e-commerce

Let's make a deals site, or two

Every so often a marketing fad comes along in digital media that makes companies willing to adopt it so quickly that they wind up bending and twisting their business models like Silly Putty. There were Facebook apps. There were Foursquare-style "game mechanics." These days, short-term retail deals have taken over.

Of course, none of this is new. Following the runaway success of Groupon, which offers a steep daily discount-a-day in dozens of cities around the world, with the condition that a minimum number of buyers must sign on; and Gilt, which has built an empire of low-priced designer … Read more

Amazon revenues jump but miss expectations

E-commerce powerhouse Amazon.com said Thursday that its second-quarter revenues were up 41 percent from the previous year, jumping to $6.57 billion in revenues at $0.45 earnings per share.

Unfortunately, Wall Street had been hoping for $0.54 per share.

The gains were due in part to the increasing popularity of the Kindle e-book system--consisting of the physical Kindle e-reader, which has been an impressive hit, and the e-book marketplace that's also accessible via Kindle apps for devices like Apple's iPad. Earlier this week, Amazon announced that for the first time, it's selling more Kindle titles than hardcover books. … Read more

eBay modestly beats the Street

Wall Street was predicting that tepid performance by eBay's auction business would offset strong gains by its PayPal division in its second-quarter earnings, but the e-commerce giant ended up beating expectations: It posted revenue of $2.2 billion, when $2.16 billion had been predicted.

That's a 6 percent gain from the second quarter of 2009, or a 15 percent gain if you consider that eBay sold off the majority of its ownership in telephony service Skype last November. PayPal performance was strong, as expected, posting record revenue for a second-quarter time frame.

"We delivered strong second … Read more

Amazon: Kindle titles outpacing hardcovers

The Amazon.com Kindle e-reader and bookstore have reached a "tipping point," the company said Monday, with Kindle titles outselling hardcover books on the massive online marketplace for the first time.

"We've reached a tipping point with the new price of Kindle--the growth rate of Kindle device unit sales has tripled since we lowered the price from $259 to $189," Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos said in an announcement release, referring to last month's price drop for the device. "In addition, even while our hardcover sales continue to grow, the Kindle format … Read more

Twitter's @earlybird: Not the most magical debut

Twitter's hoping to conjure up a new revenue stream with @earlybird, its take on the limited-time-only online deals craze. And the company announced Wednesday its first @earlybird deal: a limited two-for-one ticket deal for the new Disney live-action flick "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," which just hit theaters. It's Twitter's second edgy ad partnership with Disney, after a "promoted trend" in sync with the Pixar film "Toy Story 3."

Unfortunately, Twitter might not want to be launching @earlybird with this turkey, an over-the-top Jerry Bruckheimer action-fest that stars Nicolas Cage. To put … Read more

eBay served with $3.8 billion patent suit

A company called XPRT Ventures says transaction system PayPal knowingly incorporated XPRT's e-commerce technology, for which it had filed for U.S. patents, into its own patent applications back in 2003--and has served parent company eBay with a $3.8 billion lawsuit.

According to the suit, which was filed Tuesday in a Delaware federal district court, technology that was built into PayPal's patent had previously been shared with PayPal confidentially by representatives from XPRT and is contained in a total of six XPRT patents. eBay, the complaint alleges, incorporated those details into an April 2003 patent called "… Read more

With Facebook Gifts demise, Credits are maturing

The way you should look at the just-announced demise of the Facebook Gifts feature is that it's a step in the evolution of e-commerce on the site. For Facebook Credits, the virtual currency that powered the marketplace of virtual knickknacks, the training wheels are now off. E-commerce on Facebook has moved beyond the relative safety of the company's internal test bed and can now be fully focused on getting pushed out to the social Web at large.

As Facebook has proven in the past two years, its financial success lies right there: building something relatively simple atop its … Read more

Facebook scores virtual-currency deal in Asia

Facebook, on the verge of 500 million members around the world, might envision a global virtual currency with its Credits system. But the way that system is handled in different parts of the world is far from universal.

Very late Wednesday, Facebook announced that it's partnered with MOL Global, a Malaysia-based payment technology company, to offer its Facebook Credits virtual currency for sale through MOL's online channel and in retail stores across South Asia and Australia. MOL's "network" consists of over 500,000 outlets, including cybercafes, convenience stores, and online banks in countries including Singapore, … Read more

If you care about Web, ignore this IPO

commentary File this one under "shameless."

After federal lawmakers concluded that Affinion Group preyed on the public, the post-transaction marketer is now asking the public to become an investor. Last month, Stamford, Conn.,-based Affinion filed for an initial public offering.

Affinion said in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it is seeking to raise $400 million. According to The Wall Street Journal, Affinion has yet to set a price range or date for its IPO.

Last year, U.S. lawmakers launched an extensive investigation and found that the practices employed by Affinion--as well as … Read more

Zappos sister site zapped by pricing glitch

A sister site of online retailer Zappos.com fumbled more than $1.6 million in the wee hours of Friday morning when a pricing-engine blip inadvertently made every product on that site available for no more than $49.95.

Aaron Magness, director of brand marketing and business development for Zappos Development, said in a blog post that 6pm.com would be honoring purchases made during the glitch, which, he said, took place between midnight and 6 a.m. PT that day.

Touting itself as a bargain retailer of brand name products, 6pm.com features, among other things, a GPS device … Read more