e - commerce

BabyCenter, the social net and eCommerce site run by Johnson & Johnson, has closed up its online store to focus strictly on its media side. Tina Sharkey, global chairman of BabyCenter, wouldn't tell AdAge if the reason for the abandonment of online retailing was due to a lack of profitability.

Israel-based SundaySky has raised its first round of $8 million. Carmel Ventures and Globespan Capital Partners led the funding, which the company will use to expand its marketing and business development activities in the U.S. as well as continue to develop its products. Carmel Ventures' general partner Avi Zeevi and Globespan Capital Partners' managing director Jonathan Seelig will be joining the board of directors as well. Founded in 2006, SundaySky provides real time, automatically generated video for e-commerce, social nets and other media sites.

Local businesses and apartment subletters in Washington, D.C. are not the only ones trying to cash in on the upcoming presidential inauguration. Amazon.com and the Presidential Inauguration Committee have opened competing online stores selling souvenirs and other items tied to the Jan. 20 event expected to draw up to 2 million people to the nation's capital.

E-commerce sales fell 3% this holiday season, marking the first drop since 2001, according to data released by comScore. The Web measurement firm attributed the falloff to five less shopping days in 2008 between Thanksgiving and Christmas and the impact of the recession on consumer spending. ComScore had predicted sales from Nov. 1 to Dec. 23 would be flat to last year, at $26.3 billion. The total came in shy, at $25.5 billion.

Around the Net In Online Marketing: Few Ecommerce Sites Benefit From Holiday Discounts

comScore reported its tracking of holiday season retail e-commerce spending for the first 37 days of the November - December 2008 holiday season. In addition, Compete, Inc. provides a additional perspective of the shopping traffic.
For the holiday season through December 7, $15.63 billion has been spent online, essentially the same level compared to the corresponding days last year, says comScore. During the first week since Cyber Monday (December 1 - December 7), sales totaled $4.45 billion, up 7 percent versus year ago.

E-commerce sales during the most recent work week (December 8-12) declined a marginal 1%, although December 9 emerged as the highest online spending day on record, accounting for $887 million in...

Merchants expect to lose a record $4 billion to online fraud in 2008. They also think the fraud loss rate will hold constant at 1.4% of revenue (same as '07 and '06), writes the tenth annual...

The recession isn't slowing down National Lampoon's acquisition binge: the humor site is getting into e-commerce with the purchase of JerkassClothing.com. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The apparel maker aims its t-shirts and merchandise at college students. The company's ethos is explained on its site: " We enjoy the finer things in life… corner taverns, fist fights, Cinemax, Slim Jims..." It will now be the official maker of National Lampoon's branded merch.

For the five days beginning with December 1 (Cyber Monday), the kick-off to the heaviest part of the online shopping season, sales totaled $3.74 billion, up 9% versus the same period a year ago,...