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2002 Archives
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Sold! One California Town
An entire town has been sold online through auction provider eBay.com. The town of Bridgeville, California sold for nearly $1.8 million. It was the first town auction of its kind on eBay.
Read more at Wired News.
Posted on December 27, 2002
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My Online Xmas
BBC reporter Tim Weber detailed his personal shopping encounters this holiday season as he tried to buy specific items online such as CD's, a robe and a knights' castle. He was able to make his purchases but encountered difficulties along the way from limited gift wrapping options to out of stock items. Read more at BBC News.
Posted on December 20, 2002
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Web Boutiques Getting Squeezed
While large online retailers are expected to share in record breaking revenues, many small online merchants may be struggling to compete. For example, CDNow recently turned the technology of its website over to Amazon.com. Major retailers like Amazon.com, Target and Wal-mart are using their brand power to grab market share from small specialty websites.
Read more at Wired.
Posted on December 14, 2002
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Internet Shopping Set for New Record
Online sales are expected to grow again despite the recession according to analysts. Early indications show online sales up 34% over last season.
Read more at the BBC.
Posted on December 11, 2002
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CDNow Relaunches Using Amazon.com's Ecommerce Platform
After a major staff reduction, CDNOw.com, one of the top online music retailers, will now by powered by Amazon.com technology. Amazon.com will provide inventory, fulfillment, site content and customer service. CDNow will remain a part of BeMusic, which is also home to BMG Music Service and BeMusic's other record club businesses.
Read more at The Write News.
Posted on December 9, 2002
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Publisher Sells Its Own Electronic Books
HarperCollins, one of the top fiction publishers, is competiting directly with retailers by opening up four ebook stores to sell its books directly to readers. Visitors to perfectbound.com can purchase and download PerfectBound ebooks in Adobe, Microsoft, and Palm ebook formats. Read more at The Write News.
Posted on December 8, 2002
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Electronic Greetings With a Dark Side
Not all electronic greetings are fun and safe. In fact some may come with stealth viruses attached to them that can harm your computer. SurfControl, an email filtering company, has issued a warning about potential viruses in online greetings. Read more at The Write News.
Posted on December 6, 2002
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Email Santa
Santa's inbox is filling up with emails from excited kids. More and more children are choosing to email Santa instead of mailing a letter. EmailSanta.com now receives half a million Santa emails per year. Read more at Wired.com.
Posted on November 30, 2002
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Amazon Directs Shoppers to Borders
Amazon.com is now letting customers pick up books, cds and movies at Borders stores in an expansion of the Amazon-Borders deal. Read more at News.com.
Posted on November 27, 2002
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eBay's Identity Thieves
Con artists are targeting eBay to steal credit cards and account informaton. Once criminals have stolen an eBay account they use to defraud eBay consumers. Some fake eBay websites (that imitate eBay to confuse eBay customers) also try to obtain personal information such as social security numbers, mother's maiden name and bank account routing number. Read more at News.com.
Posted on November 23, 2002
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Amazon Powered Waldenbooks.com Opens
Waldenbooks has opened its website which is operated by Amazon.com ecommerce technology. The new site is a continuation of Amazon's deal with Borders. Borders Group is the parent company of Waldenbooks. Read more at The Write News.
Posted on November 22, 2002
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Teens Banned From AOL Shopping
Only adults can shop at AOL Shopping. AOL has banned teens after concerns they would be able to purchase pornography, alcohol and tobacco from partner sites. Read more at News.com
Posted on November 18, 2002
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Delight-O-Meter Returns
Amazon.com has launched its holiday Delight-O-Meter, which first appeared on the site for the 2000 holiday season. Viewable on the Amazon.com Welcome page, the Delight-O-Meter tracks the approximate number of items ordered from Amazon.com domains worldwide.
Posted on November 16, 2002
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Web Holiday Sales Look Good
Web sales could be good this holiday season for online retailers according to research firm GartnerG2. GartnerG2 forecasts sales over the Internet to jump 48 percent to $38.2 billion in 2002 from $25.7 billion last year. Read more at News.com.
Posted on November 14, 2002
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More Women Shop Online
Women shop online more than men according to a new study from the UK. The study found that 22% of women shop online compared to 19% of men. Women spend more online clothes online and men spend more on items like travel. Read more at the BBC.
Posted on November 11, 2002
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Amazon Expands Magazine Store
Amazon.com announced over 50,000 subscriptions are now available in its Magazine & Newspaper Subscriptions store, with tens of thousands more to come. Visitors will find newsstand titles such as People and Newsweek, newspapers ranging from USA Today to the Jerusalem Post, and trade publications for subjects spanning everything from advertising to zoology, including such obscure titles as Crazy for Cross Stitch, Eurofruit and American Animal Trainer Magazine.
