Amazon investigates allegations that workers accept bribes to leak data and delete bad reviews
Amazon has been hit with allegations of staff bribery which the company says it is investigating.
A report in the Wall Street Journal this weekend claims that employees have been accepting bribes in return for leaks of sales data. It is also alleged that staff help out independent sellers by deleting negative reviews in exchange for payment, and restore accounts that have been banned.
Google Pay gains support for tickets and boarding cards, friend and family payments, and a web app
Google continues to expand the capabilities of Google Pay, and today the company launched a new series of updates. Catching up with the likes of Apple Pay, Google's own digital wallet can now be used to store boarding cards and tickets.
While this is something that is already catered for by other apps -- such as those from airlines and box offices -- Google is clearly hoping that its "everything under one roof" approach will attract users. In addition to the new ticketing option, Google Pay is also combining the Google Pay and Google Pay Send apps.
PayPal buys Swedish fintech company iZettle
PayPal has announced that it is to buy the mobile payment company iZettle. The announcement came as something of a surprise, as less than two weeks ago iZettle had said that it planned to go public.
iZettle is a Swedish fintech company whose mobile card readers have proved popular with small businesses, as has its ecommerce platform. The $2.2 billion purchase is PayPal's biggest acquisition to date.
Walmart buys a controlling share in India's Flipkart
Rumors have circulated for a number of weeks, but now it's official: Walmart has just said it will spend $16 billion buying a controlling sharing in Flipkart, the Indian ecommerce site. The American retail giant fought off a last-minute bid from Amazon.
The deal values Flipkart at $20.8 billion, and will see Walmart taking an initial stake of 77 percent of the company. The remainder of Flipkart ownership is shared between Tencent, Tiger Global and Microsoft, as well as its co-founder Binny Bansal.
Why consumers love shopping online
While the majority of shopping is still done offline, it's the internet retailers that are growing at a three times faster rate.
Online retail portal Shopping.fm has produced an infographic comparing the online and brick and mortar shopping worlds. It looks at what people buy where and what factors drive their decision to shop online.
How Black Friday conquered the UK
There are various stories surrounding the origins of Black Friday, the most common being that it was the day retailers turned the corner from loss to profit and the figures in the ledger changed from red to black.
Whatever its roots, Black Friday was a purely American phenomenon. That is until 2010 when Amazon first brought Black Friday deals on more than 500 products across to the UK. Since then it's caught on in a big way on that side of the pond.
Slow websites risk retailers losing Black Friday sales
Poor page load speeds could be losing retailers business over the Black Friday period according to a new report.
The study by eCommerce agency Visualsoft looked at the UK's top 240 online retailers -- including major supermarkets -- and finds that 54 percent have poor page load speeds, taking over nine seconds.
Fake Black Friday apps look to steal consumer details
As many as one in 25 Black Friday apps could be fakes looking to steal logins and credit card information according to a new report.
Digital threat management company RiskIQ has used internet reconnaissance and analytics to identify digital threats against the top five eCommerce brands during the Black Friday shopping season.
Google Store flubs Pixel Product Preorders
I would like to thank Google for saving me thousands of dollars in needless spending. Near the end of today's gangbuster hardware event, I was ready to order two new Chromebooks and smartphones, one each for me and my wife. But "error 500" pages on the company's store website and long-lead new product availability dates prompted me to cancel the one order successfully made and to delete the others in process from my shopping cart.
For a company whose product managers droned on this morning about all the reasons why artificial intelligence is so right, Big G got the store selling experience all wrong. I have waited through most of 2017 for a new Google-branded Chrome OS laptop. While hardly a fresh hardware design concept, Pixelbook is nevertheless tempting enough to bring me back to the AI and voice-assistant contextual future from the Apple rotting on the overly-obsessed touch-UI tree. I was willing and ready but instead walked away angry.
Cyber Monday is the new Black Friday
New research shows that as we move towards the holiday season, shoppers are more excited about the prospect of Cyber Monday than that of Black Friday.
A study by retail analytics company Euclid finds that Cyber Monday leads the way in consumer excitement (72 percent) followed by Black Friday and the day after Christmas (62 percent and 55 percent, respectively).
Intel's 8th-gen processors help deliver secure payments
Earlier this month we saw Intel launch its new 8th-generation Core processors. As well as improved performance, these chips offer added security with Intel Software Guard Extensions (Intel SGX) technology.
Thanks to a collaboration with authentication specialist Nok Nok Labs (NNL) the new chips with SGX are able to deliver standards-based authentication to enable stronger, simpler, and more secure payments for computer users.
Almost half of popular consumer websites have poor password requirements
Although other forms of authentication are gaining traction, the password is still the most common method of identifying yourself to websites. Levels of password security should therefore be an important consideration for online businesses, especially in eCommerce.
But a Password Power Rankings survey out today from password manager Dashlane shows that 46 percent of consumer sites, including Dropbox, Netflix, and Pandora, and 36 percent of enterprise sites, including DocuSign and Amazon Web Services, are failing to implement the most basic password security requirements.
Amazon Prime Day boosts other shopping apps
Amazon's Prime Day, although it's only been happening for three years, has already become a sort of Black Friday for the summer season. But a new report shows that it's having a positive benefit for other retailers too.
The study by mobile app marketing specialist Liftoff analyzed the install and purchase rates over a seven day period -- three days leading up to Prime Day, Prime Day itself, and the three days following. The company then compared 'Prime Week' to the previous six week period in order to establish benchmarks for shopping app install rates and purchase rates.
Younger consumers return to more traditional shopping habits
New research reveals that younger consumer groups are increasingly turning to traditional face-to-face shopping habits alongside digital.
Amsterdam-based payment solutions company Acapture has been looking at the preferences of the youngest and largest sets of digital native consumers -- millennials and generation Z.
Personalization can add up to six percent to ecommerce revenues
Effective personalization of marketing messages can have a significant effect on generating sales according to a new report.
The study by marketing technology specialist Qubit shows that ecommerce businesses could add six percent to their revenues by focusing on the most effective optimization and personalization techniques.
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