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Posts Tagged ‘ecommerce’

Facebook Boosts Its eCommerce

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

eCommerce Music OnlineFacebook gave it’s gift shop an overhaul. Music will now be one of the many virtual-goods sold in the Facebook online store.

There have been estimates that the virtual-goods industry has become a billion-dollar business. This move by Facebook will make it an even bigger player in this emerging industry.

The music files will be sold through a partnership with Lala ( lala.com ). Currently, the files are only be available for sale to US customers. This will change shortly. Facebook plans on allowing music sales for up to 15 currencies.

Facebook may have been motivated by an earlier move by MySpace, which aquired iLike. ILike powers a very popular music gifting application.

Twitter Co-founder To Transform iPhone Into Credit Card Terminal

Saturday, October 17th, 2009

Square iPhone Credit Card Payment System for the WebJack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, has been tinkering with the iPhone.

His latest project is a hardware iPhone accessory that will transform the iPhone into a credit card processing terminal.

This is clearly a small business-oriented project that will certainly have broad appeal. The project has been named “Square.”

Source: Engadget.com “Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s Squirrel project revealed…” Oct 17th 2009

Apple Announces 2 Billion iPhone and iPod Touch Apps Downloaded

Monday, September 28th, 2009

iPhone iconsApple announces that 2 billion iPhone and iPod touch apps have been downloaded on the iTunes Store since the store launched on July 11, 2008.

The total number of apps for sale on the store is now 85,000.

Approximately 50 million iPhone and iPod Touches have been sold.

Hitwise Tells The Tale Of Holiday Interest For Free Shipping

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

Experian CheetahMail and Hitwise released a whitepaper on the subject of email offers and search with offers of free shipping. The paper documented search trends for the queries involving “free shipping” over the holiday seasons. The search data demonstrates a level of interest during the holiday season for free shipping offers.

data hitwise shippinginfo

Source: Hitwise @ http://weblogs.hitwise.com, September 15, 2009

DOJ Indicted Three On Largest Identity Theft and Computer Crime Case In History

Monday, August 17th, 2009

Three individuals, one American and two Russians, were indicted by the Department of Justice on the largest computer crime and identity theft case in history. The three individuals are responsible for hacking into the networks of Heartland Payment Systems–a company that processes transactions for 7-Eleven Inc.; Hannaford Brothers, a regional supermarket chain; and two unnamed national retailers. Over 130 million debit card and credit card numbers were stolen in total in 2007. The hackers did not use the credit cards themselves, instead the numbers were sold online and their buyers used the information to make unauthorized transactions and purchases. The hackers studied lists of fortune 500 companies before deciding on the victim of the attack, and they visited locations of those companies to study which type of payment systems they used. The attack took advantage of flaws in the SQL programming language.

Apple’s App Store Rival – The Blackmarket of Rejected Apps

Monday, August 17th, 2009

As Apple has increased rejections of emerging apps that may (directly or indirectly) conflict with its business interests, many of these apps find their way into the market by avoiding the iTunes store.

Much controversy has surrounded some of these rejections by Apple. Perhaps one of the most notably conversial rejections was the Google Voice app, which will now be available to iPhone users via a web browser since the request for distributing the application via iTunes was rejected. Many application developers are not taking such rejection as a final answer. Some of these apps quickly become available via the Jail-breaked/hacked app store called Cydia. Cydia is essentially the blackmarket for applications not allowed into the regular markets. The Cydia app store is both a free package repository and commercial storefront to third-party developers.

Firefox Closes e-Store Following Security Breach

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

Firefox quickly closed its Mozilla Store after discovering that a vendor it hiring to run backend operations, GatewayCDI in St. Louis, had experienced a security breach. The vendor specializes in promotional products distributor and incentive company. This was a precautionary step. No violations against the store had been reported or discovered.

The Mozilla Store sells mouse pads, backpacks, coffee mugs and tshirts with the Mozilla products’ logos.

Amazon takes 10 percent profit decline

Sunday, July 26th, 2009

Amazon takes a 10 percent profit decline in the second quarter and misses analyst expectations. The company’s net income dropped from $142 million ( $0.32 a share ) from $158 million ( $0.37 a share ) from one year ago.

Net sales for the Seattle-based Internet Retail company climbed to $4.65 billion ( or 14 percent ), which fell below Wall Street expectations for the quarter. $4.67 billion was the growth projection for the quarter.

A settlement with Toys-R-Us hurt the company’s growth for the period. Fluxuations in the global market also hurt the company’s growth.

Shares were down by 6.6 percent after the statement was issued by the company.

Google Checkout New Price Structure

Friday, March 13th, 2009

Google Checkout is going to use a tiered fee structure that is more comparable to the payment engine: Paypal. The AdWords discounts for sellers who use the search giant’s online payment processing system will be removed. Essentially this change will raise rates for most online merchants.

Rate Cost Structure:
1.) 1.9 percent plus 30 cents per transaction for monthly sales of $100,000 or more
2.) 2.9 percent plus 30 cents per transaction for monthly sales of less than $3,000

Current Google Checkout Rates:
2 percent plus 20 cents per transaction, with no monthly, setup, or payment gateway service fees