Sprint Customers Get Industry-First ''Mobile Shopper'' Application to Browse and Buy Products from Online Retailers

September 13, 2007 08:00 AM EDT

Sprint Mobile Commerce Site Allows Customers to Quickly Compare Prices and Make Purchases from Familiar Online Merchants Straight from Their Handsets

OVERLAND PARK, Kan.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Customers of Sprint (NYSE:S) can now shop and buy products from more than 30 online retailers right on their Sprint phones through one easy-to-use mobile commerce tool. With the launch today of Mobile Shopper, powered by Boulder-based mobile shopping company mShopper, Sprint is the first U.S. wireless carrier to launch a mobile shopping portal, bringing the online shopping experience to the wireless phone. Sprint data subscribers can access Mobile Shopper at no additional charge to make quick and easy price comparisons and purchases directly from their handsets.

At launch, Mobile Shopper features more than 7 million products for sale at more than 30 popular online retailers such as eLuxury, eBags, Bluefly, Shoes.com and many more, all easily accessible through a single tool. Users can search for a specific product to find which retailer offers it at the lowest price, or they can browse inventory by retailer or category. When they’ve found a product they’re interested in, customers can email the details to themselves for future use, share the details with a friend, or purchase the product right from their phone.

“With Mobile Shopper, Sprint customers get a powerful shopping tool that they can use on-the-go to buy products or compare online prices to in-store merchandise,” said George Ranallo, director of consumer data applications for Sprint. “The speed of the Sprint Mobile Broadband Network gives our customers fast mobile access to innovative data applications such as Mobile Shopper, right on the one device they always have with them – their Sprint phone.”

For easy purchasing, customers can set up a Mobile Shopper account right on their phone or on a PC at www.sprint.com/mobileshopper [1] to save their shipping address and credit card information with a secure PIN. To make a purchase, customers select an item and enter their phone number and PIN to apply their saved account information without having to type it in each time. Charges appear on the customer’s credit card statement, just as they would for an online purchase made from a PC.

Alan Goode, a senior analyst at Juniper Research, sees an increasing market for mobile purchasing. He estimates that in North America, mobile purchasers will spend $505 million in 2008, increasing to $1.9 billion by 2010.

Mobile Shopper is immediately available on most data-enabled Sprint phones, at no additional charge for Sprint data subscribers. To access the service, Sprint customers should select the Web icon on their phone’s main menu and type “shop” into the search box. Standard data usage charges apply.

Sprint continually provides wireless data services that are first, better and unique, from award-winning Sprint Music and Sprint TV, to industry-first GPS services such as Sprint Navigation and Sprint Family Locator, to exclusive applications such as NFL Mobile. On average, Sprint customers spent an industry-leading $9.75 per month on wireless data at the end of the second quarter of 2007. To learn more about Sprint’s data services, visit www.sprint.com/digitallounge [2]. Standard data charges apply to all downloads from Sprint.

About Sprint Nextel

Sprint Nextel offers a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline communications services bringing the freedom of mobility to consumers, businesses and government users. Sprint Nextel is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying innovative technologies, including two robust wireless networks serving 54 million customers at the end of the second quarter 2007; industry-leading mobile data services; instant national and international walkie-talkie capabilities; and a global Tier 1 Internet backbone. For more information, visit www.sprint.com [3].