E-Commerce

It's a bird, it's a plane … it's Jet.com. Flying high and ready to disrupt the e-commerce world, Jet is a revolutionary marketplace that's taking a new approach to online retailing by using a membership-based business model (think an online Costco or Sam's Club). If you're an online retailer, you might want to take notice.

Just how much sway do negative online reviews have over consumers? Do they have the power to stop a purchase in its tracks? Or do they simply inspire more research? And do consumers want to see detailed insights when reviews turn less than glowing, or has it become enough to take a quick glance at where a product or service lands in the five-star rating system before moving on to another brand?

Webinar speakers discuss the best tactics to use your online shopping carts are not abandoned by customers and prospects.

Like many obsessive collectors, Suzanne Nobles spends countless hours online scouring for treasures. The 25-year-old Arizona-based blogger isn't tracking down rare antiques or priceless baseball cards, though. No, she's on the lookout for lululemon products. One recent score — a pair of gray and split-pea green running shorts — cost her $95. While they initially retailed for $54, the shorts instantly sold out on lululemon's website and in stores, so paying nearly double was Nobles’ only shot at adding them to her collection.

Electronics retailer TigerDirect is closing all but three of its 34 stores in the U.S. and internationally. The Miami-based company will keep serving customers online but will close its brick-and-mortar locations. The only stores it's keeping open are its flagship store in Miami, one in its technology products distribution center in Georgia and one in Puerto Rico, which has a significant business-to-business operation in that market. The 31 other stores are expected to be shuttered by the end of June. Each store that's closing is eliminating about 40 jobs, according to TigerDirect.

Amid all the noise over the new Apple Watch, another drumbeat has sounded for the past 10 hours or so. The Apple iTunes, Mac and App stores are down, and down hard. I write this at 3:30 p.m. EDT, and they're still down. In my world, they've been down since 6 a.m. How much is this going to cost Apple in real retail revenue? Certainly the money comes in micro-bursts, a dollar here and a dollar there, but it adds up quickly. The Chicago Tribune reports that last year, Apple's iTunes and App Store revenue per day averaged $50 million.

If you've ever searched high and low to find the perfect present for your odd cousin Bob only to find that everything you see in the store is generic or just wouldn't fit his unique personality, then you're the type of consumer Amazon.com aims to please with its latest store. Amazon announced today the addition of Amazon Exclusives, which aims to give consumers direct access to innovative products from popular and up-and-coming brands.

As Amazon.com struggles to expand in China, the U.S. online retailer has opened a flagship store in local competitor Alibaba Group Holding's online marketplace. Amazon's store inside Alibaba's Tmall, launched this week, so far offers a limited number of product categories, including imported food, women's shoes, toys and kitchen equipment. The food section, for example, includes Blue Diamond almonds and Californian wine, while the toy section carries international brands such as Lego and Crayola.

Barneys New York is ready to give its big luxury brethren a run for their money in the e-commerce wars. The department store company knows luxury customers demand beautiful presentation and personalized service, and that that applies online as well as to its stores. With that in mind, Barneys relaunched its e-commerce sites last Friday, proclaiming them to be the first by a luxury retailer to use responsive design, which greatly enhances product presentation online and allows better personalization of content to an individual's tastes.

Fab.com finally has a new home. PCH International, a company that helps startups design and manufacture hardware products, has announced that it's purchased the shopping site that was the one-time darling of venture capitalists and design aficionados alike. PCH CEO Liam Casey declined to comment on a price, but Re/code previously reported Fab would sell for $7 million in cash and about $8 million in stock, based on PCH's most recent financing round. Fab.com's 35 employees will join PCH as part of the acquisition, the company said.