Spotlight Features

As e-commerce companies continue to hone methods for reaching the masses, many are employing "page pushing," live chat and other interactive methods to give their sites a human touch. "The real value of live assistance is that it provides a way for the business to affect abandonment rates," Meta ...

As brick-and-mortar retail chains and long-established catalog players grab a growing share of e-commerce sales, smaller online stores are finding themselves hard-pressed to stake and hold their claim to shoppers' dollars. Experts said small stores can stay in the game if they master such nicetie...

Acquiring customers may be Job One for many e-tail marketers. But only those e-tailers that convert new customers into loyal ones will thrive over the long term. "Customer acquisition only really happens with a repeat purchase, not a first-time, heavily discounted purchase," Forrester Research an...

Any doubt that fallout from the collapse of energy giant Enron -- which crumbled under the weight of a massive accounting scandal -- would reach the world of e-commerce has been put to rest in the past couple of weeks. "Everything is getting a lot more scrutiny due to Enron," Morningstar.com anal...

As industry observers scan the horizon for signs of an economic recovery in 2002, several dot-coms are boosting hopes for an e-commerce renaissance by turning a profit. Each company's strategy is different -- but whatever their strategy, profitable dot-coms have something in common: They are maki...

In the aftermath of the dot-com shakeout, surviving e-tailers have swooped in to buy the assets of defunct companies, relaunching once-dead sites to capitalize on existing brand names or e-tail foundations. So far, anecdotal evidence seems to show that when the price is right, bringing dead dot-c...

Seamless integration between online and offline channels is the Holy Grail of brick-and-click retailing. But as with any worthy quest, a map is needed to point the way toward the elusive prize. "There are people saying the process needs to be totally seamless, where customers can do anything in al...

To ensure long-term viability, search engine site operators need to offer a full, balanced complement of pay-to-use features, paid placements and paid advertising, analysts said. In addition, they must pull off this tricky balancing act while maintaining the trust of Web visitors. "All the indepe...

Whether they ply e-commerce in the travel, e-tail or auction sectors, most of the firms reporting strong 2001 earnings had one thing in common: gains in overseas sales that likely can sustain growth well into the future. "The tricky thing is you don't want to be there too early," Allyson Henry, E...

With online commerce maturing and its highlights and lowlights well documented, a clear picture has emerged of what works and what does not. "We've seen a ruthless winnowing out of the good ideas from the bad ideas," Giga Information Group e-business analyst Andrew Bartels told the E-Commerce Tim...

Sex sells. Online or off, that hasn't changed. But is adult content still the biggest moneymaker on the Web? Finding solid answers is difficult, but it seems clear that as e-commerce hits new milestones, Internet pornography no longer sits alone atop the heap of most-likely-to-succeed online busi...

Accusations of anticompetitive land-grabbing often befall category leaders like Microsoft and Wal-Mart. But e-tail juggernaut Amazon.com is no bully, according to analysts. "Amazon has been more of a partner than a competitor," Giga Information Group analyst Andrew Bartels told the E-Commerce Tim...

Over the past couple of years, Super Bowl advertising by dot-coms has gone the way of the dinosaurs. In fact, only three dot-com advertisers -- HotJobs.com, Monster.com and E*Trade -- remain in the Super Bowl fray. The question is: Why are they still there, and perhaps more importantly, how? "It ...