Spotlight Features

Even as online shoppers multiply and increasingly mirror mainstream consumer profiles, sizable pockets of e-commerce abstainers remain. These neophytes, hampered by security or fulfillment concerns or inadequate Internet connections, still rely on the Web only for product research. To reach this u...

Small-business entrepreneurs looking to make a splash on the Web need not drown in massive site construction costs. According to experts, if site builders are willing to start out with a no-frills approach, they can keep costs below US$1,000. "Your best bet is to pick those sites and products tha...

In its infancy, e-commerce disappointed merchants and investors who staked millions on the notion that it would somehow change the world forever. But e-commerce has grown up, and experts say it is making solid contributions to society. "There was so much negative hype in 2001 about the Net that e...

Driven by demanding investors and an unforgiving stock market, many e-commerce firms have clawed their way to profitability. In fact, with a growing roster of companies operating in the black, we may be perched on the cusp of an e-commerce "golden age," according to analysts. "I would not be surpr...

In general, the items that sell best online can be peddled in large quantities and at low prices, and can be described to consumers with simple precision and accuracy. And with the right strategy and context, analysts said, there is an online market waiting to be exploited for even the most munda...

Outdated product specifications, merchandising messages or other online content are surefire recipes for customer alienation. But many Internet companies cannot afford the resources needed to constantly purge their sites of past-due elements. "The task of updating content is high work and small r...

To most online consumers, receiving unwanted e-mail marketing messages is just part of being online. But analysts say there is a price to pay for too much spam, and e-commerce may have to foot some of the bill. "Privacy continues to be something that consumers say is holding them back," Forrester...

Many e-commerce firms were doomed to fail the moment their founders hatched their shaky business concepts. But a few promising online business models undeservedly sunk with the receding technology tide or were otherwise hampered by poor execution. "There was a determination to be pure online play...

Face it: In the Internet age, privacy is a thing of the past. But people can take a number of steps to control how their personal information is used online. For concerned consumers, the first stop on any Web site should be the section about privacy. "The key is to be aware of ambiguous language,...

When it comes to recruiting top talent, Internet companies face a much different picture than they once did. "Tech workers aren't rushing to work at dot-coms in the way that they were two to three years ago," Alan Hoffman, a technology jobs expert at Monster.com, told the E-Commerce Times. And in...

Just over a year ago, B2B e-commerce was all the rage. As it turned out, moving the buyer-supplier relationship onto the Web was not as easy as it initially seemed. But just because B2B fell short of the hype does not mean it is dead. "It seems like it failed now, but a lot of innovation is happe...

If e-commerce were a mad dash to the finish line, pure-plays would have taken the gold medal. But it has turned into a marathon -- and as dot-com startups gasp for breath, traditional retailers are steadily passing them like the tortoise that whipped the hare. "There was a certain amount of waiti...

EBay continues to stand out as one of the few clear-cut successes in the online world. Experts said several factors have put the company on top of the dot-com heap.

Many lessons can be learned from the merchants that hawk the best-selling products in e-commerce. Among other things, experts said, top sellers offer goods that are easy to ship; they successfully separate the product from the buying process; and they allow comparison shopping across multiple cha...

The "last mile" to consumers' doorsteps is arguably the most critical phase of online commerce. For a long time, e-tailers faced one shipping hurdle after another -- and often fell flat on their faces. While many companies recently have mended egregious deficiencies in their shipping operations, ...