ecommerce

PayPal branches out from eBay's money tree

SAN FRANCISCO--E-commerce payment company PayPal has grown organically on the back of eBay, but apparently no longer.

PayPal President Scott Thompson said here at the RBC Capital Markets conference Wednesday that by year's end, his company will derive more total payment volumes from its Merchant Services than from eBay buyers and sellers. Merchant Services is the name for the payment software PayPal provides to third-party sites like Starbucks, Delta Airlines, and American Outfitters.(In the last quarter, eBay buyers and sellers---long the bread and butter of PayPal's business--racked up about 51 percent of the payment volumes.)

That's … Read more

BuySAFE launches beta of e-commerce rating tool

Worried about identity theft and fraudulent e-commerce sites?

BuySAFE may have something for you. The company launched a free desktop application on Tuesday called buySAFE Shopping Advisor that offers ratings on U.S.-based e-commerce sites.

The sites are rated based on whether they are using valid SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption for data transmission, whether the sites are regularly inspected for security vulnerabilities, have a published privacy policy, and whether the merchant is bonded.

The integrated browser tool also offers a portal to 3,000 shopping sites where purchases are guaranteed with a bond of up to $25,000 … Read more

Study: Prescription-free drug sites still abound

Improved e-mail filtering and government crackdowns might've deterred some of the once-ubiquitous spammers peddling prescription-free Viagra on the Web, but a new study from Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse has found that many of those sites are still alive and kicking.

The CASA study, resulting from its fifth annual "You've Got Drugs!" investigation, did find that there has been a decline in the total count of Web sites hawking controlled drugs: 365 of them, compared to 581 in 2007's study.

But it's still alarming, CASA said, because few of … Read more

Zut alors! French court rules against eBay in luxury goods suit

You'd think the parent company of $1,500 Louis Vuitton handbags would be able to tolerate a few fakes on eBay. Not so.

And a French court agreed on Monday, ordering the online auction giant to pay $61 million (38.6 million euros) to luxury goods powerhouse LVMH, according to Reuters. LVMH, along with other luxury-brand groups like Tiffany & Co. and Hermes, has claimed that eBay isn't strict enough about policing the sale of counterfeit goods on its site.

eBay promptly appealed the court decision, saying that LVMH was simply trying to crack down on competition; eBay … Read more

Cooking.com stirs up $13 million

Bon appetit for Cooking.com: The kitchen appliance retailer announced Wednesday that it has pulled in $13 million in venture funding in a round led by Azure Capital Partners. ORIX Venture Finance also contributed venture debt to the round, and Azure partner Michael Kwatinetz is now on the company's board of directors.

The new cash will be used toward a variety of goals at Cooking.com: expand editorial and social-networking operations on the site (a sound decision when it seems like everyone can't stop talking about Bobby Flay and Mario Batali), opening a new distribution center in Ohio, … Read more

The eBay "fad" is wearing off

Nick Carr asks today, "Is eBay a fad?" Nick's source of inspiration is a BusinessWeek article noting that more and more sales on eBay are through fixed-price sales, rather than auctions.

"If I really want something I'm not going to goof around [in auctions] for a small savings," says Dave Dribin, a 34-year-old Chicago resident who used to bid on eBay items, but now only buys retail.

I think the larger problem is that the "savings" have been somewhat nonexistent for some time. It used to be that you could find deals on eBay. Today, those are fewer and farther between as eBay has become a haven for "real" merchants rather than Aunt Louise selling her handmade doilies.

This, coupled with the amount of effort that goes into eBay's auctions - first you have to dig through the site to find what you want, and then you have to sit around waiting for the auction to close, only to be outbid by software set up to win the auction in the final few seconds - make eBay a raw deal.

I personally feel like the right model will be one where sellers find buyers, not buyers finding sellers.… Read more

Open-source ecommerce platforms: Nine of the best reviewed

Want to sell online? Not Your Average Geeks blog has reviewed nine of the best, including Magento which I reviewed last year.

On Magento, the review notes:

...[M]y what a fantastic job they have done on this product. It's by far one of the more exciting e-commerce platforms available for free on the market today. Dripping with features, they really have thought of everything. Wishlists, shop by price and category, item comparison - all the things we've come to expect from professional web stores. It's software as good as this that really keeps licensed software on … Read more

Overstock.com will extend reach to Canada, Europe

Discount online retailer Overstock.com announced on Thursday that it will be selling its products outside the United States for the first time.

"We're actually right smack dab in the middle of integrating," Jake Bailey, Overstock's director of international sales, said in an interview with CNET News.com on Thursday. No final date has been given for the launch of international sales, but Bailey said it will be before the end of 2008.

The Salt Lake City, Utah-based company has inked a deal with E4X, which runs a service called FiftyOne Global Ecommerce. The partnership has … Read more

Google's chief economist waxes optimistic about Internet sector

WASHINGTON--The U.S. economy as a whole may not have the sunniest prognosis lately, but Google's chief economist and other industry watchers on Friday diagnosed the Internet sector as relatively healthy.

During a panel discussion at Google's D.C. headquarters, professor-turned-in-house-economist Hal Varian argued that an analysis of search queries at his company's site mirrors deeper economic trends. Job-related searches are up as a share of total searches, for instance, and real-estate and luxury goods searches are down--exactly what you'd expect in a "recessionary environment," Varian said.

But overall, the total number of searches … Read more