Business

Online auction giant EBay announced that Brian Swette will step down as chief operating officer of the company, effective January 1st. Instead of naming a new COO, Swette's responsibilities in marketing, category management and business development will be divided among other top executives at th...

While the digital divide -- the rift between those with access to computers and the Internet and without -- continues to crumble in the United States, analysts generally agree that e-commerce is not seeing the benefits of that trend. Because income is a bigger factor than Web access when it comes...

Name-your-price e-tailer Priceline.com received a boost when America Online agreed to feature the company's travel products on AOL's popular Web sites. Goldman Sachs analyst Anthony Noto repeated a market outperform rating on Priceline shares, saying the arrangement is likely "the first of severa...

With the holidays drawing nearer, consumers stepped up their online shopping during the first week of December, spending roughly US$2.6 billion, according to data released by Goldman Sachs, Harris Interactive and Nielsen//NetRatings. The figure represented a 91 percent spike from the $1.4 billion...

At the onset of the busiest shopping season of the year, e-commerce in the United Kingdom got a big boost from the British government in the form of a media blitz designed to get shoppers "clicking with confidence." In contrast, few analysts expect the U.S. government's laissez-faire approach to ...

Microsoft and Bank One announced a wide-ranging alliance to promote and develop online services. As part of the agreement, Bank One plans to use a variety of Microsoft offerings, including the nascent .NET technology. The pact focuses largely on marketing tie-ins and providing online services to ...

A record number of people visited e-commerce sites during the week ending December 7th -- more than 50 percent higher than 2000 levels -- Jupiter Media Metrix reported. In all, 52.4 million people shopped online during the week, Jupiter said, compared with 34.9 million a year ago.

Experts told the E-Commerce Times that the Web is nearly a perfect medium for conducting marketing research. It is less costly and faster than traditional methods, such as mail and telephone surveys, and recent success stories have helped erase many lingering questions about the accuracy of Web-b...

A bidding war for online job site HotJobs broke out when Internet portal Yahoo! said it offered US$436 million in cash and stock to buy the company, which in June agreed to be acquired by TMP Worldwide, the parent of rival firm Monster.com. Yahoo! chairman and CEO Terry Semel made the offer direc...

Online consumer spending in the U.S. rose to US$5.3 billion in November, a 10 percent increase over 2000 levels, according to a report released by Nielsen//NetRatings and Harris Interactive. The growth rate was the smallest monthly increase recorded so far in 2001, the two firms said. September s...

U.S. e-tailers have made major strides in improving the online ordering and delivery process, though Web shopping may be taking longer than in past years because consumers have more choices, according to the annual e-Fulfillment Report released by consulting firm Accenture. "E-tailers are padding...

The success that Dell Computer has had with its build-to-order (BTO) sales philosophy raises the question of whether that model could apply more widely to e-commerce. Analysts and observers told the E-Commerce Times that while some retailers might succeed using BTO with certain high-margin, high-...

Internet incubator CMGI reported narrower operating and net losses for the first quarter ended October 31st, though revenue slipped from a year earlier. "Despite a difficult economic quarter, our successful efforts to significantly reduce our operating losses and complete the necessary financial ...

Online marketplaces and other exchanges that want to grow are looking beyond the initial transaction process and anticipating the needs of customers and users, said a new study from Aberdeen Group. The report said the best performing "process nets" are those that work hard to involve everyone in ...

Eighteen percent of Internet users made an online purchase during the last week of November, with each spending an average of US$77 -- a slight drop from the previous week -- according to a new report. Per-shopper spending levels for the 2001 holiday season to date peaked during Thanksgiving week...