Articles by Keith Regan

Trust is implicit in the buying process, but no place more so than online. You don't give your credit card over with one hand and grab the package with the other. You give your credit card, sit back and wait, trusting the merchant to complete the sale. I've been thinking about this element of trust thanks to a recent experience that made me wonder...

General Motors (NYSE: GM) and Autobytel.com (Nasdaq: ABTL) said Wednesday that they have chosen the Washington, D.C. area to test an online car buying system that will enable shoppers to search all available vehicles and buy from a dealer of their choice. The 90-day test will begin May 1st and is designed to help GM understand how a national locat...

Two weeks after rumors surfaced that Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) would link with retail giant Wal-Mart, a report Monday said that the e-tailer is now discussing a strategic alliance with consumer electronics seller Best Buy (NYSE: BBY). Representatives from Amazon and Best Buy refused to comment on the report in TheStreet.com, which said that the compan...

There sat Amazon chief executive officer Jeff Bezos, up on the dais at the high-tech summit,telling investors, again, not to buy shares of dot-com stocks like hiscompany's. It was sound advice, but I'm convinced it was just cover A distraction. I'm sure that as he spoke, just off-camera, anotherhalf-dozen e-commerce and Internet CEOs were sneaking ...

A group of investors filed a lawsuit against Priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN) Friday, alleging that the name-your-price e-tailer conspired to drive up the price of its shares after its initial public offering (IPO). The suit alleges that Priceline's underwriters exchanged shares at the offering price of US$16 in exchange for guarantees from buyers to ...

With the goal of encouraging Web merchants and shoppers to use personal checks for e-tail sales, the Electronic Payments Association instituted new rules Friday for how electronic checks are processed "As e-commerce matures, consumers and businesses will expectto have payment choices, just as they do in the bricks-and-mortar world," said Elliott C....

One week after the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) named auction fraud as the most common Internet scam, Web auctioneer Liquidprice.com proposed Tuesday that the industry move quickly to regulate itself. Calling some kind of industry regulation "inevitable," Piyush Gupta, the chief executive officer of the Santa Clara, California-based ...

Seeking to beef up its auction offerings in the face of declining listings, Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) said Tuesday that it had forged an alliance with reverse auction provider eWanted.com. The partnership will give Yahoo! Auctions users access to eWanted's offerings, which include both fixed-price business-to-consumer (B2C) sales as well as reverse au...

Online grocer Peapod (Nasdaq: PPOD) stopped servicing the San Francisco market on Sunday, transferring its customer base to onetime rival Webvan (Nasdaq: WBVN). Peapod said it will turn its attention to its core markets in the Eastern U.S., where its majority owner Royal Ahold has a strong brick-and-mortar grocery store presence.

So it turns out that amid all the teeth-gnashing about the future of e-commerce, business-to-business (B2B) online sales were cooking right along. In fact B2B sales made up 90 percent of all online transactions during 1999, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

No matter what industry you're involved in, here's something you don't want to hear: well-respected analysts saying that your industry will survive long-term, but that you won't be around to enjoy it Now, if you're merely a bystander, if you've got a bet going with a friend that Web-based delivery services -- that is, companies that deliver whateve...

Car e-tailer Autoweb.com (Nasdaq: AWEB) moved up on the dot-com critical list Thursday with the announcement that it has hired a financial advisor to explore its options, while it fights to avoid delisting from the Nasdaq stock exchange. Autoweb said it was notified last week that it faces delisting because it has been unable to sustain a stock pr...

Lately, it seems like Internet companies are tripping over each other in a rush to do good deeds. Amazon.com has decided to use an AIDS benefit CD to test out its new micropayment collection system.

While Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) has maintained its official silence on a rumored partnership with Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), a top Amazon executive said Wednesday the e-tailer is interested in linking with brick-and-mortar stores. Amazon chief financial officer Warren Jenson reportedly told analysts gathered at the Merrill Lynch U.S. Internet Conferenc...

Maybe there's truth to the published rumors that Amazon andWal-Mart are engaged in some type of partnership talks, but there is no comment coming from the Great Northwest about it. Maybe the public relations spin machine was put out of commission by the earthquakethat hit Seattle, Washington last week. Or maybe everyone in Amazon's headquarters is...

Two days after cutting 12 percent of its workforce, computer and software e-tailer Egghead.com (Nasdaq: EGGS) said it had secured US$20 million from IBM's commercial financing wing. Egghead said Wednesday that the loan from IBM Global Financing was secured with its inventory, accounts receivable and other assets and will help inch Egghead toward t...

Maybe there are people out there aching to check their retirement accounts while sitting in freeway traffic. Multitasking is a must, especially in decidedly less exuberant times, so maybe in-car Internet will catch on I prefer sports radio, always will. It requires much less thought and besides, being in the car is one of the few times when we ever...

Business-to-consumer (B2C) auction site uBid said Monday it has forged an alliance with cash-giveaway portal iWon.com. The partnership will give uBid access to millions of Internet users via one of the Web's most trafficked sites. According to Nielsen//NetRatings, iWon was the fifth most visited U.S. site on the Internet this January.

Bankrupt e-tailer eToys has sold its BabyCenter unit to Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) for US$10 million in cash, the health care products giant announced Friday. The sale price constitutes a fraction of what eToys paid for BabyCenter two years ago. The asset sale comes after eToys and Goldman Sachs tried for months without success to find a buyer ...

Traditionally, when the lights go out, you've had two choices: You can light a candle or you can curse the darkness. But thanks to e-commerce, there's a third choice: Capitalize on others' misfortunes Businesses have long been using the bad luck of others for their owngains.