Archive

Change is in the air, and that is good news for e-commerce. Internet-based selling is about to start Act II. You remember Act I -- the era when e-tailers were going to change the world? After the curtain came down on Act I, assorted naysayers hobnobbed smugly about the foolhardiness of trying...

Online grocer Webvan (Nasdaq: WBVN) announced late Friday that chairman and chief executive officer George T. Shaheen has resigned. Robert Swan, chief operating officer of Foster City, California-based Webvan, will lead the company until Webvan's board of directors appoints Shaheen's successor....

With the first 100 days of his presidency coming to a close at the end of this month, U.S. President George W. Bush has yet to articulate a formal e-commerce strategy. As a result, there is some disagreement among experts on how much Bush will help the industry. Forrester Research group dir...

Online retailer Buy.com announced Thursday that two members of its board of directors, both representing the venture capital arm of Tokyo-based Softbank, are leaving the struggling e-tailer. The departures of Softbank's William L. Burnham and Scott Russell leave four seats open on the Buy.com bo...

Troubled Internet consultancy MarchFirst filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Thursday. The filing comes little more than a week after the company laid off 1,700 employees, sold a slew of assets to rival Divine, and acknowledged that had "significant liquidity difficulties." According ...

In a bid to weather the harsh stock market climate that is currently battering online brokerage houses, Ameritrade announced Thursday that it is slashing its advertising budget by roughly 25 percent and pink-slipping between 270 to 300 workers, or 14 percent of its payroll. The Omaha, Nebraska-b...

Consumer electronics e-tailer Outpost.com reported a fourth quarter 2001 loss Thursday and said that it is considering a number of cost-cutting measures, as well as strategic alternatives. Outpost's stock lost more than 40 percent of its value Thursday, trading down 13 cents to 19 cents. The Ken...

The decision by urban-delivery pioneer Kozmo to abruptly shut down came after a frantic but failed attempt to find as little as US$3 million to sustain limited operations, according to a report published Friday. The VentureWire newsletter reported that Kozmo executives spent most of the past w...

Online delivery service Kozmo abruptly announced that it is shutting down Wednesday after nearly three years in business, leaving 1,100 people out of work in nine U.S. cities. Kozmo said the shutdown was effective late Wednesday and that all but a handful of employees, who would be kept on to ...

Internet giant Yahoo! announced after the markets closed Wednesday that it had met its own scaled-down expectations for the first quarter of 2001, but planned to lay off 12 percent of its workforce. The company also said that it expected a loss for the second quarter. The layoffs will affect app...

Privacy watchdog group TRUSTe issued guidelines Wednesday designed to address the issue of what happens to consumer information when a dot-com shuts down or merges with another company,. Currently in draft form, the guidelines say that the privacy policies instituted when a dot-com is in busine...

An elaborate Internet scam involving fake banking documents worth approximately US$3.9 billion has been shut down by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), London-based ICC Commercial Crime Services announced Wednesday. According to the ICC, the fraud involved the use of fake European banki...

Businesses in Latin America are beginning to tap their e-commerce potential, according to data released Wednesday by the Yankee Group. The report, "Latin America's E-Builders," found that corporations throughout the region are investing an average US$1.2 million per project for Web development an...

News stories about dot-com layoffs and closures have so frequently stormed the business pages that many have become numb to the downside of e-commerce -- and have even stopped thinking about what to do about the decline. However, as the shakeout dust begins to settle, it is time to ask why why...

Scient (Nasdaq: SCNT) fell 50 U.S. cents to $1 in morning trading Thursday, after the Internet consulting company lowered expectations for the quarter ended in March and said it will cut at least 675 jobs. "The economic environment remains extremely challenging," chairman and chief executive off...