E-Commerce Blog

The retail marketplace has become intensely competitive, as retailers increasingly compete across traditional segment boundaries, brands expand their direct-to-consumer channels, and consumers exercise their growing power to seek out the best value for their dollar. In addition, consumer expectations are on the rise, as they continue to have rich and immersive experiences elsewhere on the Web. In the e-commerce world, retailers must ensure that they are delivering differentiated and satisfying customer shopping experiences to attract and retain customers.

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The Ultimate Online Shopping Experience, Part 1: Strategy and Design

Even before the U.S. economic outlook darkened as the gravity of the financial crisis came into focus, companies started to get more aggressive in their attempts to hold onto old customers and attract new ones. Telephone companies’ offers for two months of free service and reduced rates, discounted gym membership renewals, and generous gift cards from high-end department stores all underscore a pervasive fear on Main Street: With the uncertainty around the credit seize-up, consumers may be digging in for a long hibernation.

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Keeping Customers in a Crummy Economy

Last week’s scare, an unverified rumor that Steve Jobs had suffered a heart attack, sent Apple stock plummeting, expert investment analysts scolding, and some writers believing that Apple needs a public succession plan to avoid confusion and concerns about these kinds of incidents. That’s nonsense. First of all, Apple does have a succession plan. It’s required for a company of Apple’s size, and Apple would be negligent in its responsibilities not to have one. The Apple board of directors has it.

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Apple Can Keep Its Succession Plan to Itself

Semiconductor industry watcher iSuppli lowered its 2008 revenue forecast Thursday from 4 percent growth to 3.5 percent. The research firm expects revenue in the chip industry to top US$280.1 billion, roughly $10 billion more than the industry earned in 2007. “Four percent had been our forecast for a while now. Revising down our forecast to 3.5 percent we were recognizing some specific issues in the semiconductor industry that caused us to bring it down,” Dale Ford, an iSuppli analyst, told the E-Commerce Times.

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iSuppli Darkens Semi Outlook

Savvy Internet users know that downloading unsolicited computer programs is one of the most dangerous things you can do online. It puts you at great risk for a virus or another time bomb from a hacker. However, even some sophisticated surfers could get taken in by a sneaky new attack in which criminals create fake YouTube pages — dead-on replicas of the real site — to push their malicious software and make it look like it’s safe stuff coming from a trusted source. A program circulating online helps hackers build those fake pages.

Originally posted here:
Phishers Use Spoofed YouTube Pages as Lures