Archive

For you and me, it's death and taxes, as the old saying goes. Certain things are inevitable. And in the world of e-commerce, several issues are sure to return, each and every year. These are perennial Internet issues, the ones that you can count on being wrestled with, pondered over, but never qu...

Internet auction powerhouse eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) said Thursday it might seek to sell up to US$1 billion worth of stock in coming months. In a shelf-filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, eBay said it would use proceeds from the share sale for general corporate purposes, includin...

Can we conclude that as long as e-tailers carefully manage consumer expectations, and leverage technology and delivery partnerships, they can rest easy about their logistics processes? Not quite. Managing logistics costs continues to be a major hurdle for e-tailers, and is often the key reason th...

IBM will sell more computers and other products on eBay as part of a broad software and marketing agreement announced by the two companies Thursday. eBay also said that it will use IBM's WebSphere software to power the upgraded version of its online marketplace. The deal is a big win for IBM, G...

Following the lead of five other movie studios, Walt Disney Co. and News Corp. said Wednesday they intend to launch a video-on-demand Internet-based service early next year. Movies.com will be a joint venture between Disney and Australia-based News Corp., the companies said, and will offer films...

Although their companies continue to spend money on many different aspects of e-business, corporate managers see less promise in the Internet than they did a year ago, according to a report released Wednesday by the Yankee Group. "Over the past year, the perception of Internet business has swung ...

With a crop of new film, publishing and music releases ready for harvest this fall, marketing executives in the entertainment industry should consider the Internet as a key tool to boost sales, forge online word-of-mouth campaigns and control post-launch buzz among consumers, according to a repor...

Looking to meet the much-anticipated consumer demand for electronic books, leading portal Yahoo! joined with four publishing houses Wednesday to launch an e-book site on its shopping network. Yahoo! said the deals with Simon & Schuster, Penguin Putnam, Random House and HarperCollins give it...

Like spoiled children who get every toy they could possibly want for years, only to have Santa Claus skip their house one Christmas, e-commerce is in for a rude awakening. Don't get me wrong, e-commerce sales might well post strong growth for the rest of 2001. But one thing seems certain: The da...

If you lost 100,000 customers in the course of one fiscal year, as Internet-only banks have, what would you do? Close up shop? Revamp your product line? Perhaps you would take the plunge and pour venture capital into a major marketing push. Some businesses might study their market to determine w...

Nielsen//NetRatings recently estimated that the number of online users grew 16 percent from July 2000 to July 2001, with nearly 60 percent of Americans now online. The Internet, NetRatings said, is "now reaching the latter half of mainstream America," with late adopters helping to push Web use to...

Fry's Electronics said Friday it has agreed to buy electronics e-tailer Outpost.com in a deal that includes an immediate US$13 million loan. The all-cash deal values Outpost shares at 25 cents each, for a total of about $8 million. Including the cash loan, the deal is worth about $21 million. Ac...

Online travel company Expedia said Monday it is making its services available to French travelers through a joint venture with French national railroad company SNCF. Expedia's airline, hotel, train and car reservation services will be available on SNCF's Web site, which Expedia says is the top tr...

Remember when the concept of a "paperless society" was all the rage? Offices would eliminate file cabinets, newspapers wouldn't need newsprint and the stationery business would become obsolete. Oh, and books? Books would become the greatest dinosaurs of all. Books wouldn't be necessary. Enter e-...

When Buy.com announced that its ability to accept credit cards -- and therefore its viability as a business -- was in doubt, the admission shed new light on some important but often overlooked partners for many e-tailers: credit card processors. With the help of its founder and soon-to-be-owner S...