E-Commerce

Google is considering a move into online retail, challenging Amazon by providing low-cost goods. According to The Wall Street Journal, Google is in talks with major retailers and shippers about creating a service to let consumers shop for goods online and receive their orders within a day for a low fee.

Compuware announced the top retail web and mobile site performers for Cyber Monday based on the Compuware Performance Index. Compuware's analysis found that despite months of preparation by retailers, performance satisfaction for the top 50 retailers was down more than 12 percent on Cyber Monday from nonholiday baseline levels.

Searching online wish lists, guessing or just directly asking people what they want as gifts is so 20th century, therefore Wal-Mart is launching a new approach for the holidays — its Shopycat app that scours Facebook profiles, updates, comments and likes to come up with gifts for your friends.

In the highly competitive and rapidly changing world of e-commerce, it’s vital for retailers to stay on top of the latest trends so as not to be outdone by competitors. What follows are four tips for merchants to help them increase sales, enhance customer relationships and, ultimately, build a more profitable online business.

The single biggest reason why consumers abandon their shopping carts is because of shipping and handling charges. While you may not be able to offer permanent sitewide free shipping, it is well worth digging into your shipping costs. Simply put: reduce them and you’ll sell more.

A U.S. judge has ordered Google, Yahoo, Twitter and Facebook, among others, to delist domain names linked to websites selling counterfeit goods. It represents a significant step in the ongoing battle against the sale of fake items online.

Good news for California deal-of-the-day addicts: the sales tax they have to pay when they use coupons purchased from Groupon, LivingSocial or other internet daily-deal sites has gone down. The California State Board of Equalization said sales tax should be levied only on what a Groupon user has paid for an item, not the list price of the item he’s getting.

In exchange for agreeing to a slower shipping method, Amazon will give Prime members a $1 credit to spend on music at its MP3 Store. Amazon's Prime membership program costs $79 for a year of unlimited fast shipping that includes free 2-day shipping, or 1-day shipping for $3.99 per item.

Cyber Monday, the term coined in 2005 when shoppers opted to take advantage of faster broadband internet in the workplace to do their online shopping, might be coming to an end.

Omni Ventures announced entry into an exclusive e-commerce licensing, sales, supply and distribution agreement along with the formation of a dedicated e-commerce division in line with the strategic diversification of its holdings. The goal of the division is to aggressively enhance the company's online marketing efforts and management of the PRVCY brand on the www.prvcycouture.com e-commerce platform.