Quick: What do toysellers and drugstores have in common? At the moment, if their last name happens to be "dot-com," the answer is financial challenges. Online toyseller eToys can't pay its bills and Drugstore.com is severely trimming the staff. Even as naysayers are lining up one by one, smart ma...

On what CEO Jeff Bezos likely hoped was the first day of the rest of his company's long and prosperous online life, Amazon.com showed the world how important a penny can be. That is the per-share net profit announced in Amazon's fourth-quarter earnings report. Ironically, on the same day Amazon wa...

E-commerce is alive and well online. Those who want solid evidence need look no further than the online travel industry. Rather than focusing on basic survival, the industry is concentrating on its quest for market share, saturation and profit. But what is it about the online travel industry that...

The U.S. government has been quietly taking some giant steps forward over the past few weeks in the fight against cybercrime. Privately owned online businesses and individual consumers should ultimately reap the rewards of the government's stepped up war on cybercrime. But just how serious are th...

The United States government is coming up with a business plan -- an information technology business plan, that is. In short, consumers will reap the benefits of the myriad of online services and products available through and from their government. If the government maximizes, streamlines and pr...

If online merchants expect longevity and prosperity, now is the time to find vulnerabilities and repair them. After all, if an e-commerce novice gets burned, that consumer's trust in online transactions will be irretrievably lost. If there are four words e-commerce can always live by those words...

Online shoppers have to hand it to some of the big retailers such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom who have managed to bring the same stellar level of customer service they provide at the brick-and-mortar stores to the newest trade channel, the Internet. But what about the other retailers and p...

Until recently, e-commerce was an exercise in trial and error, a hit-or-miss playing field in which all newcomers were welcome, but where few stuck around for long. By now, those of us who have watched the industry blossom have seen what does not work -- over-spending, poor or non-existent busine...

The prospect of buying a car online always seemed like a long shot. Now, little-by-little, the Big Three American automakers appear to be backing away from the "buy your new car online" business model. It makes more sense for auto manufacturers to use the Internet to steer consumers to brick-and-...

Among all the entrepreneurs in the e-commerce industries, standing firmly in the middle of the post-September 11th commercial fray is one Richard S. Braddock. As chairman of Priceline.com, Braddock continues to show the acumen necessary for longevity in Internet retailing. Priceline's latest anno...

Online bill payment is catching on with the public, although many consumers continue to contend with nagging glitches, such as missed payments and little or no response to consumer service inquiries. In order to be successful, major billers, banks and creditors need to integrate their efforts so ...

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed that it is investigating a case involving the alleged online exposure of up to 55,000 credit card numbers as a result of hacking into the Web site of Los Angeles-based merchant processing firm Creditcards.com. "The FBI is looking into the matter,...

'Tis the season for integration -- brick-and-click integration, that is. Experts did not really predict it to happen quite this soon, and consumers did not seem willing to cooperate immediately, but all indications are that the various shopping channels are finally beginning to integrate. However...

U.S. Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia), arguably the most outspoken opponent of Internet gambling, has been trying to pass an anti-gambling bill for years. Every time legislators or industry leaders find a problem with one of his efforts, Goodlatte revises the bill to assure his colleague...

Is it really true that the best way to a shopper's heart is through both bricks and clicks? Industry analysts are telling us that online holiday sales are projected to be high, and that the multichannel concept is the order of the day. So what should we make of the decline of Macys.com and Bloomi...

Those of us who discovered the relative ease of booking travel online were primed and ready for the debut of Orbitz this past summer. So far, Orbitz has had a difficult time living up to its original hype, and in response to a recent series of questionable business moves, many of us may choose to...

An old-fashioned post-Thanksgiving shopping excursion to the malls raised several questions about online retail. Why doesn't e-commerce have more of a presence in the brick-and-mortar shopping world? Better yet, why are so many retailers failing to promote their Web sites in mass media?

For those who thought online music sharing companies would thrive once they "went legit" with paid subscription plans, the U.S. Department of Justice investigation into the industry has got to be a disappointment. Independent online services are on virtual standby until the bigger fish come to te...

Last week on Capitol Hill, when the U.S. Senate approved a two-year extension of the moratorium on Internet taxation, the entire e-commerce industry drew closer to the biggest reprieve it has ever received. While online merchants have grown more efficient as time has gone by, now they must respon...

Last year at the start of the holiday season, Internet retailers were scrambling and strategizing to make sure they could deliver everything in time for holiday gift giving. This year, we don't hear as much about fulfillment and timely deliveries as we do about consumer fears over whether it is sa...