E-Commerce

E-commerce powerhouses Amazon.com, Walmart.com and eBay.com remain as the top e-retailers in the STORES Favorite 50. The fifth annual ranking of the industry’s top online retailers reflects the views of retailers’ toughest and most important judges — consumers.

The former eBay executive who launched a social marketplace called YardSellr has launched a new shopping website. Danny Leffel's company Yardsellr launched Style.ly, a marketplace open to third-party sellers that's focused on fashion. The site describes itself as a social buying and selling marketplace where fashionistas buy and sell new, gently used and vintage women's fashion and accessories.

Google promoted a Groupon-like daily-deal offer on its homepage for the first time, a rare instance of the internet giant using its prized online real estate for advertising. The daily deal was the first time a Google Offers product has been promoted on its minimalist website and may signal an escalation of competition with Groupon.

Online home goods retailer CSN Stores is consolidating its 200-plus shopping sites into a single e-commerce website under one brand: Wayfair.com. The rebranding has long been rumored, and the company publicly stated that it would be consolidating its sites and changing its name to Wayfair.com when the massive financing round was announced, but today sees the actual launch of the new “mega-site."

Elle is giving H&M a gateway into e-commerce. Earlier this year, H&M postponed its plans to launch an e-commerce site in the U.S. until 2012, but that doesn’t mean the Swedish retailer is out of the game until then. Select items are available for purchase on Elle.com. The site will show four looks from H&M’s fall collection, with four or five pieces from each look that consumers can click to buy.

GoodThreads e-commerce platform will outfit nonprofits with a simple way to extend their brands while giving supporters an environment to create gear, share with friends, and donate to their favorite cause. 

For the last 25 years, Dennis May has been involved in the retail industry — and he's loved every second of it. From his modest beginning selling audio equipment to help support himself while in college (that was the cool job at the time, May recalls) to his tenure today as president and CEO of one of the fastest-growing cross-channel retail brands out there, the one constant has been retail. But that's just part of the reason we've chosen May as our 2011 cross-channel retailer of the year.

In the July/August issue of Retail Online Integration, I discussed how important merchandising, strong navigation, instigated chat and customer reviews will be to achieving online selling success this holiday season. Here are five more things you should consider doing with your e-commerce site before it's too late.

An investigation continues into whether Kansas State University's online merchandise store is skirting sales tax law. Now some state legislators also are beginning to question its online practices. In early August it was reported that purchases made by Kansas residents at the "K-State Official Online Store" weren't being charged any sales taxes.

Urban Decay, the color cosmetic company, has relaunched its e-commerce site on the Demandware Commerce platform to support the growth of its online business in the U.S. and into international markets.