commerce

Google said today that it has acquired Incentive Targeting, a maker of coupon programs tailored to shoppers based on their individual purchase histories.

Terms of the sale were not disclosed. Google said the company would become part of its mobile commerce efforts.

"We look forward to working with Incentive Targeting in our ongoing efforts to help consumers save time and money and enable retailers to deliver relevant discounts to the right customers," a Google spokesperson told CNET in an e-mail.

Founded in 2007, Incentive Targeting worked with retail chains and brands to design promotions, deliver them via coupon, … Read more

Here's a quick Thanksgiving/Black Friday question for you.

In the run-up to Christmas, Hanukkah, and all the other gift-laden winter holidays, would you rather go after a bargain by letting your fingers loll about on the screen of a smartphone or tablet -- or mix it up with the punch-throwing, gun-toting, um, customers at your local big box store?

We thought so. And if data from eBay is any indication, that instinct toward self-preservation is strong in many of us (or at least an increasing number of us). For the data shows that, since last year, Thanksgiving and … Read more

Fab keeps making friends in all the right spaces.

Daily deals site LivingSocial today started featuring gifts from the spunky e-commerce site as part of its holiday gift list.

Fab CEO Jason Goldberg wrote in a blog today that the inclusion of Fab products into LivingSocial's online store is a "perfect" partnership. "We could not be more excited about partnering with LivingSocial to bring Fab's curation to their large and highly engaged customer base," Goldberg wrote.

The move puts Fab's products in front of LivingSocial's 24 million U.S. members. While 50 … Read more

A quick perusal of Fiverr, a micro-services Web site, and your mouth might fall agape. You may think to yourself, "people are willing to do what for money?!" Or maybe the shock comes from realizing that buyers are actually willing to pay for some of these outlandish things. I'm not talking about anything salacious or illegal (Fiverr has strict quality control for those kinds of postings), but rather, the weird, absurd, or plain random.

As the name implies, goods and services are offered on the site for five bucks each. Or in some cases, in increments of five. For example, for $5, a man in Argentina will send you a video of himself acting like a sad mouse while wishing your friend a happy birthday. Yes, really. Or maybe you've been looking for a sketch of yourself as an Anime character. A seller in the Philippines can make that happen for only a five-spot. … Read more

Facebook made a big commercial splash in New York City this evening, announcing several new partnerships for its gifting service in time for the holiday shopping season.

The social network wanted to create some buzz and used a press event at the FAO Schwarz in New York today to highlight the new retailers coming on board for Facebook Gifts.

"Facebook gifts is a combination of real moments with real gifts," Lee Linden, head of product for Gifts, told the room of reporters.

Linden told CNET that the new gifts will be available throughout the U.S. in the … Read more

Looking to stake your claim on the Interwebs? It's easy to find hosting packages for less than $10 per month, but 10 bucks for a whole year? That's pretty sweet.

For the next 48 hours, Web Hosting Hub is offering one year of Web hosting for just $10. Normally, that same deal would run you close to $60.

This CNET exclusive includes just about every feature you could want from a Web host; it's not some watered-down package with limited pages and extra fees for e-commerce.

Instead, you get unlimited everything: disk space, bandwidth, e-mail addresses, MYSQL … Read more

Social-media and e-commerce site Fancy may not have Pinterest's 25.3 million users or even Fab's 8 million users, but what Fancy lacks in user numbers, the company says, it's making up in mobile traffic and, most importantly, sales.

Fancy, which recently raised another $26.4 million from investors, released some new numbers and announced its new gift card offerings today, touting its mobile success while taking the opportunity to ding its competitors.

Fancy has more than 2 million registered users now, and while that's much less than wildly popular social-media site Pinterest or growing e-commerce … Read more

Fab, the quickly growing e-commerce startup that uses flash sales to sell products, is already making money off mobile, but it says it's about to make much more.

Expected to reach 8 million users in just a few days, Fab has released new mobile apps that CEO Jason Goldberg said will help make Fab even more mobile.

Fab's mobile apps contribute to 33 percent of the company's daily traffic and sales, but Goldberg said he expects that number to hit 50 percent during the holiday season and even higher by early next year.

"The secret of … Read more

Facebook is stepping further into e-commerce with a feature that looks a whole lot like Pinterest.

The company today is rolling out "Collections," a feature that lets brands and e-commerce sites push out images of products among Facebook users who can then click-through to make a purchase -- although the buying part isn't yet taking place on Facebook. The feature is a new type of Facebook Page post.

This test will begin with all U.S. Facebook members, although the company has for now teamed up with just seven retail partners. They include Pottery Barn, Wayfair, Victoria'… Read more