Multimedia retail giant QVC Inc. has launched mobile marketing company QWASI's cross-market, interactive mobile commerce platform CataMo.

QVC is tapping into mobile commerce with CataMo, a platform that combines mobile marketing with mobile ordering together in a single application suite. QWASI claims that CataMo is the only solution available that allows retailers to market directly to customers via SMS and lets customers order via text message from their handset.

"QVC is a great client for QWASI, as we're able to demonstrate a wide range of services for one of the world's leading multi-media retailers," said Mark Ford, co-founder/COO of QWASI, Philadelphia. "We are working with them on text messaging services including text ordering and mobile marketing.

"Our company has a proven track record for launching innovative services like text ordering and we will continue to introduce emerging technology with them," he said.

Customers can now purchase products from QVC by sending a text message with the item number to QVC's short code QVCGO (78246).

The on-air item can be bought with a quick text message. Consumers receive information on the item and can easily reply-to-buy the item and receive confirmation on their mobile phone.

QWASI's goal is to provide retailers of all sizes the means of driving in-store traffic, increasing order size, building customer loyalty, improving communication and reaching new customers through an interactive mobile ordering solution.

QVC has already started promoting the mobile commerce platform to its customers and will begin promoting it live on-air 24/7.

"It's exciting to see a retailer and cable channel respond to customer demand for text ordering services," Mr. Ford said. "We look forward to seeing this grow with them."

The CataMo mobile commerce platform lets catalogers, ecommerce, retailers and brick-and-mortar companies realize the benefits of mobile through measurable mobile marketing campaigns.

"Mobile advertising has exploded in the U.S. over the last two years and, while our platform supports sponsored messages and promotions, it depends on how the clients choose to customize the messaging," Mr. Ford said.

Since 2004, QWASI has been providing mobile services including mobile marketing, mobile search, chat and other interactive mobile platforms to Fortune 1000 clients in industries such as ecommerce, financial Services, real estate and enterprise communications.

QWASI claims that it powers more than 1.3 million real estate listings and 1.5 million mobile ads and mobile alerts each day.

CellSigns is a subsidiary of QWASI focused on real estate and newspapers that offers specific applications for mobile search, LBS and text-code services.

QVC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Liberty Media Corporation with annual revenue of more than $7 billion. Its programming is distributed to more than 166 million homes worldwide.

"Before doing anything we take the time to understand our customers' business, and from a consultancy point of view we really are more engaged with the customer to understand how utilizing certain mobile technologies can drive revenue, increase audience and create efficiencies both internally and externally," Mr. Ford said. "Without a clear understanding no product or service will be successful.

"Technically we are very strong and we have built a world class messaging infrastructure that allows us to work with companies like QVC, AAA and Cox," he said. "This is very important to our clients because with all of the mobile marketing noise large companies need a powerful and capable messaging infrastructure that can support high volume applications and, simply put, most of our competitors can't bring this to the table."