E-Commerce

Rue La La, a leading online lifestyle shopping destination, has launched DressingRoom, a series of boutiques that offer members a one-stop shopping experience the features everything from necklaces and

Over the last few months, New York-based startup Birchbox has taken over the retail realm. In a little over three years, the subscription commerce beauty brand has grown to 800,000 subscribers, has 250 employees and has worked with 800 brands, amounting to $96 million in annual sales — not to mention its recent venture funding acquisition and plans to open a brick-and-mortar location this summer in SoHo. Birchbox Co-Founder Hayley Barna sat down with Retail Online Integration at last week's Women in Retail Leadership Summit to discuss how she and co-founder Katia Beauchamp came up with the business model, what their vision is for the future of Birchbox, and share her thoughts on expanding to other retail channels.

In part one of this interview, Birchbox Co-Founder Hayley Barna discusses how she and co-founder Katia Beauchamp came up with the business model and what their vision is for the future of Birchbox.

FedEx is changing the way it charges to ship bulky packages, jolting e-commerce companies with price increases for delivering items as diverse as diapers, shoes and paper towels. Instead of charging by weight alone, all ground packages will now be priced according to size. In effect, that will mean a price increase on more than a third of its U.S. ground shipments. The big question now is whether UPS will follow the pricing move. Many analysts think it will. The two companies have historically matched price increases rather than seize the chance for a competitive advantage.

Jim McCann, CEO of 1-800-Flowers.com, explains that Mother's Day weekend and the weekend prior are the two busiest of the year for the company and gifting industry. The key to staying ahead of the competition is to focus on innovation through social media and mobile platforms and create a customer experience that's reminiscent of the physical gift shop. Whether it's a breathtaking floral arrangement or unique keepsake gift, 1-800-Flowers.com is the place to be for Mother's Day.

After months of anticipation, it finally happened: The Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group filed paperwork on Tuesday in the United States to go public. The move is "an embrace of the global capital markets that represents a coming-of-age for China's booming internet industry." In the filing, Alibaba said it intended to raise $1 billion in an initial public offering — a figure used to calculate its registration fee. But the company is expected ultimately to raise $15 billion to $20 billion, which would make it the biggest American IPO since Facebook's $16 billion offering in May 2012. 

Staples continued its mission of reinvention on Monday with news that it's acquired PNI Digital Media, a provider of personalization software for retailers. Retailers can use PNI's SaaS product online, through mobile devices or from in-store kiosks, offering retailers a turnkey personalization service where consumers can custom design products ranging from business cards to wedding invitations. While Staples ranks high on the list of the world's largest internet retailers, the company's brick-and-mortar stores have been battling the showrooming fight along with the rest of the retail industry.

Force Factor, a sports nutrition brand founded in 2009 by two Harvard University rowers, launched a display advertising campaign in April for its Test X180 Ignite supplement. The campaign has delivered a clickthrough rate (CTR) of 0.86 percent, which is more than eight times above the industry standard. The ad, a 300x250 above-the-fold placement, runs across SportingNews.com, a top 10 U.S. sports site that reaches millions of unique sports fans daily.

Publishing content is a unique breed of marketing and promotion. Unlike traditional means such as banner ads, live events, offers, etc., content marketing isn't directly promotional. Rather, it's about coming up with content that informs, entertains or inspires your audience. So how exactly can you use content marketing to your advantage? Below are a few best practices and examples of what you can do to take your e-commerce content marketing to the next level:
 

Online marketplaces are a considerable accelerator of e-commerce adoption around the world. Marketplaces make it easy to buy online by offering a variety of products and deals, storing payment and shipping information, providing easy mobile access via apps, and allowing buyers to read and compare product reviews for multiple retailers.