e-commerce

SAN FRANCISCO--The company hasn't said much about it yet, but Yahoo today announced that it will be diving into the hyped daily-deals market with a "Local Offers" program that aggregates content from the likes of Groupon and LivingSocial.

The announcement--made in conjunction with the Web 2.0 Summit conference where CEO Carol Bartz is slated to speak later in the day--explained that the former search giant, still trying to figure out a sense of direction, plans to build "one of the largest and most comprehensive repositories of local offers on the Internet." It's launching … Read more

AirBnB, the start-up that began as a couch-swapping service for young, budget-minded travelers and the people willing to rent them space in living rooms, spare bedrooms, and mattresses on floors, made several big announcements this afternoon: a $7.2 million Series A funding round on behalf of Sequoia Capital and Greylock Partners, and an iPhone app for instant lodging bookings.

The company plans to use this funding, which adds to a $600,000 seed round that it raised from Sequoia last year, to hire more people (co-founder Brian Chesky says it has 40 job openings at the moment) and improve … Read more

Facebook's Credits currency will be the official payment method in the social-gaming portfolio from games giant Electronic Arts, which consists largely of what it got when it paid $300 million for Playfish last year, according to a five-year agreement that the two companies announced yesterday. Playfish had previously been a holdout among the big social-gaming companies in that it wasn't strictly using Facebook Credits in its games; now, it promises "a simplified, more accessible experience for people who play games and purchase virtual goods on Facebook" through the exclusive use of Credits.

"Since gaming has … Read more

BROOKLYN, N.Y.--It's a languid, late-summer Wednesday afternoon at the offices of online handmade-goods marketplace Etsy, and Chief Technology Officer Chad Dickerson is sitting at a table in a conference room decorated to look like a cartoonish version of the interior of a Mercury-era space capsule.

Surrounded by fake panic-button consoles, plush jet packs, and quilts depicting outer-space views of moons and planets, Dickerson is peering at his laptop screen to report a particularly important number that he's just been asked to look up: "We've got 263 search results for 'Justin Bieber.'"

That's 263 listings at this precise moment in time by Etsy sellers hawking homemade shoelaces, tapestries, pendants, and pillows (to name a few) featuring the visage of the sugary pop singer. Bieber is hardly alone on Etsy; poke through its listings, and you'll find necklaces in the shape of the "Golden Snitch" winged orb from the "Harry Potter" series, cuff links painted to look like the head of "Star Wars" robot R2-D2, and bottle cap pendants featuring the bronzed face of "Jersey Shore" star "DJ Pauly D."

Fan creations are a funny thing. For well more than a decade, the Web has provided an unprecedented gathering space for loyal and zealous followers of literary, cinematic, and televised franchises who might not otherwise ever interact, allowing many phenomena that were once cult hits to achieve mainstream, mass-market success and often phenomenal profitability. Sometimes, as with the sale of unofficial DJ Pauly D pendants and Star Wars cuff links, the fans stand a chance of profiting, too. And the trademark and copyright holders aren't always happy about it.… Read more

The mobile payments race took an interesting turn today with an announcement from VeriFone and PayPal.

VeriFone, the business-focused electronic-payments company, unveiled a partnership that brings eBay-owned PayPal's merchant services to VeriFone's PayWare Mobile iPhone application.

PayWare, which is aimed at small businesses, consists of a hardware add-on and complementary iPhone application that turn a mobile handset into a credit card reader. With the new PayPal partnership, PayWare will accommodate PayPal payments as well as traditional credit-card transactions, and PayPal will market PayWare to its user base of business owners and eBay sellers. In addition, PayWare will now … Read more

Zappos has laced up its first iPad app.

Dubbed Zappos Mobile, the free app provides the same service as the retailer's Web site. Users can sift through its selection of shoes and sneakers, choose their size, and buy the desired footwear from the app. The program also includes access to other Zappos products, including handbags, clothing, and accessories.

According to the company, purchases made through the application "are routed through Zappos.com's secure servers just as they are on the Web."

A company representative said that the Zappos iPad app had a "soft launch" … Read more

Continued strong performance from its PayPal online commerce system led auction and retail giant eBay to surpass Wall Street's expectations once again in third-quarter earnings. Analysts had predicted $2.18 billion in revenue on earnings of 37 cents per share; eBay posted $2.25 billion on earnings of 40 cents per share. Net income was up 14 percent.

PayPal has been adding more than a million accounts per month, now with over 90 million active users worldwide. It's been eBay's strongest weapon for quite some time now, fueling better-than-expected performance in the company's past few quarterly reports. … Read more

Online sellers, small-business owners, retailers, auctioneers, and collectors will want to take a look at Catalog Creator. It's a free tool for designing, filling, printing, and posting catalogs, brochures, and similar documents in print, online, and on CD-ROM. It offers a wide range of customizable templates for creating colorful catalogs and an efficient means for displaying lots of wares, up to thousands of items. It's compatible with Microsoft Office features, too.

Catalog Creator, or CatCreator, has a unique interface based around a Main Menu with clearly marked buttons that open new pages for their functions and settings. Clicking … Read more

Silicon Valley corporations are known for touting their arrays of environmentally friendly internal initiatives, but eBay is taking it a step further by sponsoring a report that explains how its entire business model may promote sustainability and energy efficiency.

The report, which CEO John Donahoe will present Tuesday at a Washington, D.C., event, was conducted in partnership with a company called Cooler. The report found that "without the need for an actual store--or chains of them--the peer-to-peer retailer saves everything from the carbon cost of making bricks and other building materials to the ongoing costs of heating, lighting, … Read more