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After much speculation over how the economy and the terrorist attacks might affect e-commerce, hopes were raised for a robust online holiday when Web shoppers started buying in volume from the dominant Web sites. Both Yahoo! and Amazon.com reported that online sales over the Thanksgiving weekend ...

Online shopping traffic surged more than 20 percent the day after Thanksgiving, but fell short of last year's busiest shopping day, according to a report from Nielsen//NetRatings. "For e-tailers, the Thanksgiving holiday week is critical to getting holiday shopping on track," said Sean Kaldor, vi...

As Web merchants head into the holiday season, e-tail marketers are looking at a whole bunch of skittish and penny-pinching consumers -- and trying to figure out how to get them to purchase gifts online. "To combat sluggish consumer spending, online retailers will be forced to come up with innova...

E-commerce will continue to be a driving force behind future economic growth worldwide, and may be especially important for developing countries, according to a report released by the United Nations. However, the group, made up of representatives of private and government agencies, also warns tha...

With the recent restructuring of Amazon, Bezos looks to be positioning his company to join a race that has barely begun -- Internet commerce that goes beyond the World Wide Web. Amazon's first stabs at third-party services condition users to a new kind of online experience, one that hints at how ...

Last week on Capitol Hill, when the U.S. Senate approved a two-year extension of the moratorium on Internet taxation, the entire e-commerce industry drew closer to the biggest reprieve it has ever received. While online merchants have grown more efficient as time has gone by, now they must respon...

Looking to raise money for a small online business? Experts say that in today's difficult economic environment, some basic tenets for securing financial backing remain -- but other rules have changed, and it is as important as ever to be abreast of those changes. For example, Gartner Group analyst...

Americans expect to do most of their holiday shopping in stores rather than online this year, and those who do plan to turn to the Web say that convenience will be the key reason, according to two new reports released this week. One report found that consumers who have purchased gifts online over ...

The holidays are a time for giving. True enough. But why should it be the only time that e-tailers "give" shoppers free shipping? Smart online merchants use free shipping to get those shoppers to buy and to do it early, easing the last-minute crunch. And it works, by all accounts. So why does fre...

Internet auction leader EBay said it will present what is believed to be the first nationwide online auction of new homes. EBay and Oakland, California-based iBidCo will partner to produce the "live" online auction of 20 new homes in Los Angeles County on December 17th. "We ensure that the seller...

Experts say that strategic and operational preparations by an e-commerce company for 2002 should have been set in motion well before today. With all the uncertainty ahead, analysts told the E-Commerce Times that the best defense for e-businesses is to get their own houses in order -- to shape up ...

A host of offline purchasing incentives triggered a downturn in online sales during October, with spending for the month falling about 10 percent from September to US$3.6 billion, according to data released Monday by Forrester Research and Greenfield Online. "I was surprised by the figures and it...

Former Amazon.com partner Overstock.com took dead aim at the leading e-tailer's core business Monday with the launch of a bookstore section and the promise that it would undercut Amazon's list prices. Salt Lake City, Utah-based Overstock, which was built on reselling overstocked and discounted it...

The latest trend in recession-era innovation? It's smart, practical and potentially profitable. Gloom far outweighs glory in today's high-tech headlines, but don't despair. Lessons learned -- or perhaps just tenets rediscovered -- from the dot-com fallout seem to be top-of-mind for today's smart...

E-commerce giant Amazon.com has reorganized its business operations into five departments -- with an increased emphasis toward third-party services -- the company confirmed. "We obviously want to make changes to the organization that make sense for the business," Amazon spokesperson Patty Smith t...