Business

Amazon.com and Toys 'R' Us will launch the next phase of their online alliance as early as this week, when Babiesrus.com becomes part of the Amazon site. Toys 'R' Us spokesman Louis Lipschitz told the E-Commerce Times the change will definitely take place by the end of May. "This is something we...

The future of e-commerce lies with multichannel retailers who leverage their Internet presence to enhance the real-world shopping experience, according to speakers Monday at a retail forum in Chicago hosted by Jupiter Media Metrix. "There is very limited room for Internet-only retailers," Jupi...

The booming market for outsourced Internet security services could provide a home for venture capital money previously directed to dot-coms, according to a report announced Tuesday by the Yankee Group. "With the demise of the 'dot-bombs,' many VCs have been looking for alternative ways to invest...

PurchasePro announced Tuesday that its net loss for the quarter was US$14.3 million more than originally reported. The Las Vegas, Nevada-based business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce company now says that its net loss, including non-cash charges and amortization of equity-based compensation and go...

Despite the failure, as detailed in the documentary "Startup.com," of govWorks.com to make paying parking tickets via the Net a dream come true, real-world government agencies are working overtime to make Internet services for motor vehicle registrations and driver licenses a reality. According...

The short-term outlook for online grocers has dimmed considerably, but the long-range outlook remains promising, according to a study released Monday by Jupiter Media Metrix. Jupiter said it has cut its forecast for online grocery sales for 2001 in half, from US$2 billion to $1 billion, largely...

Amazon.com reached beyond retail for the first time Friday, launching a movie-listing site that will be supported by advertising. "In Theaters" will initially be supported by advertising from Buena Vista Pictures, a division of media giant Disney, with other marketing partners invited to join.

A projected shift in online user demographics in the coming years will likely fuel an even greater boom for the online travel sector, according to data released Thursday by IDC. One of the sector's key drivers will be an explosion in the population with the "time and funds to travel," the firm s...

As dot-com executives continue playing their version of musical chairs, the question many investors are asking now is: what happens when the music stops? Will these "new leaders" breathe new life into stagnant e-commerce companies, or will they simply be the new faces of failure? "I think it wi...

Brick-and-click toy store KB Toys announced Friday that it has purchased the Web site, name and logo of defunct toy e-tailer eToys at a bankruptcy auction for approximately US$3.35 million. Acquiring the eToys name will allow KB Toys to profit from the millions that eToys spent on online and off...

Brick-and-click grocer PDQuick.com has been acquired by Web delivery venture WhyRunOut.com in an all-cash transaction, WhyRunOut chief executive officer Dan Frahm said Friday. Gartner Group research director Geri Spieler told the E-Commerce Times that acquiring PDQuick and its small subset of b...

Business-to-business (B2B) site Egarden has closed, parent company U.S. Home & Garden (Nasdaq: USHG) announced Wednesday. The company said that Egarden would keep a skeleton staff to maintain the infrastructure of the site, while U.S. Home & Garden evaluates strategic alternatives, includ...

Three out of every four partnerships linking a brick-and-mortar retailer with an e-commerce player in the past four years has been successful, according to a study released Thursday by McKinsey & Company. In fact, McKinsey, which looked closely at 700 deals announced since 1997, found that ...

As the Web becomes an increasingly global marketplace, U.S. based companies will need to create multicultural, multilingual Web sites in order to compete, according to a report released Thursday by Aberdeen Group. The report found that some big companies are already taking steps to "globalize" ...

Dashing cold water on recent encouraging news for the e-tail sector, the U.S. Department of Commerce reported Wednesday that online retail sales in the United States fell by 19.3 percent during the first quarter of 2001. During the quarter, online retailers rang up $6.99 billion in sales, down f...