Posted on November 8, 2002
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Online Music Sales Plummet
Web music sales have plumetted and online swapping services are being blamed. Revenues have fallen 25% in the first nine months of 2002. Read more at the BBC.
Posted on November 4, 2002
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Wal-Mart Adds DVD Rentals
Wal-Mart plans to rent DVDs to customers through its walmart.com website beginning with a test of the new service called Wal-Mart DVD Rentals. The company launched the test for Wal-Mart DVD Rentals in October and, based on feedback it gathers from an initial group of customers, will fine-tune the service before rolling it out to all customers nationwide next year. The service will compete with other online DVD rental services such as NetFlix.com. Read more at The Write News.
Posted on October 26, 2002
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ConsumerReports.org Hits 1 Million Mark
ConsumerReports.org reported that it has exceeded one million active paid subscribers, making it the largest publication-based subscription site on the Web. ConsumerReports.org has been continually growing its subscription base since its launch in November of 1997. Read more at The Write News.
Posted on October 23, 2002
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Retailers Team Up for Holiday Season
Retailers are teaming up for the upcoming holiday season. Sears and KBToys and Office Depot and Amazon.com are just couple of the recent ecommerce partnerships. Read more at USA Today.
Posted on October 22, 2002
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Online Auctions are Booming
Web auctions are a booming business and are expanding into all types of commerce. Online auction sales are expected to grow to over $50 billion by 2007 -- according to Forrester Research. Auctions are expected to grow as major retailers enlist auctions to sell excess inventory and more people become familiar with and start using auctions regularly. Read more at News.com.
Posted on October 21, 2002
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Walmart.com Takes on NetFlix DVD Rentals
Wal-Mart is testing a new service called Wal-Mart DVD Rentals. The company launched the test for Wal-Mart DVD Rentals in October and, based on feedback it gathers from an initial group of customers, will fine-tune the service before rolling it out to all customers nationwide next year. The monthly subscription rate is $18.86. The customer pays only the monthly subscription and is never charged a late fee or postage. The rental store will carry over 12,000 titles. The service will compete with other online DVD rental services such as NetFlix.com.
Posted on October 17, 2002
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Yahoo Wants Used Goods Sales
Yahoo is no longer allowing individual vendors to list items for free on its Used Goods website. Instead, Yahoo hopes to interest major retailers in listings lots of items in its used good sections. Read more at News.com.
Posted on October 15, 2002
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eBay TV Show Postponed
eBay TV has been delayed until 2003. The eBay TV program, which is a joint effort between eBay and Sony Pictures Television, was originally supposed to launch this Fall. Read more at News.com.
Posted on October 10, 2002
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Service Targets Deadbeat Bidders
No one appreciates people who bid for item and refuse to pay for it if they win. A new service from ChannelAdvisor targets these deadbeat bidders and blocks them from placing bids.
Other kinds of fraud, such as sellers listing items for sale and then never mailing them -- are more common problems with online auctions than deadbeat bidders. Read more at News.com.
Posted on October 9, 2002
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Auction Shipping Tip: Trim Your Boxes
Auctionbytes.com is offering this suggestion for auction retailers: trim your boxes a little to cut back on high postage costs on smaller packages. Click here to learn more.
Posted on October 6, 2002
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Night Owls Boost Ecommerce
Late-night shoppers are driving sales at many online stores in the UK, according to Barclaycard. Research suggested that 1/3 of all sales occured from 6pm and 9am. Read more at the BBC.
Posted on October 4, 2002
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eBay, PayPal Merger Official
PayPal is now officially part of the online auction giant eBay. Read more at News.com.
Posted on October 3, 2002
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Abebooks Lists Used Books Inventory on Amazon.com
Abebooks, an online marketplace for used, rare and out-of-print books, announced it is making millions of books available through Amazon's Marketplace program, which enables third party sellers to list inventory in Amazon.com's retail catalog. Abebooks' inventory will be available to book buyers worldwide on Amazon.com's ecommerce platform, significantly expanding the selection of used books available to Amazon.com customers. Read more at The Write News.
Posted on September 24, 2002
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Benefits of Online Insurance Shopping
The ease of shopping online can help those seeking insurance policies. Shoppers can complete the insurance forms themselves and obtain quotes from different providers. Many sites offer information about the policies and what they cover, but if you are unfamiliar with a particular type of insurance policy you might be better off contacting an insurance agent by phone. Read more at The Witchita Eagle.
