Shop Till Your Cell Phone Drops

Mobile payment is the Holy Grail for retailers, breaking down the final barrier to those impulse purchases. The internet has given us the ability to buy anytime; mobile buying would allow us to buy anywhere.

For a culture known for its free-spending habits, Americans have seriously lagged Europe and Asia when it comes to shopping by cell phone.

But Amazon.com's TextBuyIt, a mobile payment service that was introduced today, may start to change all that.

"This is a big step, and now a lot of other people are going to be taking a close look at getting into the mobile payment market," says Michael Gartenberg, vice president and research director at Jupiter Research.

Companies like PayPal, Obopay, Gomobo have all experimented with various ways of letting consumers buy via text messages, but there's no big player yet in mobile payments in the U.S. market.

What Amazon has that others do not is a huge customer database, product inventory, and a trustworthy name that Gartenberg thinks may be enough to kick-start consumer interest, paving the way for other services.

Still the mobile purchase market remains tiny, so Edward Weller, a senior analyst with ThinkEquity Partners, doesn't expect the service to be a big driver of Amazon's U.S. revenue anytime soon.

TextBuyIt is functionally similar to products already out there. After registering your information online with Amazon Payments, it allows you to text an ISBN, UPC, or product name to Amazon, and in a matter of minutes complete a purchase.

Jeetil Patel, a senior analyst with Deutsche Bank Securities, notes that in addition to allowing consumers to buy books at the touch of a button, TextBuyIt also gives Amazon a mobile platform for delivering digital content like ringtones, songs, and video.

"This now addresses smaller pieces of digital content, and allows for more of a digital products sell in," Patel says.

And don't forget Amazon's potential in the more mobile-centric markets like Japan and Germany.

Amazon's international sales are more than $2 billion, up 46 percent last quarter alone. With the dollar weak, what better time than now to focus on all things foreign.

Liz Gunnison