More than half of UK firms have never checked the appearance or functionality of their website on smartphones and, of companies that have, 41% admit their website has a reduced appearance, while 36% offer reduced functionality. The study by 1&1 Internet also finds that 65% of firms have not optimised their websites for mobile and have no plans to do so

Tesco has rolled out a mobile optimized version of its highly successful Tesco Direct online, non-grocery website to meet the demand of 1.5million hits its online website has been receiving each month from mobiles. The launch also marks the next step in the supermarket’s strategy to expand and develop mobile websites for core Tesco sites – all of which will be mobile by April 2011

As well as rolling out its Tesco direct m-website, the retailer has also decided to mobilise its popular online Tesco Real Food recipe finder service using mobile agency InfoMedia Services

As reported last week, Tescos’s Nick Lansley and eBay’s Patrick Munden have officially joined The Association of Interactive Media and Entertainment (AIME), The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) in formerly launching the Mobile Commerce Joint Industry Committee (MCJIC)

Despite a surge in mobile optimized websites and apps for transactional m-commerce, retailers are being warned that they aren’t getting the most out of the potential for mobile as a marketing channel

Two thirds of mobile operators believe that coupons and vouchers will become the dominant form of mobile marketing by 2015, with 58% predicting that SMS- and MMS-based messaging would be the second most widely accepted form of mobile advertising in the next five years, followed by search with 45%

Ministry of Sound apps for iPhone and Windows Phone 7 allow groovers to buy tickets and tunes

From November Ministry of Sound will be the first major music brand in the world to enable music lovers to purchase club tickets and provide delivery of club tickets to their mobiles via an App, in partnership with Trinity Mobile

This Christmas, as many as 7.7 million time-poor UK consumers with smartphones want to shop on their mobiles to buy gifts, do their food shopping and send presents directly to save time. However, only a handful of the retail giants, such as Tesco, M&S and Amazon, are prepared with mobile shopping sites

Paul Skeldon talks to BT Expedite’s COO Richard Dodd and CTO Steve Thomas about how loyalty schemes are where mobile in retail really comes into its own and how everyone should learn to do ‘the bump’

Nick Bond, telco specialist at Zeus Technology, discusses the importance for retailers to make sure the right they have the solutions in place to prevent problems with mobile web performance

As many as 71% of consumers in the UK want mobile coupons sent to their phones while they are out shopping and 59% wanting retailers and brands to contact them using SMS, finds a study by mobile transaction network mBlox

UK operator O2 has gone live with a location based SMS ad service that pings opted in consumers vouchers and other information regarding specific stores and products when the consumer enters a ‘geo fence’ around that store. The launch customers are Starbucks and L’Oreal and O2 already has 1million people opted in

Adobe Scene 7 has found that of 1200 US consumers it quizzed, most tend to prefer mobile web as an experience for mobile retail, financial services and media and entertainment shopping. Only music players and maps are better as apps, say the people

Leading UK department store Debenhams has rolled out an iPhone app – bucking the recent trend for m-web among top flight retailers – to meet a growing demand for mobile access from iPhone users. It also views an app as a better way of delivering a rich experience in store on mobile

More than 80% of young consumers around the world would be interested or very interested in using their mobile phone to pay for products, as loyalty cards and as wallets, finds a study by Alcatel-Lucent

In the first of a two part look at why and how retailers should embrace mobile, Frederic Court, tech partner at Advent Venture Partners looks at how to use mobile to build two way communications …

B&H Photo Video, America’s largest non-chain photo and video equipment store, has extended its web platform into mobile with an iPhone app which uses the company’s existing backend commerce platform

With a 100,000 users already coming into its website every week via mobile, John Lewis Partnership has launched a fully mobile optimized version of its website to service this vast number of mobile customers and to transform the company into a multi-channel retailer

Mail order giant The Orvis Company has joined the growing number of companies going straight to m-web rather than apps, with the roll out of a mobile-optimized website that lets customers easily and conveniently purchase Orvis goods. However, the site is optimized for smartphones

Pure-play etailers such as Play.com and Amazon are outperforming their high street rivals when it comes to implementing mobile commerce, boasting superior design and functionality, according to a new benchmarking study by eDigitalResearch. However, the study also found that some retailers – though not those two high fliers – are upping prices for the mobile channel in a ‘convenience premium’