Ideeli Inc. found the decision to be a simple one: If a customer has a smartphone in her hand, she's going to want a mobile commerce site to function like it's on a smartphone. That means gestures like swiping and pinch-and-zoom, speedy performance and easy access to social media. Basically, that means an app.

But a site is not an app—or at least that used to be the case. Now pioneering developers and m-commerce technology vendors have begun using HTML5, the latest iteration of the foundational programming language of the web. Using HTML5 technology from vendor Mobify, ideeli, a fashion and home members-only e-retailer, launched an m-commerce site in November 2011 that includes the gesture, speed and social features and functions it believed would give it an edge. And it's paid off.

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