Mobile commerce to arrive in Yahoo Stores

As consumers become more comfortable with online payment gateways, the demand for a mobile option is rapidly increasing, reports the website Internet Retailer.

Search engine and retail giant Yahoo has struck a deal with technology pioneers Unbound Commerce that will result in the creation of 250 new mobile commerce outlets in 2010. Unbound Commerce intends to bring the mobile commerce, or m-commerce, option to the 45,000 merchants currently using Yahoo's retail platform, Yahoo Stores.

Initially, Yahoo will be testing the program free of charge using 50 of its more popular stores, with commercial availability starting in mid-September.

"Mobile commerce is clearly a growth area," said artbeads.com CEO Devin Kimura, whose company was one of the first to begin looking into the mobile option. "Our users are demanding this and users in general are demanding more with their smartphones. We see it as a critical trend that we want to stay on top of."

The website Practical ECommerce predicts that mobile commerce is a burgeoning resource that will quickly get the interest of the more than 800 million smart phone users worldwide.