E-Commerce

Yell, the company that produces Yellowbook directories, announced it's acquired Znode. Znode's technology will serve as Yell's e-commerce platform, an important element of Yell's new strategy to connect small businesses with consumers on a local level. Znode will be incorporated into Yell Group as part of its new consumer division, Yell Connect.

One week after Best Buy launched its new music cloud service, Amazon announced three enhancements to Amazon Cloud Drive and Cloud Player: unlimited storage plans for music, free storage for Amazon MP3 purchases and Cloud Player for Web, now on iPad.

Lucky is the latest magazine to jump on the social shopping bandwagon as it announced its partnership with ThisNext.com. The cobranded shopping site will be accessible through LuckyMag.com and ThisNext.com, allowing shoppers to create personalized "shopping guides" from all the products featured in the latest issue of Lucky.

The fastest-growing company in web history, Groupon's daily-deal site marries cents-off coupons to a Friday-after-Thanksgiving shopping frenzy. The company broke into the black just seven months after inception; globally, more than 500 copycat sites have already sprung up.

Lahout's Country Clothing & Ski Shop has partnered with e-commerce provider Shopatron to make its entire selection of ski and outdoor sports gear available online.   

Redcats USA, a web-driven retailer offering men's and women's plus-size apparel, home and lifestyle products, and sporting goods/outdoor gear, announced today the official launch of SoccerSavings.com, a specialized brand committed to offering soccer enthusiasts the largest and broadest selection of products.

The team at Quidsi, which runs Diapers.com, Soap.com and was bought by Amazon this year, is launching Wag.com today. The site is a bubble 2.0 stab at Pets.com, which was a high-flying internet retailer in 1999 and 2000. It sold pet food and other pet supplies online.

With the release of a new iPhone app, Starbucks is hoping to attract even more users by adding new options, including the ability to send a mobile gift. The app also combines features from the existing Card Mobile and myStarbucks apps. Customers can use it for payment, to keep track of rewards, find nearby Starbucks locations and check card balances, among other things.

For the former child stars and current fashion entrepreneurs, one project at a time is never enough: in addition to their successful The Row label and Wal-Mart fashion range, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen have launched their new online venture StyleMint.

WiFi is becoming more widely available and affordable on flights. As such, e-commerce is increasingly taking place at 35,000 feet with a crop of deals enabling online shopping for free.