E-Commerce

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.

Amazon.com and Wal-Mart are prodding more manufacturers to change their packaging to cut waste and alleviate “wrap rage,” the frustration felt when a product is difficult to open. The retailers have been pushing vendors to eliminate excessive and cumbersome packing materials, such as hard plastic clamshell casings that enclose electronics and wire ties used to secure toys to cardboard backings.

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.

The shopping season's biggest online holiday was more popular than ever yesterday as consumers rushed to the web for exclusive Cyber Monday deals. Online traffic was up 43 percent from last year, says content delivery network Akamai, and online sales were up 18 percent over Cyber Monday 2010 as of 9 p.m. ET, says IBM Smarter Commerce, a web performance analytics firm for 500 of the largest retail websites.

For those keeping score, consumers’ voracious appetites for great deals on Thanksgiving and Black Friday this year helped secure this weekend’s place in the record books. According to a National Retail Federation survey conducted by BIGresearch over the weekend, traffic and spending were up both online and in stores, reaching historic highs.