Posted on September 22, 2002
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Online Dating Thrives
More and more people are turning to personals websites to find dates as online dating becomes commonplace. Date seekers don't mind paying subscription fees to these sites either, which is boosting profits for the online dating leaders. Some of the top online personals sites include Yahoo Personals, Match.com, Kiss.com, SomeoneLikesYou.com, Date.com, DreamMates.com, FriendFinder.com and UDate.com. Read more at MSNBC.com.
Posted on September 19, 2002
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Travelocity to Provide Clearer Car Rental Quotes
Travelocity said it is adding tax and surcharge fees to its car rental quotes to make prices more clear. Travelocity's competitors Expedia and Orbitz currently do not include these fees. Read more at News.com
Posted on September 17, 2002
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Live Customer Assistance Online
LivePerson is improving its customer assitance tool that it provides to ecommerce websites. The tool will allow online stores to track movements of their customers and allow them to offer live assistance and information through pop-up windows. Online stores will be able to view and identify current shoppers and know what products and pages the shoppers are looking at. Read more at News.com.
Posted on September 16, 2002
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Buy Enron's Assets Online
Enron's servers, computer and chairs are being auctioned off on Dovebid.com on Sept. 25 and 26. Items with Enron's logo on it have been a hot seller on eBay's auctions. Read more at News.com.
Posted on September 10, 2002
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Sniping Nuts and Bolts
Looking for tips and tools on placing those last-minute winning auction bids? Auctionbytes.com provides a list of tools and resources that can help you in this article. A handy comparison chart is also available.
Posted on September 8, 2002
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Amazon Launches Office Depot Store
Office Depot, Inc., a seller of office products, and Amazon.com, Inc. announced an ecommerce strategic alliance with launch of the Office Products store at Amazon.com. Office Depot will offer more than 50,000 products, including classic office supplies--including pens; ink and toner; paper; technology products such as computers, printers, monitors and all-in-one machines; and office furniture such as desks, chairs and bookcases.
Posted on September 6, 2002
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U.S. Government Auctions Coffins and Banana Juice Online
The U.S. Government has launched an online auction website offering items including coffins, banana juice, barges, real estate, jewelry, cars, horses and bear heads. The auction can be found on the FirstGov.gov website at:
http://www.firstgov.gov/shopping/auctions/auctions.shtml
Read more at WashingtonPost.com.
Posted on September 3, 2002
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Amazon Lowers Free Shipping to $25
After seeing positive results from its test of Free Super Saver Shipping on qualifying orders over $49, Amazon.com announced it is further lowering the qualifying order size for its popular free shipping option to $25. The company will decide at the test's conclusion whether the $25 ordering threshold can become permanent.
Posted on August 31, 2002
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eSnipe Expands Auction Tools
eSnipe, a provider of web auction tools with 100,000 members, is enhancing its tools to include email notification when they are outbid on an auciton items. The expanded service will now allow users to place automatic, last-minute bids on Yahoo, like it does on eBay. Read more at News.com.
Posted on August 27, 2002
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Safeway Testing Online Home Delivery
Safeway is testing online delivery through a 50 employee unit at its Vons division in San Diego county. Safeway's Vons stores will compete with Albertson's, which already has an established online grocery presence in San Diego County. Read more at EcommerceTimes.com.
Posted on August 22, 2002
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Amazon and Target Expand Online Store
The Amazon and Target agreement is expanding. The companies are planning to launch additional stores on Amazon.com including stores for Marshall Field's and Mervyn's. This brings additional products to Amazon.com, including apparel. Read more at The Write News.
Posted on August 21, 2002
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Big Profits for Online Dating Sites
Online dating is generating revenues thanks to subscribers who are happy to pay fees to find a date online. Some of the leading online dating sites include Match.com, Friendfinder and Yahoo. Read more at EcommerceTimes.com.
Posted on August 13, 2002
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Top Travel Sites Running Promotions
Travel sites such as Priceline.com, Expedia.com and Trip.com are running numerous promotions featuring hotel discounts. An EcommerceTimes article said the travel sites could be running the discounts in case airline ticket sales remain slow. Read more at EcommerceTimes.com.
Posted on August 11, 2002
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Digital Cameras are Hot
Digital Cameras are providing big sales for Sony, Olympus, Canon and Kodak. Sales of digital cameras grew 50% in the first half of 2002. Read more at News.com.
Posted on August 8, 2002
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Online Grocery Comeback
Webvan was a dotcom failure, but now traditional grocery stores like Albertson's and Safeway are taking a common sense approach to online grocery shopping. Jupiter predicts online grocery shopping could eventually be a $11 billion market. Read more at EcommerceTimes.com.
