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Amazon.com confirmed on Thursday that it would acquire BuyVIP.com, a "fashion and lifestyle online buying community" with more than six million members in countries including Spain, Germany, and Italy. BuyVIP.com offers customers time-limited campaigns from top fashion and lifestyle brands at low prices. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos told shareholders in May Amazon was focused on apparel, and that same month, the company began promoting free return-shipping in the apparel category for eligible items. Amazon also announced on Thursday that the "Heidi Klum for New Balance" collection is now available exclusively at Amazon.com in a deal it had announced last

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Toys R Us plans to add new markets for its e-commerce stores in a host of European countries this year, including France, Germany and Spain. Acquisitions during the past few years have added several additional online brands, including eToys.com, babyuniverse.com and FAO.com.

Have you bought off a group buying site, such as Gilt Groupe or Groupon? These sites are growing extremely quickly. Sales from private sales sites will almost top $1B in 2010 and sales from group buying sites will reach over $350M. Site visits to group buying sites are up 72x over last year. Although these sites started with high-end products, they have gone mainstream. Groupon and Woot sell many other product categories including consumer electronics and sporting gear, at more affordable prices.

As U.K-based retailer Tesco PLC on Tuesday reported a 15.3% rise in net profit for the first half of fiscal year 2010, it sent a strong signal that it plans to push ahead with its struggling effort to crack the elusive U.S. market with its Fresh & Easy chain.

Upscale retailer Nordstrom Inc. same-store sales increased 7.5 percent for the five weeks ended Oct. 2 compared with the same period a year ago. The result beat analyst estimates of a 4.3 percent increase in same-store sales for the period.