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For the second time in three weeks, EBay has moved to solidify its foothold in Asia, buying a 33 percent stake in Chinese auction site EachNet for US$30 million. According to research firm IDC, China has 27 million Internet consumers, making it the fifth largest online economy. With a population ...

Outdated product specifications, merchandising messages or other online content are surefire recipes for customer alienation. But many Internet companies cannot afford the resources needed to constantly purge their sites of past-due elements. "The task of updating content is high work and small r...

Isn't it great to see a new round of online grocery battles breaking out? The grocery chains expanding up and down the West Coast have a new model, one that relies on existing stores rather than on expensive distribution networks built from scratch. But fast-forward a bit and it still appears tha...

Online shoppers were outnumbered in February by surfers interested in the Olympics and taxes, but e-commerce sites -- including those dedicated to flowers, gifts and greetings -- were still among the most-visited Web locales, according to a report by Jupiter Media Metrix. And Jupiter analyst Main...

Shares of Amazon.com took a hit after word spread on Wall Street that Toys "R" Us may be seeking to renegotiate its partnership with the e-tail giant. Speculation was sparked by published reports that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos met with his Toys "R" Us counterpart to discuss the status and structure o...

To most online consumers, receiving unwanted e-mail marketing messages is just part of being online. But analysts say there is a price to pay for too much spam, and e-commerce may have to foot some of the bill. "Privacy continues to be something that consumers say is holding them back," Forrester...

Many e-commerce firms were doomed to fail the moment their founders hatched their shaky business concepts. But a few promising online business models undeservedly sunk with the receding technology tide or were otherwise hampered by poor execution. "There was a determination to be pure online play...

The dot-com graveyard had been prepped, the headstone carved and polished. The mourners were gathered, dressed in black and ready to toss worthless stock certificates onto the casket. But a funny thing happened on the way to the graveyard. Buy.com refused to die. Of course, whether or not the com...

Following a trail blazed by a host of e-commerce companies, Travelocity and Priceline.com have announced separate plans to expand into the Asian market within the next few weeks. Priceline spokesman Brian Ek told the E-Commerce Times that a Hong Kong venture has been in testing for several months...

Yahoo! has unveiled a three-day fire sale consisting of nearly 1,000 sales and promotional offers from merchant partners, including Sears, Travelocity and Hewlett-Packard, as well as from the company's own premium services. "This could be Yahoo's effort to float the idea of aggregating discounts,...

PayPal has been hit with a class-action lawsuit by members who claim the online payment company froze their funds without their prior knowledge. The complaint also stems in part from difficulties that some members had in contacting PayPal to straighten out allegedly false charges. The suit seeks uns...

Face it: In the Internet age, privacy is a thing of the past. But people can take a number of steps to control how their personal information is used online. For concerned consumers, the first stop on any Web site should be the section about privacy. "The key is to be aware of ambiguous language,...

Whenever Amazon.com chief financial officer Warren Jenson decided to leave his post, determining when to announce it was a delicate matter. Not that Jenson is leaving under any kind of cloud. But the fact that no one has pushed the panic button over his departure is somewhat surprising, not only ...

In its latest challenge to the dominance of online banks and financial institutions, MSN said it will offer a free year of online bill payment service to anyone who uses its finance site to file a tax return. But analysts said that consumers seem most open to turning over their bill-paying duties...

Buy.com has expanded its global shipping services, introducing a feature that lets shoppers view total shipping costs in their local currency. In addition, international customers now will see the total price of their items at the point of purchase, rather than remaining in the dark about customs...