Posted on August 6, 2002
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eBay Sells Traditional Auction House
eBay has sold its Butterfields auction house to Bonhams -- exiting the tradional auction business. Read more at News.com.
Posted on August 1, 2002
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Ebay Trading Assitants
Ebay is launching a new service which provides assistants (experienced Ebay sellers) to help people learn to use its auctions more quickly. The assistants will receive a commission of any sale the trainee makes. Read more at EcommerceTimes.com.
Posted on July 25, 2002
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Lifetime and QVC to Launch Online Store
Lifetime, a cable network for women, is extending its brand to online shopping by teaming up with Global-QVC Solutions to create an online store expressly for women.
Posted on July 19, 2002
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uBid Adds Listing Fees
Prepare to pay for auction listings at uBid. Bids will range from 5 cents to 75 cents. Read more at News.com.
Posted on July 16, 2002
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Amazon to Run Virgin Entertainment Website
Amazon.com is going to run virginmega.com for the Virgin Entertainment Group. The music and entertainment website will be powered by Amazon.com's ecommerce platform. Read more at The Write News.
Posted on July 11, 2002
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Amazon Takes Ecommerce Webby
Amazon has snagged both the Webby Award and People's Voice awards at the Webby's for the commerce category. In other awards, Lonely Planet Online online won in the travel category and evite won in the services category. More winners can be found in this article from The Write News.
Posted on July 5, 2002
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Amazon and Clothes
Amazon.com apparently has plans to start selling clothes on its website. Companies providing clothes for sale on Amazon could include Nordstrom, Gap and Old Navy -- but it is just speculation at this point. Read more at EcommerceTimes.com.
Posted on July 2, 2002
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Yahoo Closes European Auctions
Yahoo has closed five of its European Auction websites in a deal with competitor Ebay. Yahoo's auction sites in England, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany will now link to Ebay. Read more at News.com.
Posted on June 28, 2002
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Amazon Launches Canada Site
Amazon.com has launched Amazon.ca, its new Canadian website which lists prices in Canadian dollars. The company also announced it has selected Assured Logistics, a part of the Canada Post group of companies, to handle fulfillment services for Amazon.ca.
Posted on June 27, 2002
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Yahoo Adds Wine Auction Listings
Yahoo Auctions is increasing the number of wine auctions is lists by adding actions from USWineAuction in a new partnership. USWineAuction will now faciliate wine auction listings for Yahoo. Read more at News.com and EcommerceTimes.com.
Posted on June 25, 2002
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Trip.com Teams With Nickelodeon
Trip.com, a leisure travel website, and Nickelodeon,
an entertainment brand for kids, announced a
multi-million dollar marketing partnership to create and
promote special family travel packages to their
respective user bases. NickJr.com will integrate
Trip.com's technology and family-oriented inventory
on a co-branded site that will launch this fall.
Posted on June 21, 2002
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Online Book Discount Wars Escalate
Barnes & Noble.com has announced a summer sale, offering shoppers 30% off all newly published books. Encompassing over 50,000 titles, the sale includes all books, audio books and ebooks published since January 1, 2002. The new sale competes with Amazon.com's new offer of free shipping on order over $49. Buy.com Inc. entered the summer sales competition announced that it will offer free shipping site-wide with no minimum purchase required. Buy.com is also offering an additional 10% off Amazon.com's prices on books.
Posted on June 20, 2002
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Auction Service Providers Find Profits
Ebay is not the only company making money from auctions. Some of the companies that provide services to the online auction industry are also generating profits. Some of these companies include AuctionWatch.com, PayPal (which Ebay now owns) and Andale. Read more at News.com.
Posted on June 11, 2002
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Barnes and Noble Adds Book Browsing Tool
Barnes & Noble.com is trying to make its onlien bookstore better with the launch of a new browsing tool. The tool allows customers to find books by browsing through keywords such as vampires, time periods and featured authors. The keywords get more specific the more visitors click. Read more at The Write News.
Posted on June 8, 2002
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eBay Closes Segway Auctions
eBay has shut down two auctions that appeared on eBay for the new segway scooter. Auction prices for the items before they were pulled reached $14,000. The auctions were pulled after Segway informed eBay that the auctions "infringed on its intellectual-property rights."
Read more at News.com.
Posted on June 7, 2002
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Priceline Acquires Lowestfare.com
Priceline.com, which offers name-your-own-price travel deals, has bought struggling competitor Lowestfare.com. Although it was struggling Lowestfare.com still received 600,000 unique visitors in March.
Read more about the acquisition at News.com.
Posted on June 5, 2002
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Wireless Alerts for eBay Users
Ebays users can now use cell phones and other wireless connections to find out the lastest eBay bids. The service from InPhonic will cost $2.99 per month.
