The MoPR Blog

With Black Friday upon us, millions of American consumers have begun to plan out their yearly shopping routine. This means getting the kids to bed early, prepacking the car, and finding the quickest route to the best deals of the year. However, this normally hellish routine can be avoided this year with the help of several mobile applications.

LivingSocial, an online based coupon site, has been the go-to for many Americans in need of pinching a few pennies for services, food and vacations. Not only is LivingSocial offering deals on Black Friday but have decided to extend their discounting opportunities by including Cyber Monday deals. With both these deals available as mobile applications, no longer will you have to drag your half asleep child into Bed, Bath and Beyond. Instead, you can simply shop from home on any mobile device.

Other companies have followed suit of the LivingSocial idea. Companies such as, Blackfriday.fm, an Android application from Sazze Inc. have become great resources to finding Black Friday deals as they are released come November 25th. The application will supply consumers with breaking news and leaked ads in real time while also allowing them to search for Black Friday deals by store.

With the upcoming Black Friday traffic, other contenders such as Sears Holding Inc. have found successful ways to top the Keynote Mobile Commerce Platform Index. With their apps loading time coming in at 3.65 seconds with a success rate of 97.41 percent, it’s obvious that they mean business come November 25^th.

TGI Black Friday is currently the highest rated Black Friday app for the Apple iPhone in 2011. The free app allows you to search thousands of Black Friday deals for every major retail store, download PDF Black Friday Ad Scans and even create a personal shopping list for the items and the deals you want.

If you live in Portland, Oregon locally based mobile financial services firm Tyfone (iCashé), has created iCashé app now available for mobile banking customers at OnPoint Community Credit Union. This one of its kind combination of mobile commerce and mobile banking allows mobile banking customers to purchase gift cards on their mobile phones and send to anyone in the US instantly by text message or email. So whether you want to send it to a friend across country or use it for yourself this Black Friday, you are able to use the iCashé app gift cards at any of more than 50 national retailers and restaurants.