Articles by Keith Regan

Making a high profile push to attract new users, online auction leader eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) launched its first national television ad campaign Wednesday with two 30-second spots. The ads ran during prime time TV shows on the three major U.S. networks, including "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" and "The West Wing." The spots also appeared on late-ni...

One eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) user has been arrested and another indicted on fraud and money laundering charges stemming from uncompleted auctions on the site, company officials said Tuesday. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) spokeswoman Laura Bosley told the E-Commerce Times that the two investigations involve the alleged defrauding of nearly 250 i...

When all else fails, blame the bots That's right: It's not the e-tailers' fault that their Web sites can't handle the hits, or that their servers wilt when automated programs enter the picture alongside human beings. It's not their fault that some guy in Omaha has to wait nine minutes for a page to load. Don't blame us, e-tailers say. Blame the We...

Two new studies indicate that consumers remain wary of making last-minute holiday purchases online, although the reports disagree about exactly when this year's holiday shopping reached its zenith According to the Nielsen//NetRatings Holiday E-Commerce Index, released Thursday, traffic to e-tailers in the week ended December 17th (the fourth week a...

In what could be a good omen for the overall health of holiday e-tailing, Outpost.com (Nasdaq: COOL) announced Wednesday that revenue for its third quarter more than doubled over last year. "We are in the midst of the important holiday sales season and our business is strong," said Outpost president Kate Vick, who took the helm when former preside...

Online auction leader eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) said Wednesday it has begun to give its users direct access to United Parcel Service shipping options through the eBay Web site. The partnership, which UPS called the first integration of a shipping company into an e-commerce site, is designed to make it easier for eBay users to ship packages -- often a hu...

Don't look now, but a host of dot-coms that never took a dime of venture capital are now turning a profit. That's right. Not mid-2002. Now -- before the end of the year 2000. These companies don't have household names, their sales numbers don't inspire gasps of awe, and they're light years from even being able to joke about initial public offering...

Less than two weeks after shelving an intended expansion into Japan, Priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN) said Monday it has canceled plans to launch its name-your-price e-tail service through a subsidiary in Australia and New Zealand. Myprice Pty. Ltd., an Australia-based company set up by Priceline in March, had hoped to begin its airline and hotel room...

Blaming weaker-than-expected holiday sales, eToys (Nasdaq: ETYS) said Friday it will miss its revenue estimates for its third quarter and announced plans to cut its workforce next month in a bid to conserve a dwindling cash supply. eToys said it will have net sales of US$120 million to $130 million for the quarter, well below the $210 million to $...

Suddenly, the word no one would utter is on everyone's lips -- the R-word, that is. Predictions of soft landings have given way to outright claims that a recession is upon us, or at least poised like a tiger to pounce at any moment. Given the host of factors working against e-commerce, the question is not whether it will be among the sectors harde...

Eight of the 10 fastest growing retail sites on the Web are run by traditional retailers, according to a report released Friday by Jupiter Media Metrix (Nasdaq: JMXI). The New York-based market research firm said that while pure-play e-tailers continue to hold onto the top four spots in its overall ranking, offline retailers gained fast during the...

A majority of the population it may not be, but there are quite a few people who have spent the past month watching every twist and turn in the bizarre U.S. presidential election as it swerved toward the finish line. Finally, it's over. And all of us who have watched a lifetime's worth of CNN (and CNN.com) over the past 36 days are rubbing our eye...

Register.com (Nasdaq: RCOM) on Wednesday launched an online auction service allowing businesses and individuals to bid for any of the 20 million Internet domain names already in use. The service, dubbed the Afternic Virtual Broker, will act as a middleman between bidders and the current owners of all ".com," ".net" and ".org" domains.

It probably surprised no one sitting at a desk to hear that Nielsen//NetRatings reported that 46 percent of all online shopping is done from work. The recent study simply confirmed what many people knew first-hand. There are few places more convenient for Net shopping than work, where the connections are high-speed and the browser window can be hi...

Online retailers sold more than US$200 million worth of products on December 11th, establishing a new single-day sales record, Web measurement firm BizRate.com said Tuesday. The Los Angeles-based comparison shopping service predicted that the combined sales total for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week will amount to nearly $600 million in ...

State investigators in New Jersey have subpoenaed records from Toysrus.com as part of an ongoing investigation into the online toy store's privacy practices, the Associated Pressreported Monday. The Paramus, New Jersey-based brick-and-click toy retailer confirmed that investigators from the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs have sought compa...

E-commerce Web sites and portals received the highest scores for navigation and usablity in a study of the busiest sites on the Internet released Monday by Modalis Research Technologies The firm's "Web Usability 2000" report looked at the usability of the Web sites with the highest traffic in the United States, Germany, France, Sweden and the UK....

Priceline.com has name recognition that only eBay and Amazon can rival. But while the other two companies have mixed in positive reports from time-to-time, even as they struggle against the downward flow of stock on the Nasdaq, Priceline hasn't been able to get our attention with much of anything but bad news. Executives like chief financial offic...

With an eye toward focusing on its core businesses, Priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN) said Thursday it has fired 48 workers, shelved plans to expand into Japan, and indefinitely postponed new product introductions. The job cuts, which represented 11 percent of Priceline's workforce, came a month after 87 other workers were let go and leave the firm wit...

As if there weren't enough for e-commerce to worry about -- quick, somebody make sure Amazon is still up -- it seems that some people are concerned about a potential Internet backlash. That's right, people are leaving the Web behind: people who are disgusted with the commercialization, frustrated with the mechanics, or just plain bored. It's hard ...