Apps set to explode in growth as all mobile phone providers launch there own apps stores

Around 450,000 smart-phone apps were published to the main app stores worldwide in 2010, according to new research from Research2guidance.

Click to Download i-send proximity apps

For a growing number of UK shoppers, the difference between off-line and on-line shopping will be no line at all.

What does this mean for retailers, small business and marketing companies?

With an inundation of new smart phone apps these hand-held shopping tools are redefining the shopping experience and blurring the distinction between the in-store experience and the virtual world of information now available in the palm of your hand.

Advances in location-based technology, price-comparison apps, bar-code scanning apps and social-networking tools have turned the mobile device into a real-time third channel of commerce, empowering consumers while challenging retailers to rethink the way they do business.

The appetite for new apps seems voracious. A recent survey by comparison-shopping site Price Grabber revealed that 36 percent of consumers plan to use their mobile phones for shopping-related activities this holiday season.

Around 4.2m of us in the UK are already using our mobiles to access the internet and browse retailer’s e Commerce sites

Recession-wary consumers are embracing new tools that can instantly call up product specs, reviews, price comparisons and input from Facebook friends and Twitter followers, all while they’re standing in the aisle.  read more.....