Sprint to offer online shopping on mobile phones

13/09/2007 by swordfish.

Sprint Nextel customers can now use mobile phones to shop for everything from shoes to televisions in a new service the No. 3 U.S. wireless company has launched to boost revenue.

The company said on Thursday it is providing a mobile Web portal for shoppers to compare prices or buy about 7 million products from 30 online retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores, Target bluefly.com and shoes.com.

Sprint, which developed its Mobile Shopper service with privately held start-up mShopper.com, said it is the first to launch such a service in the United States.

It said it will not charge mobile users extra subscription fees for the service, but it will charge them for Web access.

“The big opportunity for Sprint is the potential increase of data usage,” said Sprint product manager Charnsin Tulyasathien.

Sprint, along with its rivals, has been pushing data services such as Web surfing and video and music downloads in an effort to get customers to use their phones for more than just talking.

While online shopping from desktop computers have long become mainstream, mobile commerce has yet to take off as the adoption of Web-surfing on mobile phones has been slow.

But faster wireless data speeds and better handsets could boost the mobile shopping market, said Jupiter Research analyst Alan Goode.

Source Yahoo News

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