eCommerce

It seems as Amazon is ready for another round in the payment platform fight. This time around, however, the media is saying everyone should be paying attention, as Amazon just might have finally gotten it right.

Re/Code was first to bring it to the public's attention, saying Amazon is ready to launch "Pay with Amazon", bringing the buttons to mobile apps while "tripling down" on placing its Pay with Amazon buttons on websites in overseas markets. The feature is currently available in the U.S. only.

Clean sites with low load times and fewer pages to navigate are more likely to get consumers to spend money according to new research.

The survey by Instart Logic of 2,000 US consumers also shows that consumer confidence in a brand is tied to their quality of experience while online shopping.

To stay competitive companies have to understand their customers, in the modern data-driven world that means adopting a more personalized approach and abandoning old mass marketing techniques.

San Francisco-based Boomtrain is announcing the integration of its predictive personalization platform with the Marketo marketing software to offer companies deeper understanding of individual customers and help them build stronger relationships.

Digital services provide real-time indicators into buyer behavior and tend to reflect the overall health of global markets. Understanding these patterns gives online services companies the opportunity to redirect efforts to different regions or target their campaigns to where the opportunity is emerging.

Digital commerce solutions company Avangate today released findings from its first Digital Services Benchmark. The new report tracks global consumption of digital services to identify regions with the fastest growth and greatest contraction.

The holiday season is peak selling time for online businesses, so it's imperative that websites optimize their shopping experiences to acquire first-time visitors as customers.

Cloud application delivery specialist Instart Logic is launching new performance solutions designed to optimize website experiences for retail and e-commerce sites.

Amazon has become the one-stop online shop for just about anything you might want. Now the retail giant is adding another string to its bow: handmade, artisan products. At the moment, anyone looking to sell things they have made themselves has a few outlets to choose from, but Etsy and eBay are the two most likely contenders.

Now there is Handemade by Amazon, a new branch of the online store "featuring genuinely handmade items crafted and sold directly from artisans". This is where Amazon is looking to differentiate itself from Etsy -- everything must be handmade as this is an entirely "factory-free" experience.

Online retailers rely on the holiday season for a high proportion of their revenue, yet a new survey suggests that with Black Friday only two months away, 38 percent aren't yet prepared for this year's sales.

The survey from email marketing company Campaigner shows this lack of preparedness is despite 70 percent anticipating a rise in mobile sales and nearly 50 percent planning to prioritize social sharing for marketing success.

If you have a habit of abandoning your virtual shopping cart before actually purchasing anything, you’re not alone. In fact, four out of ten UK shoppers do this, 50 percent of the time.

This is the result of a new research by Talend, global big data integration software provider, polling the views of online consumers across the UK.

We reported back in July on the UK government's plans to help small businesses boost their cyber security. Today enterprises across the country are being urged to protect themselves by taking up the government's Cyber Essentials scheme.

Whilst £1 in every £5 earned by UK businesses now comes from the Internet, cyber attacks are considered a serious threat. The latest figures reveal that 74 percent of small businesses and 90 percent of major businesses have had a cyber breach of some sort in the last year.

A new infographic from enterprise mobile specialist OpenMarket looks at how companies are using mobile messaging to improve marketing and awareness, and make a positive impact on customer experience.

Findings include that mobile messaging is the most frequently used communication channel on the planet and that 90 percent of texts are read within the first three minutes of opening. The millennial age group is 40 times more likely to react and respond to a business via text.

Buy buttons are not exactly new to Twitter, but until now they have only been available to a limited number of users. Now, thanks to San Francisco-based Stripe, anyone is able to use a tweet to sell a product.

Stripe has launched a new service called Relay. It is a set of tools that can be used to sell through any app that makes use of Stripe -- and that includes Twitter. Relay can be used to allow for instant purchases, and address what Stripe perceives to be a problem with mobile e-commerce sites.

There are currently an estimated 1.91 billion smartphone users worldwide, and 82 percent of them use their mobile devices to shop. As consumers are five times more likely to abandon shopping if the site isn’t optimized this means embracing mobile is crucial for businesses.

Online shopping portal DirectBuy has produced an infographic looking at how the world is moving towards a mobile shopping environment.

Perhaps more than any other type of business, retailers are always keen to gain an advantage over their competitors. A new study by IDC suggests that they're increasingly turning to technology in order to stay ahead.

It reveals that 64 percent of retailers in Western Europe are currently undertaking some form of digital transformation effort while 21 percent are planning to do so by the end of the year.

One of the things that inhibits merchants from accepting bitcoin payments is that there’s a time lag in receiving cleared funds. A bitcoin payment can take around 10 minutes to be verified and confirmed on the blockchain.

Even then most payment processors will wait for 2-6 confirmations (taking 20-60 mins) before guaranteeing to the merchant that the transaction is complete and the merchant will receive the funds. For merchants used to accepting card payments which are verified in seconds this is a problem.

Advertisements and valuable content can bring your audience to your website, but what is driving them to your store? Even though customers are able to view and purchase items online, over 90 percent of consumers are still more inclined to buy at a physical location.

Some techniques -- like direct mail and business cards -- are old-fashioned ways of driving your offline sales, but modern strategies are offering more advanced techniques for connecting with your consumers digitally. Keep up with your audience and build on-site relationships with these four tips.