Read more at USA Today.
Posted on June 4, 2002
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Amazon To Pay Affiliate Commissions on Used Goods
In a move that signals Amazon's strong interest in expanding its used goods business, Amazon has started to pay its hundreds of thousands of affiliates
for sales on used goods. Previously, the company only
paid affiliate commissions on items sold directly by
Amazon.com.
Read more at News.com.
Posted on May 30, 2002
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Consumers Don't Want to Pay For Web Services
According to a new Jupiter Research Report 69% of people surveyed aren't ready to pay for fee-based services like email and online bill paying. That's even higher than the resistance to paying for online content.
Read more at The Write News.
Posted on May 29, 2002
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Bertelsmann Grabs Napster
Bertelsmann, the German media powerhouse, has bought up Napster's assets, the music trading service which was shut down for copyright violations. Napster.com has been down ever since, but still plans to launch some type of fee-based music service.
Read more at the New York Times.
Posted on May 26, 2002
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Amazon Adds Catalog Listings
Amazon.com is testing catalog listings on its website. Targeted at broadband users the catalogs load as full-page graphics for each page of the catalog. Users can only browse the catalogs on the site and still must call the merchant to order.
Read more at News.com.
Posted on May 25, 2002
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Online DVD Site Plans IPO
Netflix.com, an online DVD rental website, is launching its IPO. The Los Gatos, California based company claims to have a hefty 600,000 subscribers.
Read more at Wired.
Posted on May 20, 2002
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Strange Sports Memorabilia Auctioned Online
Chewed chewing gum, bone chips from surgery and goatee clippings are just a few of the odd sports memorabilia items being auctioned on the web. And in many cases auction surfers are buying these odd items (along with typical ones) directly from the players.
Read more at The Washington Post.
Posted on May 17, 2002
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Amazon's Used Goods Strategy
Amazon.com is expanding to allow used goods sellers to list items on its website. The move makes Amazon.com more competitive with used goods sales leader eBay.com. Amazon.com recently received criticism for the Author's Guild for selling used books next to brand new ones.Read more at News.com.
Posted on May 14, 2002
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EU Implements Ecommerce Tarrifs
The EU has moved forward on Web Taxes, called a Value Added Tax, that will apply to merchants outside of the EU.
Read more at the BBC.
Posted on May 8, 2002
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Do You Need eBay Schooling?
Are you comfortable with your knowledge and skill at using web auction provider eBay, or could you use some help? If so, there are actually courses and seminars out there to help you. They include instruction, course packets and lectures on using escrow services and online payment systems.
Read more at CNET.
Posted on May 6, 2002
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R.R. Bowker Acquires PubNet
R.R. Bowker, a publisher of bibliographic information
and the official agency for assigning ISBNs in the
United States, announced that it has agreed to acquire
PubNet, an electronic commerce service that allows
booksellers to order titles directly from publishers. Bowker
has owned 25 percent of the company since its public
launch in 1997. Read more at The Write News
Posted on May 3, 2002
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Yahoo Cuts Auction Staff
Yahoo has let 40 people go from its auction division. Yahoo Auctions still trails far behind web auctions leader eBay.
Read more at CNET.
Posted on April 28, 2002
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Borders and Amazon Launch In-Store Pickup
Amazon.com and Borders.com have announced the launch of an In-store pickup service where readers can order books, music CDs and DVDs from Amazon.com or Borders.com (which users Amazon.com's ecommerce system on its website) and pick them up at Borders Books and Music stores nationwide.
Read more at The Write News.
Posted on April 26, 2002
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Will eBay Buy PayPal?
Rumor has it that eBay is considering purchasing PayPal, an online payment network. eBay might be interested in the company, because it has struggled growing its own payment system and many of its merchants use PayPal. However, there has been no confirmation from either eBay or PayPal that a deal might be underway. Read more at epaynews.com.
Posted on April 25, 2002
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Amazon Considering Canadian Website
Rumors are surfacing that Amazon.com might be planning to launch a Canadian specific retail website. There is speculation that Amazon is in talks with both Canada Post, the Canadian post office, and with Raincoast Books, a Canadian book distributor. If the rumors are true, the site could launch as early as this Summer. Read more at News.com.
Posted on April 24, 2002
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Amazon Revenues Up in Q1
Amazon.com turned in another good quarter performance and beat estimates from financial analysts. The company reported a revenue increase of 20%+ over last quarter and also cut its losses. Amazon also raised its forecasts for future quarters. Read more at CNN Money.
