mobile payments (Far East & China, W. Europe and N. America) will represent 75% of the global mobile payment gross transaction value by 2015. Digital goods payments will account for nearly 40% of the market in 2015. The study provides the big picture of mobile payments, providing forecasts of the main market segments of digital and physical goods purchases, contactless NFC and domestic and international money transfers and remittances, providing regional forecasts of gross transaction values. A new Mobile Money Whitepaper and further details of the study, ‘Mobile Payment Strategies: Opportunities & Markets 2011-2015′ can be freely downloaded from www.juniperresearch.com.

Alternatively, please contact John Levett at john.levett@juniperresearch.com, telephone +44(0)1256 830001. Juniper Research provides research and analytical services to the global hi-tech communications sector, providing consultancy, analyst reports and industry commentary.

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Rick Berry is President/CEO of ABC Mobile Pay, a merchant services provider and a registered ISO/MSP of Wells Fargo, N.A. Over the last decade Rick has earned the title of ‘Expert’ in the payments space and the mobile technology arena while developing customized products and services for the mobile payments sector.

ABC Mobile Pay brings a robust mobile POS payment solution to retailers and wholesalers of all types and sizes across America like the one in use at retail Apple stores and Nordstroms.

www.abcmobilepay.com – 877-258-5223 rick@abcmobilepay.com

http://www.abcmobilepay.com/demos.html

Mobile Revolution Commanding Attention – A SPN Exclusive Article

By Rick Berry in Mobile Applications

The number of smartphones has been doubling every year, and by the end of this year will exceed 125 million in the U.S. alone, about half of all mobile phones on the market in this country. In addition, Apple’s iPads have approached almost 20 million units sold to date. And they seem to have altered the way we perceive and interact with mobile commerce.

Consumers have quickly made the transition and are learning to love mobile commerce apps and web sites. This year, they’ll buy over $6 billion worth of goods and services on web-enabled phones and tablets, doubling last year’s number, and next year that number is expected to double again.

Online merchants are already cleaning up on this second e-commerce revolution. About 25% of the largest e-retailers already have a mobile site or app, most of those launched in just the last year or two. Another 25% are preparing to implement mobile commerce soon. But fully half are not ready to make the move, and virtually all second-tier e-retailers have no mobile program whatsoever.

They all need one – and fast. Estimates are that 15% to 20% of all visitors to e-commerce web sites NOT equipped for mobile are coming from consumers shopping from smart phones and tablets. If you don’t have a mobile initiative in place you had better adopt one fast or you risk losing business to your competition, perhaps forever.

Once they see your site isn’t optimized for mobile phones, they just leave and they may never come back. To avoid this crippling blow to your e-retailing business, you simply must make your move toward mobile commerce.

Brick & mortar retailers that have initiated mobile POS payment abilities in their retail operations, such as Apple and Nordstrom, have started a wave of momentum that has IT departments across the nation rushing to develop mobile payment initiatives.

Mobile in retail has received a spectacular reception because it produces a much more pleasing customer experience for one reason. It enables a purchase to be made anywhere on site while capitalizing on the impulse buying decision.

For instance, a customer in a dressing room with a number of different items or sizes now instantaneously checks out right when the impulse develops. No gathering up of packages and trudging over to a waiting line of bustling customers at the point-of-sale, where by the time the clerk gets to them, an impulse decision may evaporate and a sale can be lost.

The customer now simply hands the attending sales clerk the desired item(s), the clerk scans the product barcode with a mobile infrared scanning and payment card-swiping device (which encases an iPod), then swipes the payment card, hands the device to the customer, the signature is captured (and photo if desired) on the device and is automatically embedded on the printed and/ or emailed receipt.

Whether you’re a ‘brick & mortar’ merchant or an e-commerce online merchant, retail or wholesale, if you’re trying to sell in today’s marketplace you’d better have a mobile payment application or system in place or you risk missing sales and perhaps more.

The mobile revolution is marching to the insistent drumbeat of progress and convenience is its heralding call. When consumers use technology and become accustomed to it they begin to anticipate and expect it.

If the mobile revolution has caught your attention but you aren’t quite sure how to implement it, or capitalize on it, then you may want to Google ‘mobile POS payments’. Find out how to take advantage of and utilize mobile before it marches right on by and you miss out completely on the mobile revolution.

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Rick Berry is president/CEO of ABC Mobile Pay, a registered ISO/MSP, and merchant service provider based in Valencia, CA. ABC Mobile Pay – rick@abcmobilepay.com – 877-258-5223

Follow Rick on Twitter @abcmobilepay

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