ecommerce

Web shoppers are a suspicious lot. That's the conclusion of a recent poll conducted by Zogby International and funded by Symantec and the National Cyber Security Alliance. The survey found that 63 percent of online shoppers abandoned a purchase due to security concerns.

Among the reasons given for failing to complete the transaction were sites that asked for too much information, uncertainty about how their personal data would be used by the site, and lack of faith in the site's security. These are all valid concerns.

CNET News reporter Greg Sandoval describes recent Congressional hearings on bogus online loyalty programs … Read more

Web shoppers are in need of a digital-age Ralph Nader, the kind of firebrand consumer advocate who can focus public scorn on unscrupulous merchants.

Last week, the U.S. Senate Commerce committee revealed that some of the Web's best-known retailers, including Barnes & Noble, Hotwire, Yahoo, Pizza Hut, Travelocity, Fandango, and Victoria's Secret, were part of a dubious marketing operation designed to mislead their own customers.

Serious questions about who's policing e-commerce were raised after the Commerce committee issued a report detailing how three marketing firms, Affinion, Webloyalty, and Vertrue, generated $1.4 billion with the help … Read more

eBay on Sunday confirmed that a "technical issue" had caused search queries on the auction site to be messed up over the weekend, resulting in limited or no search results. The company says that it's being cautious, though, and is holding back on some advanced search features until the issue is fully solved.

"We are happy to report that critical search functionality was restored overnight on Saturday and we are seeing normal activity levels today," a post on the company's eBay Ink blog read Sunday. "As part of our effort to restore critical … Read more

The simple concept of having virtual-good payments in games sent directly to your cell phone bill has gotten a lot of buzz--and stirred up a lot of rivalry. One of the start-ups looking to pull this off, Boku, announced Monday that it has signed on a dozen new gaming partners, both a few based on the Facebook platform and some others that are either Web-based or desktop downloads.

The partner companies are Waves, Cie Studios, Cyberstep, GameDuell, IGG, King.com, NHN USA, Ntreev, Outspark, PerfectWorld, Snap Interactive, and Zoosk. Most of them aren't household names: they're game manufacturers, … Read more

eBay Motors founder Simon Rothman announced on Monday that he has officially launched a new e-commerce site, Glyde.

According to the press release, Glyde's goal "is to democratize e-commerce." The site was born out of Rothman's desire to make it easier for Web users to buy and sell products online.

But Glyde throws in a twist. The site's marketplace is designed for Web users to sell used goods. They can sell books, CDs, DVDs, and video games.

"The average American household has $3,000 worth of unwanted media collecting dust," Rothman said in … Read more

Amazon's acquisition of shoes-and-more retailer Zappos is complete, the e-commerce giant said in a release Monday. The company in July had announced its intent to make the purchase, for about $850 million in cash and stock.

Zappos, which made a name for itself based on outside-the-box customer service principles, will stay independent from the Amazon.com brand and will continue to operate out of its Las Vegas headquarters.

Numbers released by J.P. Morgan Research in conjunction with the acquisition announcement predict that Zappos will post moderate, single-digit growth for the 2009 fiscal year after raking in $635 million … Read more

The heated mobile-payment wars are expanding...beyond mobile. Zong, one of the start-ups hoping to capture the market for online micropayments billed to a mobile phone, announced Thursday the debut of "Zong Plus," which lets members link credit or debit cards to their Zong accounts.

It's another move that pits Zong against Boku, a competitor that launched right around the same time with broader global reach--last month, it announced its expansion to subscription-based services in addition to on-demand micropayments.

At launch, Zong Plus is compatible with Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express accounts,

"Today you've … Read more

Ezimerchant Professional is designed to help build Web sites where users can sell their products. While it offers an impressive selection of tools, the program is complicated and frustrating to use and requires Web design skills.

The program's interface deceived us after our first impression. Although Ezimerchant has a professional-looking layout, we needed to revisit the Help file constantly. We were able to quickly build the skeleton of a Web site featuring a Home page, an About page, and more. While we were able to customize text, images, and the design template, we were disappointed by the results, which … Read more

It's not just music as rumored: Facebook announced on Wednesday a major overhaul to its "gift shop" feature, meaning that the social network just became an even bigger player in the burgeoning virtual-goods industry.

"We now are unveiling a newly stocked and redesigned Gift Shop, with new categories of gifts and additional gifts for charity, music, and sports from developers," a post on the company blog by Facebook's Will Chen read. With so many gifts available, we also introduced a new design to make it easier for you to browse and purchase gifts with … Read more