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eBay Says Buying Used Is Being Green

eBay announced today the launch of the eBay Green Team Challenge, a program aimed at turning green shopping into a tangible environmental impact. Under the program, the first 250,000 people to pledge to reuse on eBay, the company will protect an acre of rainforest in their name through a new collaboration with Team Earth, a coalition of non-governmental organizations, private sector companies and individuals...

U.S. Online Retail Set For Double-Digit Growth

Online retail in both the U.S. and Western Europe is set for a strong period of double-digit growth over the next five years, according to new forecasts by Forrester Research. U.S. online retail will grow at a 10 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next five years to reach nearly $249 billion by 2014. Online retail within the largest European Union nations in Western Europe will grow...

Online Retail Spending Reaches $39 Billion In Q4

Online retail spending in the U.S. in the fourth quarter reached $39 billion, a 3 percent increase compared to a year ago, according to the latest report from comScore. Total retail ecommerce spending reached $129.8 billion in 2009, slightly lower than the previous year’s total of $130.1 billion. "The fourth quarter, with a 3 percent year-over-year growth, helped end what has been a disappointing...

Shipping Sites See Surge In Traffic In December

Retail sites, shipping sites, and greeting cards sites all saw surges in traffic in December due to the holiday season, according to a new report from comScore. "December proved to be a strong month for the retail category with Tuesday, Dec. 15 ranking as the heaviest online spending day of the year – and of all time – at $913 million," said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president...

Google Shares Top Retail Searches for the Holiday Season

Google has shared the top retail searches for the 2009 holiday season. These results are based on the company’s Insights for Search tool. "Using Google Insights for Search, we can see that the hottest toys over the last seven days include stalwarts like Pikachu and Legos, as well as newcomers, such as the Nerf Marshmellow Shooter and the surprise hit of the holiday season, a blanket-with-sleeves...

Walmart Wins Thanksgiving, Amazon Wins Black Friday

You may have read about the online price wars going on this holiday season between Walmart and Amazon. It looks like both companies are doing quite well as a result (not that that is much of a surprise). According to data from Hitwise, Walmart was the top retail site on Thanksgiving Day, and Amazon was the top retail site on Black Friday. Where did you spend your dollars on Thanksgiving/Black Friday? Share...

Traffic and Time Spent on Black Friday Sites Increase Rapidly

New research from Nielsen finds that during the last weeks of October and the early weeks of November, the number of unique visitors to the top websites offering previews of Black Friday deals (like bfads.net for example), has been increasing rapidly. No surprise there. Week-over-week, however, traffic to these sites has increased by as much as 87%, from 3.8 million unique visitors during the week...

Google Announces Details of New Product Listing Ads

Google product listing ads have been spotted every now and then for a while now. The company has been testing them, but now the they have announced that US users will start seeing them more frequently on shopping related queries. "Each day we see many users come to Google.com to research products and find where to buy them," says Google’s Dan Friedman. "To better serve these users,...

Amazon Completes Acquisition of Zappos

Update: Amazon announced the completion of its acquisition of Zappos.com today. The Zappos management team will remain intact, and Zappos will operate independently with its headquarters in Las Vegas. Original Article: Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh sent an email to Zappos employees today informing them that Amazon is becoming the only shareholder of Zappos stock. The following video from Jeff Bezos was also...

Online Retailers To Have Better Holiday Season

Overall retail sales are expected to show no gain this holiday shopping season, while online retail sales in the U.S. will reach $44.7 billion during the holiday season, an eight percent increase over last year, according to a new report by Forrester Research. The growth rate represents an increase from 2008, when, on the heels of the global financial crisis, online holiday retail sales in the U.S....

Amazon and Walmart Engage in Price War Over Holiday Book Shoppers

Amazon and Walmart have been engaged in an online price war over holiday sales of bargain books. The whole thing began when Walmart announced that it would let customers preorder 10 of the most highly anticipated upcoming books for as little as $10 each. In a matter of hours, Amazon matched the price for all of the same books. Walmart then dropped the price to $9. Then Amazon did the same. After this,...

Promote the Right Landing Page to Maximize Holiday Sales

With the holiday season on the way, online retailers are obviously going to be looking for big sales. A lot of retailers are turning to Facebook and Twitter to help in that department, but if you sell goods online, there’s no better place to start than on the site itself. Amazon, probably the most successful online retailer there is, knows this, and that is one reason why it has prepared for...

Online Retailers To Focus On Facebook And Twitter During Holidays

Due to the popularity of Facebook and Twitter and because they are more cost effective than traditional advertising, 47.1 percent of online retailers will be increasing their use of social media this holiday season, according to a new study by Shop.org, conducted by BiGresearch. More than half of retailers said they have added or improved their Facebook page (60.3%) and Twitter pages (58.7%) this year,...

Consumers Can Now Get Billed Later for eBay Purchases

eBay and PayPal announced today that they are now offering Bill Me Later as a payment option during checkout. This means that "qualified" customers in the U.S. can now buy items and pay for them over time without using a credit card. The option will be available for Buy It Now and approved auction purchases on eBay. It is also available at "tens of thousands" of online stores that...

Some eBay Sellers Disgruntled Over Top Rated Sellers Program

Some eBay sellers have been taking issue with the fact that they are not being considered "Top Rated Sellers" in eBay’s program of that name. As far as they can tell, they meet the requirements, but are having no luck being included in this group. Ina Steiner at AuctionBytes was able to get a response from eBay on the matter with the following points: 1) All existing PowerSellers who...