Posted on April 23, 2002
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eBay Juggernaut Rolls On
eBay continues to impress and to grow its massive online trading community and profits and revenues. eBay has more than 126 million auction listings. An interesting article from Knowledge@Wharton explains eBay's strengths and how it became the monster company it is today. It also mentions that eBay's only threat, may be eBay itself.Click here to read the article.
Posted on April 20, 2002
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PayPal Security Risk Discovered
A PayPal security risk has been discovered that allows hackers to name their own price on items. Hackers can apparently change the price of an item by editing the PayPal order link code. Read more at Wired.
Posted on April 19, 2002
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Ebay Adds New Discussion Board Rules
eBay.com is adding new rules to its online discussion boards, upsetting many of the regular buyers and sellers. According to CNET, some of the new restrictions include no postings of warnings about being ripped off by a buyer or seller, no discussion of where to purchase a particular item and no sharing of private email addresses. Members can be banned from using eBay for violating these new rules. Read more at CNET.
Posted on April 17, 2002
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Oprah Scales Back Book Club
Oprah, whose book selections are used by both brick-and-morat and online booksellers, is scaling back her regular book selections in the Oprah's Book Club. Oprah's Book Club was a boon to publishers and unnoticed authors. Her selections immediately jumped to the top of the bestseller lists. Booksellers were always ready to immediately purchase her latest selection. Read more at The Write News.
Posted on April 13, 2002
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Online Retail Accelerating
Online retail sales are up 41% for the 1st quarter of 2002 over this same period in 2001 according to BizRate.com. BizRate predicts an increase of 44% total for the entire year. Read more at Newsbytes.
Posted on April 12, 2002
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Fraud Most Upsetting to Eshoppers
Consumers complain about many aspects of online shopping, but fraud still rates as the biggest burden for consumers. Almost 43% of all online fraud cases reported last year had to do with problems with online auctions -- according to the Internet Fraud Complaint Center. Other studies dispute this finding. Other frauds that have plagued consumers included email scams, credit card fraud and identity theft. Read more at Newsbytes.
Posted on April 10, 2002
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eBay Suffers Third Straight Day of Problems
eBay says it is back online after suffering outages for three consecutive days. Problems have occured from people trying to access their "My eBay" pages, view the homepage and when trying to view pages in the clothing or jewelry auctions. Last month eBay had an outage involving the homepage, although auctions and auction listings were still available. Read more at News.com.
Posted on April 9, 2002
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Ebay Cancels Some Affiliates
Ebay.com has canceled some of its affiliate program member websites because it claims the websites generated large numbers of number of bids on items with no intention of completing the purchase. Through the program websites are compensated by delivering actual bids on auctions, as well as by generating new eBay members. Some sellers have complained about eBay's affiliate programs for generating numerous useless bids. Read more at CNET.
Posted on April 6, 2002
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Away.com Acquires GORP.com
Away.com, an online travel destination, announced the acquisition of New York-based GORP.com (Great Outdoor Recreation Pages), a website covering outdoor recreation and adventure travel. Before the acquisition GORP.com was a major competitor of Away.com in the adventure and outdoor travel market. Both companies had to cut costs and lay off staff during the recent dot-com downturn. The Washington Post reported that about half of GORP.com's 30 employees will be laid off as a result of the acquistion. Read more at The Write News.
Posted on April 5, 2002
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eBay Plugs Security Hole
eBay has closed a serious security hole which allowed hackers to access member's accounts. Apparently, the hackers were able to view a customers credit card history with eBay but could not access card card numbers. Read more at CNET and Newsbytes.
Posted on April 3, 2002
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Web Shoppers Don't Buy Jeans
Buying products like jeans online hasn't lived up to its potential as far as merchants concerned. A recent study finds that this isn't likely to change anytime soon. People have not shown must interest in the virtual models found on website for trying on different clothes. The article goes on to suggest that it will take a new generation of shoppers before customers adapt to buying products like clothes. Read more at CNET.
Posted on March 30, 2002
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Travelocity Grabs Site59
Travelocity.com, a travel site on the Web, announced it has reached an agreement to purchase Site59.com, Inc., an online seller of last-minute merchant model air, hotel and rental car inventory. Site59 launched in May 2000 and was developed and backed by iFormation Group, a partnership between The Boston Consulting Group, Goldman Sachs and General Atlantic Partners. Under terms of the deal, Travelocity.com will acquire Site59 for $43 million in cash.
Posted on March 29, 2002
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Stephen King Excerpt Beamed to Readers
In the promotional blitz for Stephen King's latest hardcover the publisher Simon & Schuster has teamed with Palm and a company named Streetbeam Inc., to beam an excerpt of the book directly to customer's Palm Pilots. For the next several weeks, New Yorkers with a Palm Powered handheld can get a free excerpt from King's new book by pointing their handheld at one of the 100 kiosks set up on the sidewalks of midtown Manhattan. Read more at The Write News.
