
Shipping

Wal-Mart is sweetening the deal for shoppers it wants to win over from Amazon.com by offering a free one-month trial of “ShippingPass,” its answer to its online rival’s Prime subscription plan. The world’s largest retailer said that starting this Friday it was offering a free 30-day trial of ShippingPass. That annual subscription service, like Prime, offers members unlimited…
In today’s news roundup, find out why Revlon is buying Elizabeth Arden; the reason Amazon is cutting its shipping fees for certain products; and what a new postal reform bill may look like.
Learn more about why Apple Pay becoming available on the web is a potential game changer for online retailers; what Staples is doing to compete in today's instant gratification economy; and an unintended consequence for retailers’ generous return policies — lower pay for store associates.
Wal-Mart has lined up two key new partners in combatting Amazon.com’s challenge in the grocery delivery wars: ride-sharing giants Uber and Lyft. In a test, the largest U.S. retailer will use either Uber or Lyft for the so-called “last mile” of grocery delivery in small areas of Denver and Phoenix when a customer requests home delivery.…
eBay CEO Devin Wenig hopes to be able to anticipate what shoppers want to buy by utilizing artificial intelligence (AI). In a post on the eBay corporate blog, Wenig discussed how technology is influencing e-commerce, and he also discussed his own company's interest in this area. The CEO expects the pace of development of AI to…
Postmaster General Megan Brennan called on Congress to enact legislation to help the Postal Service after releasing the agency's second-quarter financial report last week. She called the agency's challenges "serious but solvable." Brennan testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday, saying the USPS has worked with stakeholders on several provisions that can…
Jet.com, the e-commerce upstart from Diapers.com founder Marc Lore, is entering a new business: groceries. The company generated a huge amount of buzz by raising hundreds of millions in funding before even opening its doors in July. Its goal is to take on Amazon.com and other e-commerce giants by selling everything from household goods to sports…
Wal-Mart sure is trying to be more like rival Amazon.com in an effort to to improve its weak sales trends. The world's largest retailer is testing a two-day shipping subscription service called ShoppingPass that mirrors Amazon's successful Prime service, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. Members to ShoppingPass reportedly will get free, two-day…
Amazon.com will lease 20 cargo planes from Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, a deal that will double the size of the tech and retail giant’s emerging air force and could give it a sizable stake in a second air-freight company. The move comes just a few months after Amazon struck a similar deal with Air Cargo Transport…
In its ongoing efforts to merge, FedEx and TNT Express jointly announced last Friday the unconditional approval of the Ministry of Commerce People’s Republic of China. After winning approvals in the United States (November 2015), EU (January 2016) and Brazil (February 2016), China was the last major regulatory hurdle for FedEx to gain in its…