Spotlight Features

Faced with intense pressure to grow their businesses quickly, e-commerce executives have been forced to make countless critical decisions -- sometimes at odds with what had once been unassailable Old Economy practices. With online enterprises confronted by as many tests as ever, the E-Commerce Ti...

Despite the dot-com downturn, there is still room for small offline retailers on the Web and good reasons for them to be there, according to industry analysts. Gartner research director David Schehr told the E-Commerce Times that the real value of the Web to small retailers is its ability to pro...

How many times have you stopped just short of completing an online order because you were not sure of a product's size, color or overall look? If you're like most online consumers, the answer is probably: many, many times. And e-tailers know it. As a possible solution, many e-tailers are turning ...

To date, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has only gone after spam in cases in which deceptive advertising was being prosecuted. Unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCE) itself, regardless of its contents, has not been a target. Some experts think that should change. "The issue is crystal clea...

While the Internet is proving to be a valuable tool for homebuyers, offering information about prices, neighborhoods and mortgage options, the Web is unlikely to replace the local real-estate agent anytime in the near future, analysts say. Real estate brokers and agents, however, have to keep pac...

In Part 1 of this primer for small offline businesses that want to go online, we saw how much planning is involved in making the move, from selecting the inventory that will be sold, to choosing which companies will design and host the site. In Part 2, we learn that setting up an e-tail outlet a...

Setting up an e-tail outlet is a natural progression for small offline retailers, according to experts, but in order to succeed, retailers need to plan, plan, plan. For starters, Gartner research director David Schehr told the E-Commerce Times, retailers need to carefully evaluate whether they ar...

Is the strip-mall travel agent going to go the way of the dinosaur? With the surge of travelers turning to Internet sites to purchase their airline tickets, many are asking about the long-term viability of traditional travel agents, and even predicting their eventual demise. "The agent who can ge...

Want to see the future of online advertising? Among other things, it looks just like something you would find on your TV set. "We're already seeing (online) ads look more like TV commercials, and that's only going to continue," Denise Garcia, research director for media at GartnerG2, told the E-...

Can we conclude that as long as e-tailers carefully manage consumer expectations, and leverage technology and delivery partnerships, they can rest easy about their logistics processes? Not quite. Managing logistics costs continues to be a major hurdle for e-tailers, and is often the key reason th...