E-Commerce

So, what is Aereo all about? Well, it's a brand new idea, a Web TV service. The days of the $200 TV bill are numbered, said the CEO of Aereo in a recent interview. This sounds like a good idea, right? Well, the cable television model is old and broken, and the need for lower-cost alternatives is g...

Google wowed analysts and shareholders with its fourth-quarter earnings released on Tuesday. The search engine giant reported consolidated revenues of US$14.42 billion for the quarter ending Dec. 31 -- an increase of 36 percent compared with the fourth quarter of 2011. Its GAAP net income, including...

Groupon is halting its gun-related daily deals in the wake of an increased awareness about gun violence in the U.S. The site's coupons for gun-related materials and activities, including shooting ranges, conceal-and-carry and clay shooting are under review and suspended indefinitely. "Groupon has be...

Microfunding sites such as Kickstarter, Indiegogo and newcomer ClickStartMe are making it possible for entrepreneurs and inventors from small-scale to established companies to get the momentum they need to put out a product. One category that is seeing a lot of activity is sports and fitness. New ca...

A rapidly increasing number of mobile shoppers gave eBay the boost it needed to turn in fourth-quarter results that beat analyst expectations. Revenue jumped 18 percent to $3.99 billion for the quarter, giving eBay a profit of $751 million during the quarter that included the holiday season, when me...

I recently went to a local Staples store to purchase a cartridge for my HP laser printer. The cost was about $80, including sales tax. While I was driving home, it suddenly dawned on me that I should have ordered the cartridge from Amazon at a much lower price. As soon as I arrived home, I searched ...

So now we know why Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg have been so busy recruiting former Google big brains: They coveted their mastery of algorithms, their sure-footedness in navigating mountains of Web-based data. The result? Facebook Graph Search, announced Tuesday by Zuckerberg. Those who were quick ...

Data brokers are watching your every move online. They track the sites you visit, articles you read, purchases you make, and even the names of your children. To cut through the red tape of monitoring and removing stored information, online privacy company Abine is offering a mobile version of its...

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Friday weighed in on a dispute between video game company GameFly and the U.S. Postal Service, siding with GameFly's position that the post office has been practicing price discrimination among its customers. GameFly's original suit a...

SAP last week released SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA, which marries its popular integrated applications with its high performance business analytics platform. SAP Business Suite is the largest application SAP has in terms of customers, said Ken Tsai, VP, SAP Hana product marketing at SAP.

When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton famously replied "because that's where the money is." Many e-commerce businesses adopt Willie's strategy by focusing their marketing efforts where all the people are. That may work for robbery, but it's a poor strategy for e-commerce. Instead, adopt an ...

Google is facing pressure from the European Union to change the way it presents its search results or face antitrust charges. The EU is concerned that Google is abusing its position as a search leader by promoting its own search services, such as its maps, weather or online shopping information, ove...

All the hype about Big Data over the past year has succeeded in educating executives in organizations of all sizes across nearly every industry about the unprecedented potential to use analytics to improve operations, sales effectiveness and customer support. However, the hype has also too often mad...

Amazon on Thursday launched AutoRip, a free service that provides MP3 digital versions of music consumers purchase from the company. The service will automatically add free MP3 versions of AutoRip CDs to their Amazon Cloud Player libraries when purchased. The service requires that the consumer have ...

Target has announced that its brick-and-mortar stores will extend the company's holiday season price-matching policy year round. It has promised to match the prices customers find on identical "qualifying" products at Amazon, as well as the e-commerce websites of Walmart, Best Buy, Toys 'R' Us, Babi...