e-commerce

Unhappy holidays for Netflix, says study

The old year certainly wasn't a happy one for Netflix, and the new year may not be either, if the results of a just-published survey are any indication.

A customer satisfaction index of the top 40 online retailers during the holidays shows that the online purveyor of DVD rentals and streaming movies saw its overall score drop 8 percent, or seven points, from last year, to a total of 79.

The company saw scores dip for every Website element that analytics firm ForeSee measures, including content, functionality, merchandise, and prices.

The score of 79 is average, says ForeSee, meaning … Read more

Best Buy's online conundrum: Nailing e-commerce

Best Buy's fiscal third quarter wasn't stellar and heavy promotions took a toll on profit margins. The company's biggest challenge may be doubling down on online sales as it tries to fend off Amazon, which is a big electronics threat.

The focus on e-commerce was evident on Best Buy's earnings conference call. Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn portrayed a company that's transitioning to a multichannel strategy.

Dunn said:

As I mentioned earlier, we took a number of actions to drive our business including--running effective promotions across multiple channels; significantly expanding our online assortment; and ensuring … Read more

Tablet owners cool with buying items through their devices

Tablet owners are quite comfortable buying goods and services through their devices, a trend that's fueling the growth in mobile shopping, says mobile media firm JiWire.

As tablet ownership has doubled over the past year, a new study from JiWire found that 82 percent of tablet users are OK buying items through their mobile devices (either tablets or smartphones), compared with 76 percent of smartphone users.

Further, tablet owners aren't afraid to spend big bucks. A full 67 percent of the tablet users are willing to spend $50 or more on a purchase, compared with just 57 percent … Read more

Cyber Monday rules U.S. commerce with $1.25B in sales

Cyber Monday officially rules the U.S. online-shopping season, racking up $1.25 billion in sales yesterday--a 22 percent increase over the previous year, according to ComScore data.

Monday's spending reflected both an 11 percent increase in the number of people shopping online and a significant jump in how much they spent. More than 10 million people bought something online yesterday, the online-marketing research firm said. Those shoppers made an average of 1.9 purchases apiece, in total worth an average of nearly $125--a 9 percent increase over per capita spending on Cyber Monday 2010.

The ComScore data differs … Read more

E-shoppers go mobile on Thanksgiving, Black Friday

Apple's iPhone and iPad helped make mobile devices a key driver of Thanksgiving and Black Friday e-commerce this year, according to a report from IBM Coremetrics.

Online Thanksgiving shopping grew by 39.3 percent year over year, creating momentum that continued into Black Friday, where online sales grew by 24.3 percent compared with the same period last year, said the report (PDF).

And Black Friday witnessed the arrival of the mobile deal seeker, who embraced his or her mobile device as a research tool for in-store and online bargains. Mobile traffic came close to tripling year over year, … Read more

Holiday shoppers move toward mobile

As the holiday shopping season rears its (insert your adjective of choice here) head, a just-released study from IBM shows that mobile devices are continuing their push toward making it a post-PC world.

According to the latest IBM Coremetrics Benchmark numbers, traffic to retailer Web sites from mobile devices will more than double this November, with 15 percent of people who log on to such sites doing so with a mobile gadget.

October numbers from IBM show that year over year the amount of people who used a mobile gadget to touch down on a retailer's site jumped from 4.2 percent to 11 percent. In the same period, total mobile sales shot up to 9.6 percent from last year's 3.4 percent

iPad users will no doubt be welcomed by online retailers in the next couple of months: IBM says site visitors on that device will make more actual purchases than visitors using other mobile gizmos. That prediction is based on the fact that conversion rates for last month were 6.8 percent on the iPad versus 3.6 percent on other mobile gadgets.… Read more

Rearden Commerce scores $133 million in funding

E-commerce firm Rearden Commerce is looking to expand both the company and its Deem platform through a round of funding and a new acquisition.

The e-commerce developer announced today that it has picked up $133 million in financing from its current partners American Express and JPMorgan Chase and from new investor Citi. The company is looking to spend the influx of cash on paying off debt, generating working capital, and setting up some acquisitions.

In line with that third goal, Rearden also said that it has bought social-buying service HomeRun.com and its OfferEngine platform, an acquisition that will be … Read more

Amazon vows to cut more affiliates over state taxes

Amazon.com is threatening to cut ties with affiliates in any states that decide to collect sales tax, CEO Jeff Bezos said yesterday.

"We will continue to drop states who pass those affiliate laws, from the affiliate program," Bezos said at the ShopSmart Shopping Summit in New York, according to Reuters.

The company recently cut ties with affiliates in Illinois and has also done so in Colorado, North Carolina, and Rhode Island. Amazon is threatening to do likewise in California.

As on online company, Amazon itself isn't required to collect taxes in states where the company is … Read more

How to avoid sharing personal info online

Honesty is the best policy--unless you're dealing with someone you can't trust.

The sad fact is, you can't trust anyone on the Web. Just ask the millions of people who signed up for Sony's PlayStation Network and who now must protect against possible hack attacks on their bank accounts and other private data lost due the recent data breach. CNET News reporter Erica Ogg explains the company's response to its customers in her Circuit Breaker blog.

Sony claims the credit card information was encrypted and did not include the cards' security codes; the company also … Read more