Archive

Holiday shoppers helped push online sales to nearly US$5 billion in November, a 36 percent increase over October but below year-earlier spending levels, Forrester Research and Greenfield Online said. The data means Forrester's forecast for an $11 billion holiday season -- which would have been a ...

Online auction giant EBay announced that Brian Swette will step down as chief operating officer of the company, effective January 1st. Instead of naming a new COO, Swette's responsibilities in marketing, category management and business development will be divided among other top executives at th...

Amid an overall slowdown in consumer spending, e-commerce is growing at a relatively healthy rate, posting a 10 percent gain in November. Ask a few traditional retailers how they would have felt about 10 percent growth in that same time frame and you'll start to see why it's all relative and why ...

While the digital divide -- the rift between those with access to computers and the Internet and without -- continues to crumble in the United States, analysts generally agree that e-commerce is not seeing the benefits of that trend. Because income is a bigger factor than Web access when it comes...

Name-your-price e-tailer Priceline.com received a boost when America Online agreed to feature the company's travel products on AOL's popular Web sites. Goldman Sachs analyst Anthony Noto repeated a market outperform rating on Priceline shares, saying the arrangement is likely "the first of severa...

With the holidays drawing nearer, consumers stepped up their online shopping during the first week of December, spending roughly US$2.6 billion, according to data released by Goldman Sachs, Harris Interactive and Nielsen//NetRatings. The figure represented a 91 percent spike from the $1.4 billion...

At the onset of the busiest shopping season of the year, e-commerce in the United Kingdom got a big boost from the British government in the form of a media blitz designed to get shoppers "clicking with confidence." In contrast, few analysts expect the U.S. government's laissez-faire approach to ...

We all know by now that Microsoft is prone to tyrannical bouts of imperialism. A few cursory wrist slaps from the Feds won't change that. But the software Goliath's latest bid for world domination defies logic. Veiled as a holiday promotion for its .NET Passport service, Microsoft is trying to pur...

Microsoft and Bank One announced a wide-ranging alliance to promote and develop online services. As part of the agreement, Bank One plans to use a variety of Microsoft offerings, including the nascent .NET technology. The pact focuses largely on marketing tie-ins and providing online services to ...

A record number of people visited e-commerce sites during the week ending December 7th -- more than 50 percent higher than 2000 levels -- Jupiter Media Metrix reported. In all, 52.4 million people shopped online during the week, Jupiter said, compared with 34.9 million a year ago.

Experts told the E-Commerce Times that the Web is nearly a perfect medium for conducting marketing research. It is less costly and faster than traditional methods, such as mail and telephone surveys, and recent success stories have helped erase many lingering questions about the accuracy of Web-b...

Peapod.com, now owned by Ahold, is one of the only online grocers with considerable geographical reach and national name recognition still in business. What is Peapod's secret? Probably the deep-pocket backing and early decisions to exit some markets. However, according to the attorney general of...

A bidding war for online job site HotJobs broke out when Internet portal Yahoo! said it offered US$436 million in cash and stock to buy the company, which in June agreed to be acquired by TMP Worldwide, the parent of rival firm Monster.com. Yahoo! chairman and CEO Terry Semel made the offer direc...

Online consumer spending in the U.S. rose to US$5.3 billion in November, a 10 percent increase over 2000 levels, according to a report released by Nielsen//NetRatings and Harris Interactive. The growth rate was the smallest monthly increase recorded so far in 2001, the two firms said. September s...

U.S. e-tailers have made major strides in improving the online ordering and delivery process, though Web shopping may be taking longer than in past years because consumers have more choices, according to the annual e-Fulfillment Report released by consulting firm Accenture. "E-tailers are padding...