Articles by Lori Enos

Despite the benefits of business-to-business (B2B) online purchasing, corporate purchasing agents say that they plan to make only 20 percent of their purchases online in the next year, according to a report released Monday by Jupiter Media Metrix Sixty percent of the purchasing agents surveyed for the study, "Getting Procurement Agents To Buy Onlin...

Internet powerhouse Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) and brick-and-mortar giant Wal-Mart are reportedly discussing a strategic alliance Amazon founder and chief executive officer Jeff Bezos and Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott are "hammering out details of an agreement that could be announced within six weeks," London's Sunday Times reported....

Internet powerhouse Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) announced late Thursday that its board of directors has adopted a stockholder rights plan to discourage a hostile takeover attempt Santa Clara, California-based Yahoo! said the plan is "designed to deter coercive takeover tactics, including the accumulation of shares in the open market or through private tr...

Dot-com chief executive officers are departing their companies at a rate of almost one per day, according to a report released Thursday by Challenger, Gray & Christmas The survey found that for the seventh month in a row, Internet executives led the overall CEO departure parade. During February, 119 chief executive departures were announced, with 2...

Alternative payment methods, such as prepaid value cards and Web currency, are being used online, but according to analysts and merchants alike, they'll never dethrone the king of the dot-com world: the credit card Yankee Group analyst Christine Loeber told the E-Commerce Times that alternative payment methods are "not gathering much steam."

Georgia and Texas are among the U.S. states grappling with the issue of Internet alcohol sales, after a federal law went into effect last month giving states more control over alcoholic shipments to consumers in their states The Georgia State Senate approved a bill Tuesday that would regulate the delivery of alcohol sold by e-tailers, while battle ...

Hours after firing half its staff Wednesday, beleaguered e-tailer Buy.com (Nasdaq: BUYX) announced it had filed a US$45 million breach of contract lawsuit against golf's PGA Tour. Buy.com's suit, filed in a Los Angeles federal court, arises out of the golfing organization's decision to sign an agreement with USA Networks on February 14th calling f...

Beleaguered e-tailer Buy.com (Nasdaq: BUYX) announced Wednesday that it is eliminating approximately 125 positions -- more than half of its 230-person staff -- in a bid to conserve cash The Aliso Viejo, California-based company said the job cuts, and a plan to significantly reduce expenses related to "certain outsourced services," would cut the com...

Long-struggling Internet retailer eToys (Nasdaq: ETYS) announced Monday that it will file for protection under U.S. bankruptcy law within the next five to 10 days The Los Angeles, California-based company said it concluded that "under any scenario," its outstanding liabilities of approximately US$274 million would "substantially exceed" the value o...

Sabre Holding Corporation (NYSE: TSG) rolled out a point-of-sale Web portal for travel agencies Tuesday that integrates Sabre's database of travel services with Internet content The new product, eVoya Webtop, will make it easier for traditional travel agents who use the Sabre reservation system to "compete and win in the e-commerce world," Sabre sa...

Despite the ongoing dot-com shakeout, Web merchants who follow a five-part plan to satisfy customers have a chance to succeed and reach profitability, according to a report released Monday by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) The report, "Winning the Online Consumer 2.0: Converting Traffic into Profitable Relationships," found that most online reta...

After a week of being dogged in the press over its declining number of auction listings, Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) released numbers Thursday indicating that remaining users now have a better chance of selling their merchandise Brian Fitzgerald, senior producer of Yahoo! Auctions, told the E-Commerce Times that in the month since Yahoo! began charging l...

Despite the shakeout that has led to the closure of Web sites selling such items as furniture, garden supplies and pet food, there is one e-tail sector that is on fire: Web-based tobacco sales Online cigarette merchants are apparently thriving, but the budding industry faces more than one legal hurdle.

The United Kingdom and Canada digitally signed a pact Thursday promising to cooperate on developing e-commerce and e-government initiatives "It is through collaborative efforts such as this that we cultivate a secure environment for the growth of electronic commerce," said Brian Tobin, Canadian Minister of Industry.

The Internet is fast becoming a mecca for drug traffickers who use it to unlawfully peddle controlled substances, the United Nations' International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) said Wednesday in its annual report The report said that some online pharmacies "explicitly" advertise that they provide drugs without prescriptions, or that the pharmacy ...

In a bid to increase its international market share, eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) announced late Wednesday that it has signed an agreement to purchase European online auctioneer iBazar S.A. in an all-stock deal estimated to be worth up to US$112 million "This deal is a tremendous step forward for eBay," said eBay president and chief executive officer Meg Wh...

Home delivery of groceries and other sundries ordered online will endure, according to industry observers, but some leading Internet providers might not, unless they can adapt to marketplace demands and find offline partnerships to become profitable Yankee Group analyst Christine Loeber told the E-Commerce Times that the business models of two of t...

Online scam artists contributed to a 50 percent increase in credit card fraud in the European Union (EU) last year, ringing up US$553 million in illegal transactions, according to numbers released by the European Commission (EC) on Monday To stem the tide, the EC has launched an ambitious three-year "Action Plan" meant to reduce "the growing proble...

Over the past few months, Yahoo! has been swiftly moving to diversify its revenue streams and decrease its dependence on online advertising. The Web giant's efforts to boost income include the recent decision to charge users listing fees for online auctions, the move to sell placement in its directory, and the expansion in Australian markets.

Despite posting a greater-than-expected fourth-quarter 2000 loss on Thursday, travel services e-tailer Priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN) secured investments totaling US$50 million from two Asian firms and predicted it would have a pro forma operating profit during the second quarter of 2001 The "name-your-price" e-tailer said it lost $25 million, or 15 ...