Brad Dorfman and Mark Potter

NEW YORK/LONDON, US & UK:When pop icon Britney Spears tweeted a sneak-peak picture of a new outfit from her line for the Candie's brand, the fashions swiftly became a top seller at department store Kohl's Corp.

"When she Twitters, it actually sells thousands of products within 24 hours, so the woman has the gift of Twitter," said Neil Cole, chief executive of Candie's owner Iconix Brand Group Inc.

After years of agreeing that mobile commerce was a good idea in theory, executives told the Reuters Consumer and Retail Summit this week that they are finally getting serious about reaching consumers wherever they are, via mobile phones and other devices they seldom put down.

"It's definitely the buzzword in the industry at the moment," Daniel Latev, retailing research manager at Euromonitor International, said of mobile commerce. "A lot of companies that have an Internet presence are finding this is not enough and they have to go a bit further."

Some retailers are latching onto the tool as they look to drive sales growth again coming out of the recession.

Others cite the mass adoption of devices like Apple Inc's iPhone, with its colorful touchscreen, as paving the way for shoppers to compare prices, receive coupons and buy goods on the go.

"People will still choose to shop in a whole host of ways," said Mark Price, managing director at British grocer Waitrose. "What you have to do is adapt your business to allow customers to shop how they want to shop, when they want to shop."

But while retailers said mobile retailing will be big, they also approach it cautiously due to memories of missteps in the early days of web commerce.

"I think it's the future, although it's going to happen slow," Cole said. "In our opinion, it's similar to the Internet and e-commerce, where people went crazy 15 years ago and a lot of people lost everything (by) going too quick."