Posted on March 28, 2002
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Consumer Confidence In Net Slips
Consumer Confidence in the Net has dropped thanks to online holiday shopping problems and online fraud. Online fraud continues to a major hindrance to the development of ecommerce. Customers also complained about customer service problems. Read more at CNET.
Posted on March 26, 2002
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Ebay Adds Travel Site
eBay announced its new travel site. The new eBay Travel service will include Priceline airline tickets and hotel rooms combined with offers from eBay auction listings for items like luggage, tickets and vacation rental properties. Read more at CNET.
Posted on March 20, 2002
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Surfers Shun Paying For Content
A lot of publishers are setting up subscriptions services in an attempt to get users to pay for content. Also, a lot of web services are switching over to a fee-based model. But consumers don't appear to be as ready for the change. 70% of adult web users say that can't imagine anyone paying for online content.
Read more at Newsbytes.
Posted on March 18, 2002
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WHSmith Creates Online Digital Media Store
WHSmith, the UK's largest books, stationery and magazine retailer, announced plans to expand its online ebookstore into an online digital media store featuring DRM-protected downloads of audio books, music and video in the Microsoft Windows Media format. The site is powered by OverDrive, Inc., a provider of ebook, DRM and digital media marketplace technologies.
WHSmith.co.uk, which says it already has over 2 million physical goods for sale online, will rollout the new digital inventory in phases. Read more at The Write News.
Posted on March 15, 2002
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Ebay Outage Lasts 90 Minutes
Ebay went down for 90 minutes on March 14th. The outage lasted from 1:10 p.m. and 2:40 p.m. PT. Ebay said its auctions were still running during the outage but people were unable to reach them from the Ebay homepage. Read more at CNET.
Posted on March 14, 2002
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Buy.com Partners With Distributor Baker & Taylor
Buy.com, Inc., an online store, announced a partnership with Baker & Taylor (B&T), a premier supplier of books, music, and video to libraries and retail stores, to provide fulfillment services for its entertainment categories including music, books, videos and DVDs.
Posted on March 8, 2002
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Return of the Online Grocers?
Internet grocery delivery is making a comeback -- but it isn't because of startups like WebVan and Homeruns.com. Brick-and-mortar supermarket chain Albertson's is developing and expanding its online offerings. CNET has an interview with Albertson's vice president of technology who discusses Albertson's expansion and the future of grocery shopping. Click here to read the interview.
Posted on March 6, 2002
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Shopping Population Growing, Changing
A study has found that the demographics of online shoppers are becoming more like the demographics of the general U.S. population. The number of online shoppers is also expected to double to 66 million over the next five years. Read more at Newsbytes.
Posted on March 5, 2002
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Fraud Hampers Ecommerce Growth
Credit card fraud and identify theft are hampering ecommerce by discouraging and frustrating both consumers and merchants. To battle fraud some customers are turning to new credit card protection systems: Visa's Verified by Visa and MasterCard's Universal Cardholder Authentication Field.
Read more at ecommerce-guide.com.
Posted on March 4, 2002
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Buy.com Launches Buy.com Magazine
Buy.com, Inc., an online store, announced the first edition of Buy.com Magazine. Starting with a circulation of 5 million, the publication offers customers computing products, wireless products, music, DVDs, digital cameras and PDAs. Read more at The Write News.
Posted on March 1, 2002
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First Ebay Sale Can Be Difficult
Ebay has decreased the number of featured auctions it lists per page -- upsetting its sellers. Many of the sellers who pay $19.95 for the featured listing are especially outraged and are asking for refunds. Read more at CNET.
Posted on February 27, 2002
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Real Estate Listing Fees Rise at Ebay
Ebay.com is increasing the listing fees for some its Real Estate listings from $50 to $100. The rates take effect on March 7, 2002. Read more at CNET.
Posted on February 22, 2002
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Problems for Amazon's zShops
Unlike rival eBay, Amazon.com is having trouble growing its sales of used products. Recently, the sellers have complained about problems accessing their accounts and when trying to list items. Amazon also recently received complaints from the Author's Guild, which emailed its author members to delink from Amazon because they claim that Amazon.com's used book sales could hurt authors new book sales. Read more at CNET.
Posted on February 22, 2002
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BidBay, Ebay Settle Lawsuit
BidBay and Ebay have settled a trademark lawsuit. Ebay sued BidBay for trademark infringement for BidBay's use of "Bay" in its name. As part of the settlement BidBay will be changing its name to AuctionDiner.com. Read more at CNET.
