Amazon.com has posted a third-quarter profit increase of 68 percent, a signal that things could be getting a lot better for online retailers as the holiday season remains just around the corner. A 44 percent rise in sales of electronics and general merchandise was one of the main factors in Amazon’s strong performance, a category that now comprises 43 percent of Amazon’s total sales.
The company also posted a 17 percent increase in sales of media, a figure that was surprisingly low in the second quarter because of disappointing video game sales. This result was strengthened by the release of several popular …read more

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, book giant Barnes & Noble has plans to begin selling its own electronic reader as a direct competitor to Amazon’s popular Kindle. The newspaper said that Barnes & Noble could begin selling its new product as early as next month and that there is no word on the e-reader’s retail price.
Barnes & Noble, however, has not released any statements confirming or denying its plans to begin selling an e-reader. According to a company spokesperson, Barnes & Noble does support the idea of a portable e-reader and believes that readers should be …read more

By offering affiliate programs, you can increase your sales. Because by sharing some of the profits with your affiliates, you spread the word further than with typical marketing. You get other people to do your selling for you. By offering a small – or large – percentage of a sale (especially on high margin items), you get people excited about making money off of your product. And if they’re excited about your product, they’ll tell people.
Of course, you’ll want to set up some rules about how your affiliates can market your product. But once you set things up, you can …read more

Target and Amazon have been involved in a pact since 2001 that has led Target to outsource nearly all of its online retail capacity to Amazon, but with Target’s planned adoption of its own retail website in 2011, their agreement will be null and void. Target, who initiated the dissolution of the pact, has expressed a need to focus on declining sales and other hardships. 
 
Currently, Amazon handles the majority of online retail for Target, managing the call centers and warehouses, providing customer service, and shipping the items directly to the customers. After ending the pact, Target will be responsible for …read more

If you’re a freelancer writer, chances are that you’re also an avid reader. I know I am. While I’ve resisted purchasing a Kindle, I know a lot of you guys and gals probably are enjoying this new technology. Well, most of the time. Earlier this month, Amazon deleted the books Animal Farm and 1984 (how ironic) from Kindles around the world after finding that the uploaded version violated copyright laws. Everyone got their money back, but some people are still pissed.

One such person is 17-year-old Justin D. Gawronski, a student at Shelby Township, Michigan’s Eisenhower High School. Along with other …read more

Amazon has made the decision to extend its online retailing empire into the realm of apparel by purchasing Zappos.com. This acquisition marks the largest move of its kind for Amazon in its 14-year history and the company plans to spend $847 million in cash and stocks to buy out its rival.
Although it has historically not had much success trying to sell apparel in the past, Amazon appears to be throwing its hat into the market once again. Online apparel shopping is the most popular form of internet retail, giving Amazon, which is mostly associated with books and electronics, a chance …read more

There is talk that internet retailing giant Amazon.com has plans to buyout America’s biggest movie-by-mail company, Netflix. For Netflix shareholders, this has become good news, with Netflix seeing the value of its stock jump up to the highest it has been in the eleven weeks in what analysts are calling a typical turn of events.
Netflix and Amazon are direct competitors in the movie-by-mail business, so Amazon’s acquisition of Netflix would make sense. Amazon would then have access to Netflix’s 10 million subscribers, most of which take advantage of the mail system.
However, analysts are scratching their heads over a move that …read more

Rhode Island just passed a law that forces companies to collect sales tax if they are affiliated to businesses that take a commission from links to another e-commerce website. The passing of this law has forced Amazon to drop its relationship with its marketing affiliates based in Rhode Island so that it would not have to collect sales tax in the state.
 
This is just off the heels of North Carolina’s passing of a similar law. Amazon responded similarly, dropping its North Carolina affiliates so that it would not have to collect sales taxes. Amazon may have to drop quite a …read more

Although they were once business partners, Amazon and Toys R Us have been in the middle of a heated legal battle that finally ended today when Amazon agreed to pay Toys R Us $51 million as a settlement. The transaction will occur in a couple of months and then any traces of the conflict will essentially disappear, according to Amazon.
 
Amazon and toysrus.com, a division of Toys R Us, drafted an agreement in 2000 that gave Toys R Us exclusive rights to move some of their products through Amazon. The partnership should have been extremely beneficial for both parties, but in …read more

I was listening to a really interesting story about variable pricing in the music industry on NPR’s Morning Edition this week. The price discrepancies on Depeche Mode’s new album perfectly illustrated the concept of price discovery.  
The new album by Depeche Mode, “Sounds of the Universe” is priced at a low $3.99 on Amazon, and $9.99 on iTunes. Because of iTunes recent switch to a Digital Rights Management-free delivery model (enabling downloaded songs to be played on any type of play, not just the Apple  iPod), this is the same product.
So what’s it really worth?
That’s what Price Discovery aims to determine. Technically, the …read more