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Waking up from a summertime slumber, online spending increased approximately 25 percent in July, rising to US$3.98 billion from $3.2 billion in June, according to the latest Forrester Online Retail Index, released Wednesday In addition, the number of households shopping online increased to 14.7million in July from 13.1 million in June, the report s...

The latest best friends in multichannel sales are Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) and Circuit City (NYSE: CC) The news that the e-tail leader and the electronics giant are joining forces should come as no surprise to observers of the dot-com landscape. Powerful alliances are what it's all about, especially now that e-tailers are scrambling to redefine e-...

E-business marketplace provider FairMarket (Nasdaq: FAIM) announced Wednesday that it is laying off 38 employees -- 35 percent of its workforce -- due to "continuing trends in the e-business marketplace." Company spokesperson Janet Smith told the E-Commerce Times that the job cuts "came across all functional areas." Severance packages were based on...

Taking aim at the lucrative business-to-business (B2B) market, Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) unveiled a corporate accounts initiative Wednesday that will accept online purchase orders from qualified businesses, libraries, schools, government institutions and other organizations that want to purchase items from the e-tailer without using a credit card.

Paving the way for Internet-based logistic networks, online exchanges and private hubs to gain a foothold in the market, traditional shipping and transfer exchanges are beginning to lose their grip on theEuropean business-to-business (B2B) market, according to a report released Tuesday by Forrester Research "European executives are right to be bull...

In Part 2 of this interview with the E-Commerce Times, Michael Sands, vice president of marketing for Orbitz, continues discussing the benefits associated with marketing efforts on the Internet ECT: What advantages have you gained through running a banner ad campaign?...

Kill your darlings. The eminent southern writer William Faulkner had that advice for writers. Wiping out your favorite turn of phrase, he believed,was a guaranteed recipe for stronger prose Needless to say, there has been plenty of darling-killing going on in the e-commerce world, as e-tailers that once blew raspberries in the face of centuries-old...

Propelled by a multimillion dollar pre-launch online advertising campaign, travel Web site Orbitz opened for business in early June and was soon swamped by a deluge of customers, topping the company's own expectations and forcing it to more than double its customer service staff in the following weeks Chicago, Illinois-based Orbitz, which is backed...

Pop quiz: How many of the 10 most populous U.S. cities, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, have a national online grocer at their disposal that will deliver both perishables and non-perishables? The answer is five: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and San Diego (*correction).

Many retail executives are missing the mark when it comes to gauging thereturn on investment (ROI) of their Web efforts, often failing to take intoaccount the considerable influence Internet sites have on offline purchases,according to a report released Tuesday by Forrester Research Forrester's findings dovetail with a similar report released earli...

Following in the footsteps of other brick-and-click retailers, Kmart (NYSE: KM) said Tuesday that it will outsource operation of its BlueLight.com e-commerce site. Kmart said it struck an agreement to hand over the task of running BlueLight.com to Global Sports (Nasdaq: GSPT), an e-commerce service provider that has focused on running sites for co...

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...

I love targeted e-mail. When I check my e-mail, I look forward to receiving messages that are timely, interesting and help me save money. Businesses I know and trust that send me the right marketing messages are often rewarded with a sale -- or at least some of my attention, which always seems to be in short supply I love targeted e-mail about as m...

Over 33 million people in the UK, or 60 percent of the region's population, ventured online between April and June, according to a report released Monday by Jupiter MMXI. The number of "heavy users" is also on the rise in UK, with over 11 million people accessing the Internet more than three times a week. However, it is the manner in which people...

Beating the major record labels to the punch, rock star PeterGabriel's Real WorldRecords label, in collaboration with Womad music festivals and digital music service On Demand Distribution (OD2), launchedan online digital subscription music service Tuesday The service, dubbed the Womad DigitalChannel, will be free until October, after which users w...

Web infrastructure services provider VeriSign said Monday it is offering a new Shared Hosting Security Service aimed at helping small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) receive the kind of e-commerce security previouslyreserved for much larger companies The new offering will provide customers of SMB sites with a VeriSign seal that authenticates its Web...

By only looking at top-line metrics such as sales and profits, 69 percent of brick-and-click retailers are underestimating the benefits derived from their Web sites, according to a report released Monday by Jupiter Media Metrix The report concluded that brick-and-click retailers who factor in non-transactional benefits, such as online-influenced sa...

Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) said Monday it has reached a deal with electronics retailer Circuit City (NYSE: CC) that will give customers the option of picking up purchases in about 600 stores nationwide rather than paying shipping fees. The multiyear agreement calls for Amazon to receive a percentage of the revenue for all Circuit City electronics m...

America Online (NYSE: AOL) said Monday it has launched a revamped automobile channel that now includes local targeted resources, as well as content from online auto sites such as Autofusion, Consumer Reports and Edmunds.com As part of the content distribution deal, Consumer Reports -- the well-known63-year old magazine that is published by the nonp...

Five of Hollywood's major motion picture studios announced Thursday they were partnering to create an online movie service that will offer digital downloads of both new and old movies to broadband Internet users The studios behind the project are Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (NYSE: MGM), Viacom's Paramount Pictures (NYSE: VIA), Sony Pictures Entertainment (...