Spotlight Features

Many online retailers have spent considerable time and money trying to duplicate the success of Amazon.com, but the market conditions that spawned Amazon no longer exist, according to Giga Information Group analyst Andrew Bartels. "It is unlikely that any existing retailer would let you take over a ...

For e-tailers, the quest for the perfect online customer -- who spends thousands of dollars per year on a wide variety of merchandise and returns repeatedly to order more goods -- is like the search for the Holy Grail. Although the ideal may not be attainable, all merchants look for certain key char...

In the post-boom era of e-commerce, the gurus whose ideas and actions set the bar and tone for the industry may seem familiar. Although yesteryear's fast-growth mantra has been replaced by a different chant -- profits, profits! -- first-wave icons like Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Meg Whitman of eBay ar...

Before Steve Jobs retook the reins at Apple in 1997, many in the industry had begun to sound the death knell for the innovative but beleaguered company. But in a stunning turnaround, Apple pulled itself out of a pool of red ink and began booking positive earnings. One key reason for its success is A...

There is little question that the number of home users accessing the Internet via broadband will continue to grow. By the end of 2002, the Yankee Group has estimated, 16 million broadband subscribers will be online in the United States, in addition to 54 million dial-up users. And widespread adoptio...

The stock market and the dot-com world may be down for now, but that does not mean launching a new e-business is out of the question. New York University business professor Christopher Tucci pointed out that many of today's technology and commerce giants began life at a time when startup capital was...

In a business traditionally built on partnerships and cooperation, Dell Computer seems bent on making more enemies than friends of late. In July, Hewlett-Packard terminated a four-year reseller agreement with Dell after word leaked that Dell intended to make and sell its own line of printers and oth...

Allocating precious budget dollars is always a challenge in a down economy, and with security threats seeming to loom at every turn, CIOs are struggling mightily to gauge risks and decide how to face them. While the temptation may be to throw money at perceived security problems, decision makers ins...

The online fraud-fighting field is a crowded one, with a variety of commercial and nonprofit organizations involved in educating consumers, setting e-commerce standards for e-tailers and releasing software designed to nab fraudsters. But despite the wide variety of groups attempting to remedy or kee...

In the early days of e-commerce, small businesses flocked to the Web with grandiose visions of transforming mom-and-pop shops into mega retailers. Those visions turned out to be pipe dreams for most merchants, and the dawn of reality convinced many early adopters to retreat to the brick-and-mortar w...

About a year ago, even true dot-coms were distancing themselves from the Internet label. But as e-commerce enjoys a somewhat tempered revival, the dot-com is no longer a pariah. In fact, some analysts say the name may help consumers distinguish pure-play Internet firms from their multichannel counte...

Despite all the reports of bankruptcies and losses, some companies are doing just fine on the Internet. But the list of companies that are "getting rich" may be surprising. Aside from the obvious handful of bellwether e-tailers, such as Amazon.com and eBay, some seemingly unlikely candidates are rak...

Founded in September 1998, Google is at least three years younger than most of its search engine competitors but already has surpassed its rivals in terms of popularity. However, as scores of failed dot-coms can attest, big crowds do not always mean big money. Will Google's heavy traffic translate i...

E-tailers have come to the costly understanding that providing a general e-mail address on a Web site is no way to handle customer queries. Gartner analyst Adam Sarner told the E-Commerce Times that companies are turning to high-tech e-mail management tools and shifting strategies in a bid to curb i...

Although innovation can be wonderful, there is something to be said for sticking to the basics. In fact, that is how venture capitalists seemingly have come to feel about high-tech companies as they contemplate which to fund with now-limited resources. Those who remember the manic days of VC funding...