Posted on February 20, 2002
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PayPal IPO Debuts
PayPal, a popular online payment service, had a strong IPO debut with a price increase of over 50%. PayPal's IPO debut was delayed over patent lawsuits. Read more at CNET.
Posted on February 15, 2002
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Half.com Will Stay Whole
Ebay.com
has decided against turning its Half.com property into part of Ebay. Half.com is a fixed-price service which allows users to buy and sell used goods. Ebay purchased Half.com in 2000. Read more at CNET.
Posted on February 12, 2002
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Fake Ebay Email Pretends to Be Customer Service
Ebay users need to watch out for a fake email that pretends to be email customer service and tries to coax readers into submitting password and credit card information through an online form. The email tells customers that a product they ordered will be shipped soon with information about cancelling the order at the end of the email. If people complete the cancellation form the spammers can collect personal information such as passwords and credit card numbers. Read more at Newsbytes.
Posted on February 6, 2002
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Ebay to Host Auctions for Sothebys
At one time Amazon.com Auctions was the online host for the well-known Sotheby's auction house. Now Sotheby's listings are about to appear to Ebay. The listings will be placed in Ebay Premier -- Ebay's section for higher-end auctions.
Read more at CNET.
Posted on February 3, 2002
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Priceline to List Items on Ebay
Priceline announced its plans to list some of its product offerings through Ebay's But it Now feature. The items to be listed include airfare, hotels, car rentals, cruises, time-shares and vacation packages. Read more at CNET.
Posted on February 1, 2002
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Olympics Items Popular at Online Auctions
Olympic Tickets are big sell online. Everything from expensive hotel packages to cheap Olympic pins are for up for bid. Read more at CNET.
Posted on January 28, 2002
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Ebay Adds Real Estate Marketplace
eBay is expanding its real estate listings by creating a special section for the buying and selling of vacation properties, including time-share properties. eBay is also including listings from Timeshare Nation and Century 21 Vacation Properties.
Read more at BizReport.com and The New York Times.
Posted on January 23, 2002
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Amazon Posts a Profit
Amazon has announced its first profitable quarter. Amazon's fourth quarter included strong sales in books, music and video, plus growth from its international divisions. Read more at CNET.
Posted on January 22, 2002
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Will People Buy Online Films?
Are consumers ready to pay for online films? Or, is it easier to purchase a DVD or rent one from your local Blockbuster? There are a lot of music subscription services emerging, although only Napster (when it was free) has made much of an impact so far.
However, the Web may provide ways for independent filmmakers to showcase and earn revenue for their films.
Click here to read more at InternetNews.com
Posted on January 21, 2002
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eBay Raising Fees
eBay is going to start charging for its "Buy it Now" feature as well as changing the way it calculate fees on auctions involving multiples of the item. eBay is also increasing its transaction fees on winning bids. The new fees go into place on February 1st, 2002. Read more at CNET.
Posted on January 18, 2002
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Another Big Quarter for eBay
eBay turned in another impressive quarter, with a 64% increase in revenue in its 4th quarter of 2001. eBay is also looking at buying or teaming up with a competitor in the Japanese market. $2.7 billion worth of goods were sold through eBay in the 4th quarter.
Read more at CNET
Posted on January 14, 2002
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2002 Ecommerce Predictions
Business 2.0 looks at the year ahead in this article forecasting the year in ecommerce for 2002. The predictions show a good ecommerce year with a focus on improving customer service. The article also predicts troubles for Yahoo and the failure of Napster.
Click here to read more.
Posted on January 8, 2002
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Online Holiday Shopping Rings Up $13.8 Billion
The total sales from this holiday season (November and December 2001) closed at $13.8 billion for online retailers, about 15% higher than 2000. This is a good performance considering the poor economic conditions. Free shipping was one the biggest online shopping lures this season.
Read more at Newsbytes
Posted on January 7, 2002
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Ebooks a Tough Sell? Think Again
Palm Digital Media announced that it sold almost 180,000 ebooks in 2001, up more than 40 percent from 2000. Read more at The Write News.
Posted on January 5, 2002
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eBay Charity Falls $90 Million Short
eBay's Auction for America charity auction fell well short of $100 million goal -- but still raised $10 million. Part of that was a $1 million donation from eBay and other contributions from Taco Bell, Jay Leno, Wells Fargo, George Lucas and others. Some criticized the auction and claimed eBay was only out to promote its BillPoint payment system, which it required buyers to use for the Auctions for America charity.
Click here for more information.
Posted on January 4, 2002
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