The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has announced the publication of its Mobile Banking Overview calling it -
“an educational resource designed to provide analysis of the unique marketing opportunities and attributes that the mobile channel represents for the financial sector.
Key subjects include market size, consumer-focused mobile banking products and services, and the mobile media channels available [...]

Technology Strategies International has released a report titled “Canadian Payments Forecast – 2009″.
The report forecasts that the Canadian debit and credit card market will be hit by the decline in personal expenditure on consumer goods and services as a result of the economic downturn, but over the long term both forms of payment will command [...]

The U.S. Census Bureau has announced advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for December
Adjusted for seasonal variation, and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, sales were $343.2 billion, a decrease of 2.7% (±0.5%) from the previous month, and down 9.8% (±0.7%) below December 2007.
Total sales for the 12 months [...]

Six of the largest US credit, debit, and charge card issuers have reported 4th quarter 2008 financial results this month.
Included in their results are some steep drops in the purchase volume on the cards they issue -

6% at US Bank
7.6% at JP Morgan Chase
10% at American Express
10%+ at CapitalOne
15% at Bank of America
17.2% at Citigroup

Between [...]

Winnie-the-Pooh is possibly the world’s best loved bear.  If any readers don’t love the “tubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff” then now’s the time to hit the back button on your browser.
Apparently somebody loves him a whole lot.
An auction record was set at Sotheby’s, last Wednesday, when a collection of E.H. Shepard’s original drawings [...]

If you’re a Sellathon user, you’ll have noticed the changes to the Sellathon site – at least according to an email that hit my inbox this last week.
It seems things are moving apace after Auctiva acquired the company, and these have been accelerated since eBay made a number of significant changes that threatened to [...]

eBay UK today announced the death of the onsite Marketplace Research tool for sellers, with an announcement that the function is to be taken over by Terapeak.

Casual eBay users might not think anything more about this change than just glancing past the announcement as irrelevant to them. Even fairly heavy eBay users may see it as no more that yet another change to adapt to amongst the many changes this year. Yet, for industry observers and reporters, it is another indicator of a company with an infrastructure and operating costs crisis …

Do you know why most people fail at marketing anything on the Internet? Even though the products or services they are trying to sell are awesome?

HAPPY NEW YEAR & BEST WISHES TO YOU ALL.
 As you all recover from the festivities of seeing out the old, and pondering whether or not your new year resolutions are maintainable, I thought it might be a good idea to write something about the subliminal idea that a new year is a clean slate.
For many people [...]

By Michel Fortin (c) 2008
Since the new year is right around the corner, bloggers and marketers alike are posting their predictions as if a psychics convention has come to town.
So in keeping with that tradition, I’d like to post a few of my own. But unlike those who post their predictions in point form, [...]

  Have you ever wondered how to keep more up to date on exchange rates when you’re trying to organise pricing on your website or online-auction listings?
I’ve always considered myself to be pretty savvy with such things, especially listing on up to a dozen eBay sites in any one week, each in a different currency.  [...]