distributed commerce

If you are approaching the final days of 2012 feeling like this holiday shopping season was a complex one - perhaps from a consumer perspective alone – you’re not alone. Holiday shopping reached a peak frenetic state this year, with most major retailers capitalizing on a range of device form factors to vie for your purchase.

So, why APIs? For retailers, the answer is in your pocket. When was the last time you used a shopping app while inside a store? Or made a “spur of the moment” online purchase? Back in February, Forrester analyst Brian Walker laid this logic on retailers at eTail Palm Springs (Optimizing Your Business for the Era of Agile Commerce) in a message to retailers that: you have to go slow, to go fast.

In the past year, we’ve seen a surge in mobile devices and smartphones plunging into mainstream, giving millions of people the capability to browse the Internet, watch movies and stream music anywhere, without ever having to find a place to sit down and boot up a laptop or desktop. In fact, in a recent Gartner report, worldwide sales of mobile phones to end users reached a whopping 419 million units in the second quarter of 2012, where open OS smartphone devices made up over 36.7% of all mobile device sales.