
E-Commerce

If you’re launching an e-commerce site in a developing market, it’s critical to get a foothold as quickly as possible to maintain cash flow. But doing so requires a deep understanding of the intricacies of the local infrastructure and consumer habits. By performing thorough market research, you'll have a better understanding of the specific challenges…
Amazon Launchpad announced last week the creation of a Kickstarter Collection, featuring more than 300 Kickstarter products available for purchase on Amazon.com. Startups featured include Piper, Zivix, Prynt, MudWatt, among others. Consumers shopping the Kickstarter Collection can browse categories such as electronics, wireless accessories, home and kitchen, books, movies and TV, and toys and games,…
Another Amazon Prime Day is in the books, and once again the #PrimeDayFail hashtag was trending on social media throughout the one-day cybershopping extravaganza. Where last year the complaints centered largely on lackluster deals, 2016 delivered a different frustration: checkout failures. It turns out Amazon.com’s technology team couldn’t cover the check its marketing department went…
Walgreens announced yesterday that it will shut down drugstore.com, the Bellevue, Wash.-based distributor of drugs, vitamins, and beauty products that traces its roots to the early days of the e-commerce revolution. In addition, Walgreens announced that Beauty.com, another of its subsidiaries, will be shut down. Both sites are expected to be offline by the end of…
The uses of artificial intelligence (AI) that get the most press are usually the big, splashy ones. Whether it's IBM's Watson beating Ken Jennings at Jeopardy, DeepMind besting Lee Sedol at Go, the massive influx of news about self-driving cars, the growing personal marketplace, or Elon Musk's increasingly public trepidation, these kinds of AI stories…
Amazon.com sellers (both Individual and Pro) listen up: You have until Aug. 28 to migrate over to the new SOA platform or Amazon will do it for you. In a letter sent to sellers on July 26, Amazon explains that sellers’ products will remain buyable and all ratings, reviews, feedback, listings, inventory, existing disbursement options,…
The National Retail Federation (NRF) raised its full-year sales forecast to 3.4 percent growth, up slightly from its previous expectation for a 3.1 percent lift. It cited improvements in the housing market, job growth and higher wages as three factors that should boost consumer sentiment through the end of the year. A larger-than-expected lift in online sales…
Was it 2011 or 2012 when we saw the advent of big data? Suddenly everyone was talking about the data explosion and predictive analytics. Every industry was jumping onto the bandwagon, including retail. It started innocuously enough with A/B testing, data gathering and funnel mapping, but it didn’t stop there. The new-age, number-crunching, stat-spewing marketers…
Operating in the highly competitive women's apparel space, New York & Company is fighting for online consumers’ attention and dollars. To help it gain an advantage in that quest, the retailer recently partnered with Zmags to help it create engaging and attractive web pages that garner the attention of busy shoppers. In episode 45 of Total…
It's official: While Amazon.com’s second-annual Prime Day drove millions of sales for the e-commerce giant on July 12, smaller retailers received fewer visitors, converted fewer sales and pulled in less revenue, at least according to a report by e-commerce website developer Blue Acorn. Things seemed to go back to normal the next day, according to the…