Commerce

Daily deals provider Groupon might not go public on the inflated valuation that has been floated around over the last few months.

According to The Wall Street Journal, citing IPO analysts, Groupon might be valued at between $5 billion and $10 billion when the company finally offers its shares on the open market. Two major mutual funds that have invested in Groupon, Growth Fund of America and T. Rowe Price, have most recently valued the service provider at $9.5 billion and $8.7 billion, respectively, according to the Journal.

Those valuations stand in stark contrast to what many believed … Read more

Who uses those receipts for e-mails read? Most people either block sending receipts altogether or ask to be notified before sending a read receipt (a default setting in Microsoft Outlook and other mail clients). So read receipts either don't work at all, or they require acceptance by the recipient--no sure thing.

That doesn't mean that we aren't curious about when the messages we send are opened, and when the links they include are followed. For most organizations, this information can be a valuable asset. The Zendio add-on for Microsoft Outlook tracks the messages you select and records … Read more

China-based e-commerce company Alibaba Group could be planning to buy back Yahoo's stake in its operation, a new report claims.

According to Bloomberg, which cited "people familiar with the matter," Alibaba is in talks with Singapore's Temasek Holdings, a state-owned investment firm, to raise the cash to buy back Yahoo's 40 percent stake. Exactly how much Alibaba will need to raise to get Yahoo to agree to the deal is unknown. Citing a Temasek valuation, Bloomberg said Yahoo's stake, which it acquired in 2005, could be worth as much as $13 billion.

Alibaba has … Read more

Is Amazon losing money or earning a profit from the sale of each Kindle Fire tablet? Analysts seem to be at odds over that question.

In an investor note issued last Wednesday, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster calculated the manufacturing cost of each Kindle Fire at $250, leaving Amazon with a $50 loss on each $199 tablet that it sells. Munster said he based that estimate on the cost of the iPad.

But other analysts have chimed in with different opinions and estimates.

UBM TechInsights believes Amazon is actually making a profit on each Kindle Fire. Estimating manufacturing costs as low as $150, the research firm pegs Amazon's profit per tablet at $49.

In comparison, RIM spends around $170 to make its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, which reportedly gave Amazon some "design clues" for the Fire. The retailer was able to cut its costs by eliminating certain features found in the PlayBook, according to EE Times, which is published by UBM's parent company.… Read more

Another car-sharing service is launching today. Wheelz does the same thing as RelayRides and Getaround: If you have a car that sits unused from time to time, it lets you rent it out to other people, like AirBnB can do for an apartment that you leave vacant.

Wheelz is more focused than its competitors. It's designed exclusively for college and university campuses. The service is going live initially for Stanford students and employees.

CEO Jeff Miller made it clear to me that his company has learned from the hit that AirBnB took when one of its members' homes was … Read more

Everyone knows food and gas prices can vary by location, but the same is often true of prescription drugs.

GoodRX, which launched a new Web site today at the Health 2.0 conference in San Francisco, aims to show consumers where they can find the lowest price on prescription drugs by ZIP code.

"A lot of innovation looks at price transparency and convenience for health procedures, but nobody is looking to improve the consumer experience," said Doug Hirsch, co-founder of the Los Angeles-based startup. "We believe this first product from GoodRX can help every consumer in the U.S. easily save money."

Pulling data from state and federal agencies and from pharmacies directly, GoodRX says it analyzes more than a million prices for more than 6,000 drugs at 25,000 pharmacy locations in the United States. This allows consumers to compare prices on specific drugs based on where they live. … Read more

In advance of its anticipated "Mango" software update, Microsoft is throwing open the doors to its newly renovated online Windows Phone Marketplace.

The initial Marketplace was little more than a placeholder for things to come, a mostly static repository for maybe a thousand apps total. (Microsoft is now up to 30,000 titles compatible with Windows Phone.) In contrast, the new online Marketplace storefront is a sharper-looking app catalog complete with purchasing power and over-the-air downloads.… Read more

Daily-deals provider Groupon is still unsure about when it will be able to go public, a new report claims.

Citing an anonymous source, The Wall Street Journal says that Groupon's management doesn't know when it should finally offer its shares on the open market, citing concerns with increased government scrutiny and trouble on Wall Street.

Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission forced Groupon to revise its filing papers after finding that the company mistakenly reported higher revenue than it should have. The daily-deals provider previously reported that it generated $713.4 million in revenue in 2010, but … Read more

Hoping to tap the expanding online fashion market, eBay this week launched Fashion Outlet, a virtual U.S. outlet mall that lets brands and designers connect directly with eBay customers. Think of that outlet mall in the boonies without the drive down some random highway.

The launch of the fashion outlet follows the debut of eBay outlet sites in the U.K. and Germany. The fashion items sold through the "Buy It Now" feature are priced at 20 percent to 65 percent off retail price, making them comparable price-wise to items found at outlets, Miriam Lahage, eBay's … Read more