Every weekday at noon EDT, OverwhelmingOffers.com posts one special offer from one of more than 28,000 retail and brand partners. Then shoppers try to reserve one of a limited number of that day’s offer. The mobile application, with iPhone and Android applications expected before the end of November, addresses the needs of shoppers on the go who cannot reserve the item via PC Web.

“We built the OverwhelmingOffers mobile app because after we launched on the Web, we literally received tens of thousands of customer-service messages from our user base complaining that they could not reserve OverwhelmingOffers at noon when they were at meetings,” said Charlie Kim, CEO of Next Jump, New York. “In fact, we anecdotally heard people in many companies stopped accepting meetings at noon, so they could be at their desks to reserve the offers.

“That’s why we built and released the Blackberry mobile OverwhelmingOffers application,” he said. “We have the Android OverwhelmingOffers app coming out at the end of this week, plus the iPhone OverwhelmingOffers app in review right now.”

OverWhelmingOffers.com is a division of Next Jump, a company that claims to have created the most targeted and measurable platform for delivering offers to consumers.

Getting mobile deals
Recent offers from the company were 50 percent of movie tickets on Nov. 11, 50 percent of Aerobeds on Nov. 10, 50 percent of Nintendo Wii on Nov. 6 and $90 off UGG boots on Nov. 4.

Mr. Kim said that the application’s target demographic is anyone who normally shops online.

“Our mobile apps enable people to participate in OverwhelmingOffers when they’re not at their desk, and expands our reach to the growing number of people who prefer to interact with us via a mobile platform,” Mr. Kim said. “The mobile OverwhelmingOffer app is also great for driving more traffic to our programs – such as when we run “Super OverwhelmingOffer” Days, where we offer multiple OOs in a single day. 

“This Friday, Nov. 20, we will be running a Super OO Day with one OO every hour for 8 hours straight,”” he said. “For those who have the mobile app installed, they can take advantage of these specials regardless of where they are.”

Mr. Kim said that consumers who use the application see the daily OverwhelmingOffers hint if they are not already subscribed to the daily email, which provides the same hint.

The application gives the same functionality of the Web site so consumers can reserve and make purchases directly from their mobile device.

Consumers can also log into their OverwhelmingOffers account to see their reward points balance.

Mr. Kim said that the team at Next Jump thinks mobile commerce is just starting out.

“We think mobile commerce is at its inception right now,” Mr. Kim said. “However, mobile computing is evolving faster than Moore’s law, so the inherent limitations – both technical, such as small screens, memory, limited processing capability, power consumption and spotty coverage, as well as from a user side, such as privacy, security and trust in mobile commerce – will inevitably fade away soon enough.

“As that happens, and it has already started, we think mobile commerce will become the dominant way for conducting business transactions,” he said.