E-Commerce

American Eagle Outfitters announced a campaign in partnership with FEED Projects to launch a new line available online and at its stores that will benefit the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. American Eagle is now offering FEED Guatemala bags in more than 400 of its stores across the country.

The rapid growth in internet sales is great for online retailers, but it's bad news for state and local governments as many online purchases don’t have any sales tax attached to them. Long before the internet was on anybody’s radar, the Supreme Court ruled that states couldn’t require that retailers without a physical presence in a state, like mail-order companies, charge sales tax on their behalf.

Chinese e-commerce supplier Alibaba says two of its top executives are resigning to take responsibility after a probe discovered more 2,326 suppliers had defrauded online customers. Alibaba said in a notice this morning that its chief executive and chief operating officers, who were not implicated by the investigation, were resigning to take responsibility for the company's "breakdown in integrity."

LivingSocial is being sued by two Seattle residents who claim its mobile and online offers violate federal and state gift card laws and Washington's Consumer Protection Act.

If you bought a Groupon deal for $20 for $40 worth of flowers from FTD and suspected you were being overcharged, you thought right. Seems a glitch in the system charged Groupon users full price on sale items, but both Groupon and FTD seem eager to resolve the issue, although there were probably some burned and spurned flowerless customers this Valentine's Day

Offline retailers are knocking on eBay's door and asking its PayPal unit to provide an in-store payment alternative to credit cards and debit cards, the company’s chief executive said.

Designer Derek Lam's Spring 2011 collection for eBay comes with a twist: images of 16 looks have been posted on eBay. Consumers can go online to vote for their favorites, with the top five vote-getters available for sale on eBay in May.

So-called "augmented reality" is the overlaying of digital information onto the real world, and everyone from game designers to retailers to health care companies to estate agents are gearing up to use it. While the potential for such technology to change the world is vast, the biggest challenge for its backers will be to convert this virtual revolution into rock-solid profits. Fortunately, there are countless ways this can be achieved, but not all are immediately obvious.

Bold Software surveyed more than 200 of its customers about their experiences with live chat over the holidays, and 77 percent cited the customer communication channel as critical (up 8 percent from last year), with 34 percent saying it was very or extremely critical.

Tallying over $30 billion in online sales during the holiday shopping season, 2010 will go down as the year e-commerce emerged as the most convenient means of shopping for consumers. As more retailers look to leverage their websites to increase sales and revenues, they should be well prepared to keep those sites healthy and viable.