Articles by Mark W. Vigoroso

Ask people what they think of the better-than-expected earnings report from Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO). Your informal poll may drum up more ho-hums than hoorays Analysts heralded Cisco's favorable earnings numbers as a beacon for a resurgent technology sector, and this may be true. But many former Internet and technology workers are too busy to h...

A word of advice to small U.S. e-tailers: what works for EBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) might not work for you In a characteristic trend-bucking move, EBay recently added Singapore to its roster of international trading sites....

Remember the phrase, "Content is king"? Content can mean many things, but I'm referring to information and functionality that directly aids online shoppers in making purchases, like selection guides, comparison charts and how-tos. Let's call it "commerce content."

Career planning in e-commerce is not for the weak-spirited. A struggling technology sector and an economy teetering on recession have severely limitedthe opportunities for middle- and upper-level managers "With the way the market changes so quickly these days, it is very difficult to speculate on what might or might not happen," spokesperson Jim Ba...

Online shoppers are like racehorses. They're on track, but they spook easily Until the terrorist attacks of September 11th, consumer concerns about security and privacy on the Internet topped nearly every analyst's list of barriers to wide-scale e-commerce. Now, with U.S. security as fragile as it has ever been, online shoppers are spooked. The thr...

Twenty-two-year-old chief executives are hard to find at e-commerce trade shows these days. Until the tech shakeout began in full, dot-com stardom had been the reward for many young entrepreneurs Now, launching a career at the apex of a corporation is about as rare as a dot-com going public.

Faced with intense pressure to grow their businesses quickly, e-commerce executives have been forced to make countless critical decisions -- sometimes at odds with what had once been unassailable Old Economy practices Some of these decisions have gone better than others, to say the least. More than 600 Internet companies have folded since January 2...

General Motors (NYSE: GM) says that eGM, the internal organization created to key GM's online business development, is a transient entity. GM's hope is to absorb the learnings of eGM, disperse them throughout the company, and evolve into a whole e-corporation In Part 2 of her interview with the E-Commerce Times, eGM director of interactive marketin...

Automotive kingpin General Motors (NYSE: GM) is serious about e-business. In 1999, GM created eGM, an internal organization intended to steer the company around costly e-mishaps and toward the best online business practices Using the Web to draw customers is largely the job of eGM director of interactive marketing Joyce Fierens. On the job since 19...

Is the strip-mall travel agent going to go the way ofthe dinosaur? Through the years, many business peoplehave justified their roles as "middlemen"-- and earned their paychecks --by adding value to the space between themerchant and the end-user customer.And perhaps the ultimate middlemanhas been the travel agent....

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 that e-tailers look to partners for help.

According to its main financial backer, Valassis Communications (NYSE: VCI), online coupon provider Save.com will cease operations due toinsufficient funding and a lack of advertisers Valassis, the largest shareholder of Save.com, said that it pulled the plug on the Los Angeles-based company Wednesday, due to the site's "inability to garner a crit...

Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) heard from the U.S. Court of Appeals this week that its pre-owned vehicles Web site wasoperating in violation of Texas state laws Working in partnership with auto dealers in Houston and in five other U.S. cities, Ford's site -- called the Pre-Owned Showroom -- violated the Texas Motor Vehicle Commission Code, according ...

A financial technology services firm on Monday unveiled Nopaperbills.com, a Web site where consumers and small businesses can receive, view and pay both electronic and paper bills over the Internet However, an analyst at e-financial research and consulting firm Celent told the E-Commerce Times that many hurdles continue to impede the success of Nop...

E-business software firm SAP (NYSE: SAP) announced Friday that U.S. antitrust authorities have approved its increased investment in Commerce One (Nasdaq: CMRC), boosting SAP's total stake in the e-marketplace provider to more than 20 percent "With its seat on Commerce One's board, SAP will be one of the bigger influencers of Commerce One," Forreste...

A snafu on the Web site of United Airlines (NYSE: UAL) allowed travelers to book round-trip flights from Chicago to Bombay, India -- via Frankfurt, Germany -- for a mere US$140 on Tuesday By the time United discovered the software problem Tuesday afternoon, about 120 consumers had booked the unintended fire-sale fare, United spokesperson Chris Nard...

Online retailer Buy.com (Nasdaq: BUYX) might have to close its doors because its credit card processor plans to end their relationship on September 1st, according to Buy.com's quarterly filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) this week "Since over 90 percent of the Company's revenue is derived from credit card transactions, if...

E-commerce service provider Beyond.com (Nasdaq: BYND) launched an online software and hardware shopping mall Monday, offering computer-related products from Beyond's eStore clients "The mall is a marriage between our old retail site and our eStores -- leveraging our brand, but still directing consumers directly to manufacturers," Beyond.com vice pr...

Online currency provider Beenz.com announcedlate Thursday that its currency would be invalid as of August 26th. The company's collapse comes just one week after rival e-currency site Flooz.com suspended its operations Unlike Flooz, which closed abruptly, Beenz is giving its customers a 10-day notice. The Beenz.com home page says that any beenz rema...

Technology support and services firms are leading U.S. small businesses in using and investing in the Internet, but manufacturing firms are a surprising second, according to a report released by IDC on Wednesday. "There has been a lot of guessing (about small business Internet usage)," IDC senior research analyst Merle Sandler told the E-Commerce ...