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Groupon is being investigated by Britain’s competition regulator over concerns including unfair promotions and exaggerated savings. The U.K. Office of Fair Trading has been investigating Groupon’s British unit since July and expanded the probe after receiving a complaint from the country’s advertising watchdog.

Let's take a break from all the nostalgia for a glimpse at the most exciting openings on the horizon in 2012. Nothing can ever take the place of the uptown Tiffany in New York City, but the new downtown Tiffany location really might be a game-changer, if only because it's going to make the tourists go wild.

Facebook has acquired location-sharing service Gowalla for an undisclosed sum, according to a source close to Gowalla. Facebook declined to comment on the deal.

Considering the United States Postal Service's well-documented financial struggles, it's no surprise that it's looking to follow in the footsteps of some public transportation fleets by selling ads on some of its vehicles.

Two leading law professors have concluded that Amazon recently opening large “fulfillment” warehouses in South Carolina and Tennessee is a likely violation of the Constitution’s commerce clause.

Did Sears.com pad the bill for major appliance orders by automatically tacking on a service contract even when it's not requested? Edgar Dworsky, a nationally respected consumer advocate, made that claim last week. Sears said on Dec. 2 that it will change the way its website operates.

Ikea — which uses 10 million pallets to ship products from suppliers to 287 stores worldwide — says it's replacing wooden pallets with a paper cardboard variation that's lighter and cheaper.

Reston, Va. -- Retail e-commerce spending for the first 32 days of the November – December 2011 holiday season totaled $18.7 billion, a 15% increase versus the corresponding days last year, according to comScore. The most recent week saw three individual days eclipse $1 billion in spending, led by Cyber Monday, which became the heaviest online spending day on record at $1.25 billion. Tuesday, Nov. 29 reached $1.12 billion, while Wednesday, Nov. 30 reached $1.03 billion. These three billion-dollar spending days currently rank as three of the four heaviest online spending days in history (with Cyber Monday 2010 being

set a new one-day sales record of $1.25 billion in online sales, with leading retailers (including Walmart, Amazon, Target and Best Buy) placing high on the list of the Top 15 most-visited online retail sites. The complete list is below. The extension of "Cyber Monday" into a "Cyber Week" phenomenon is another indication of the increasingly central role of e-commerce in holiday retailing. According to comScore, Cyber Monday was the first of three days last week with online sales that topped $1 billion: Tuesday, November 29 reached $1.12 billion, and Wednesday, November 30 slowed only slightly, to $1.03 billion.

For a decade, Target outsourced its website operations to Amazon.com. The retail giant began preparing two years ago to take control of the site when the deal with Amazon expired this August. Three weeks after the switch, the site crashed. It went down again a month later. Then again, and again.