E-Commerce

Columbia Sportswear has been in existence since 1938, but by 2008 execs at the company were afraid that growth had stagnated. Worse, there was fear that Columbia wasn’t a brand that tapped into young consumers. Can a brand be “middle-aged”?

Ever since Amazon launched its toy store and opened it to third-party sellers in July 2006 after Toys"R"Us exited the platform, it's restricted third-party sales in its toys and games category to preapproved sellers during the holiday shopping season. Third-party sellers on Amazon received their notices this week.

More than 20,000 Missoni for Target items have been posted for sale on eBay less than 24 hours since becoming available. Some of the most expensive items to turn up on the internet auction site were the Missoni bike, a tea set, and a comforter/sham set.

Now that California and Amazon have called a truce of sorts in their tax fight, what will become of the 10,000 affiliates caught in the middle that were unceremoniously booted from online marketing affiliate programs? Chances are they should be making a comeback.

Bill Bass, president and CEO of Direct at women's apparel retailer Charming Shoppes, took a step back yesterday at the Shop.org Annual Summit in Boston to reflect on five lessons he's learned from the 15 years he's spent in the retail industry, including stints at Lands’ End and Fair Indigo.

The deal-a-day company Groupon has seen better days. It's trying to go public into a stock market that can't quite figure out what it's doing. Its profit loss calculations have been called unreliable.

There's Black Friday, then there's Target Tuesday. In a scene that was reminiscent of the shopping frenzy that typically comes the day after Thanksgiving, Target's website crashed several times throughout the day yesterday. More than a hundred shoppers lined up at many of its stores early in the morning on Sept. 13 for a sale of limited offerings of its Missoni for Target collection of bikes, luggage, clothes and housewares.

Nielsen’s third quarter study, State of the Media: The Social Media Report, examines the increasing influence of social networking on consumers and points to trends that bode well for businesses active in the social media space.

Whole Foods Market was selling 1 million coupons via daily-deal site LivingSocial this week. The deal was for $10 for $20 worth of groceries and aims to help bolster children's health by donating to the Whole Kids Foundation, which works to help combat childhood obesity.

This interview from Google Think Voices with Avinash Kaushik details how to succeed in the digital world using key insights to evaluate and refine the customer experience.