“As competition increases in the secondary market of premium ticketing, you want to get in front of your consumers as early as possible,” rather than have them perform a Google search that returns “50,000 other selections,” he says. mPoria allows TicketsNow users to browse seating locations before purchasing.

More phones than PCs
Like other retailers, TicketsNow also is looking for ways to capitalize on the penchant for text messaging among users of mobile devices.

“The staggering fact is mobile phone users [outnumber] PC users eight to one,” Domek says. “Everybody has their cell phones with them. It’s not like you’re waiting for them to log on to their Yahoo! e-mail account and check their messages; you’re getting the message to them immediately.”

The U.S. m-commerce is trending about 18 months behind the mature Japanese and Southeast Asia markets, Wright says. An estimated $1 billion in physical goods was purchased via cell phones in Japan in 2003; last year, the market surpassed $10 billion.

With Japan as a bellwether, Wright predicts a stateside explosion of mobile web shopping over the next two years.

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