Beth Cox

Yahoo! Inc. launched a new, free service aimed at letting groups of people communicate via e-mail and other Web-based tools. The service is called Yahoo! Groups, and it offers the ability to share photos and files, plan events, and even send newsletters. The launch is a milestone in the integration of the eGroups service, acquired […]

Following through on its plan to merge the clicks of its online operation with the bricks of its real-world stores, office supply retailer Staples Inc. said it has rolled out Staples.com access points to all 954 of its U.S. retail stores, The company said the move effectively expands in-store SKUs from 7,500 to 45,000 products, […]

The trademark infringement fight going on in federal court between CNET’s mySimon.com e-shopping comparison site and real estate trust Simon Property Group Inc. is a nasty battle indeed, replete with dueling press releases spinning the story this way or that. First, mySimon crowed in its release that a federal district court judge in Indianapolis reduced […]

An on-the-ropes eToys Inc. posted fiscal third quarter results that were worse than analysts had expected, reporting an operating loss excluding charges of $74.5 million or 52 cents per share. Analysts had expected a loss of about 46 cents a share. The stock, which has been below $1 for some time now, closed Thursday at […]

CNET Networks Inc. said today that a federal district court judge in Indianapolis has reduced a jury verdict against its mySimon e-shopping comparison subsidiary from $26.8 million to $50,010. The original damages award was made last August by a federal court jury that found that mySimon had infringed the trademark of Simon Property Group , […]

San Francisco-based Great Entertaining Inc. will be turning out the lights as the online marketplace “for entertaining trends and ideas, quality products, services and party supplies” packs it in. A letter from Christy Ross, founder, president and CEO of the company, blames market conditions for the business failure. “We are saddened that we won’t be […]

Online auction giant eBay, in an announcement to users, said its Buy It Now feature, launched last November on a trial basis, will become a permanent part of the service. Buy It Now is, for the moment at least, a free service that lets auction listers post a price for the immediate sale of an […]

Some interesting survey results out today show a good news-bad news scenario for online shoppers during the recent holiday season. The data shows that while 51 million U.S. consumers purchased a gift online during the 2000 holiday season and average spending increased 62 percent from the year before, another 16 million shoppers attempted to purchase […]

As online travel services escalate their offerings in the struggle to dominate the market, at least one firm has had to scale back a program that was intended to set it apart from the competition. Corporate-travel company Rosenbluth International’s Biztravel.com reportedly is cutting back on a program it had begun last May that offered refunds […]

American consumers spent an estimated $6.2 billion online this past holiday season, but most people (87 percent of shoppers) tended to confine their shopping to a maximum of three different retailers’ sites, meaning that the big dogs of e-tailing got the lion’s share of the pie. The report from e-consulting and research firm Gartner Group […]

Online bookstore Barnes & Noble.com, which just this month launched Barnes & Noble Digital, an electronic publishing imprint, will be the only online book retailer linked to Adobe Systems Inc.’s Acrobat eBook Reader 2.0 Web site. At least for now, Barnes & Noble.com and the Adobe site will be the only online locations where the […]

Tidepoint Corp. in Baltimore, which calls itself a Business Partner Infrastructure (BPI) service provider, reportedly has laid off about two-thirds of its workforce and will change its focus to emphasize the sale of pre-configured software. TidePoint, which provides security systems and network infrastructure for e- commerce companies, laid off 65 of its 94 employees earlier […]