Shopping from your cell phone
A new start-up called mShopper has just introduced an application that lets people shop from their cell phones.
(Credit:
mShopper)
The company on Thursday launched its new service that allows mobile-phone subscribers to search and compare prices for more than 7 million items from over 100 merchants. Once they've found an item, people can buy it with just a few clicks on their phones.
It works like this: you enter the first two letters of a brand name or product model. The application finds the item you're looking for and lists prices from a variety of Web retailers. Users can register their credit card and shipping information in advance on mShopper's site. Or they can simply click to call to register their billing and shipping information.
There are other companies that offer some of what mShopper can do. For example, a company called Frucall allows people to comparison-shop by calling a 1-800 number and typing in a product code to get prices from a variety of Web sites. But the application doesn't let people buy things directly from the phone.
David Gould, mShopper's CEO, said the company is currently testing the service with a major U.S. operator, but he declined to mention which one. The operator plans to add mShopper to its service menu under its own brand and share revenue with mShopper, Gould said.
Marguerite Reardon has been a CNET News reporter since 2004, covering cell phone services, broadband, citywide Wi-Fi, the Net neutrality debate, as well as the ongoing consolidation of the phone companies. E-mail Maggie. 
