Articles by Keith Regan

Online shoppers in the United States spent US$5.7 billion during the month of December, a 14 percent increase over 2000 levels, according to a report released Thursday by Forrester Research (Nasdaq: FORR) and Greenfield Online. Spending levels also grew compared with November, when e-shoppers shelled out $4.9 billion. The number of households buyi...

There is probably no such thing as a bad e-commerce customer. But which ones are the best, the most likely to take an e-tailer into the promised land of perpetual profits? According to analysts, the perfect customer is an ever-moving target. Once, e-tailers thrived by catering to young male customers who bought every new technological gadget and c...

E-commerce software firms continued their struggle for profitability in a slowing economy as both Ariba (Nasdaq: ARBA) and Commerce One (Nasdaq: CMRC) reported quarterly losses and sharply lower sales on Tuesday. Many business-to-business (B2B) firms have faced hard times as a one-time glut of customers has been thinned by the dot-com shakeout. Ac...

By its nature, January is a month of optimism. The "next year" in the phrase "wait until next year" has arrived. Of course, there's justified optimism and then there's wishful thinking But as 2002 settles in, there appear to be plenty of reasons to think that good days lie ahead for e-commerce....

Looking to grab a share of the US$7 billion per year timeshare industry, Internet auction giant EBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) said Monday it will launch a marketplace exclusively for buying and selling the vacation getaways. The timeshare marketplace will be located on EBay Real Estate and will feature properties from several strategic partners, as well as ...

Although e-commerce purchasing and Internet use are divided almost evenly among men and women in the United States, global Web use continues to be dominated by men, according to a Nielsen//NetRatings (Nasdaq: NTRT) report issued Thursday. The differing demographics at home and abroad may pose a strategic challenge for a host of U.S.-based e-commer...

Nearly half of all large U.S. corporations are now using the Internet to cut down on their supply costs, according to a report released Wednesday by Forrester Research (Nasdaq: FORR) and the Institute for Supply Management (ISM). The study found that 45 percent of companies that spend US$100 million or more per year on supplies used the Internet t...

Recently someone asked what seemed a pretty straightforward question. He had a Web site that advertised that he breeds and sells show dogs. Through that site, he has made initial contact with several people who, after meeting him offline, have bought dogs from him. In other words, they became customers. His question: Was that e-commerce? I felt th...

A California bankrutpcy court has cleared the way for online grocer Webvan to liquidate its remaining assets, a process that should bring closure to the high-profile dot-com failure Webvan did not reveal specific details, but said Friday that the plan, which will take effect on Tuesday, will enable it to pay some of its unsecured creditors.

The folks at EBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) and Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) in Japan spent much of Friday denying rumors that the Japanese arms of two companies are about to merge. Seems a British newspaper reported as much, quoting a high-ranking executive at one of the firms The Japanese operations of the two companies are certainly distinct from what goes on bac...

In yet another sign that the dot-com shakeout is not over, venerable tech research firm Forrester Research (Nasdaq: FORR), said Thursday that it is cutting more than 20 percent of its workforce. "Last year was a challenging one for most companies, and Forrester was no exception," Forrester chairman and CEO George F. Colony said. "The difficult dec...

Sometime over the holidays, Henry Blodget packed up his box and officially left Merrill Lynch, where he had been the lead Internet stock analyst. Blodget, who some pundits have all but blamed for single-handedly causing the dot-com bubble, has left behind a life of touting Yahoo!, Amazon, eBay and others for greener pastures But he leaves behind mo...

Further expanding its reach, this time into the employee benefits field, Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) said Wednesday it would develop personalized Web portals for the 16 million customers of health care and retirement benefits giant Cigna (NYSE: CI). Yahoo's business services unit, known as Yahoo! Enterprise Solutions, will develop a custom portal using ...

Amid all the bumps in the road for e-commerce in 2001, few sectors were shaken as hard as companies in the online grocery market. One-time standard-bearer Webvan, which once had the distinction of being the most highly valued privately held company, folded up shop last year, as did a handful of smaller players including HomeRuns.com, ShopLink and ...

Online shopping traffic during the 2001 holiday season rose 50 percent over 2000 levels, with more than 50 million unique visitors each week, according to a report released Monday by Jupiter Media Metrix (Nasdaq: JMXI). About 51.3 million unique visitors clicked to shopping sites each week between the week ending November 25th and the week ending ...

The post-holiday time is always a quiet one. There is a natural letdown as the New Year begins and people quietly work their way back into their workaday routines But there is something unnaturally quiet about the past couple weeks. Yes, it's still early, and, as we learned in Florida during the last presidential election, it's better to get the nu...

E-commerce sites that promote a sense of community among visitors by soliciting feedback and other content have a better chance at success, according to a report released Thursday by McKinsey & Co. The study, which McKinsey prepared along with Jupiter Media Metrix (Nasdaq: JMXI), found that such features as chat rooms, bulletin boards and product ...

There's something ominous about the way that TMP Worldwide (Nasdaq: TMPW), parent of Monster.com, stepped aside to allow Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) to take control of HotJobs.com Not only did TMP refuse to match or beat Yahoo's offer to take over the rival job board, at the same time it made it clear it was going to war with HotJobs all over again....

Online retailers, especially pure-play e-tailers, did a poor job of responding quickly to customer service requests during the holiday season, according to a report released Thursday by Jupiter Media Metrix (Nasdaq: JMXI). Jupiter said that its survey found that only 30 percent of Web retailers answered basic customer service requests sent via e-m...

The number of layoffs announced by Internet companies fell to a 17-month low in December, raising hopes for a more upbeat 2002, according to a report from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Dot-com companies cut 2,403 jobs in December, a 17 percent decrease from November and nearly 90 percent below the more than 10,000 jobs cuts in De...