E-commerce, Retailer | featured news

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is phasing out the sale of Amazon.com's Kindle Fire tablet and Kindle e-readers, the second major retailer to stop offering the items in six months... Retailers are trying to fight a growing practice called "showrooming." That's when shoppers, armed with smartphones, browse products in physical stores and then shop online for a better price.

Online retailer Amazon.com has tried to become all things to all consumers, but in California, it is about to take on a role it has fought against for years: tax collector.

The California tax man cometh, and he's headed for the Internet. State tax collectors are preparing to crack down on renegade Internet merchants who don't collect sales taxes, and nearly 100 new state auditors, lawyers and other specialists are being hired to help over the next three years.

AMERICANS are obsessed with their scores. Credit scores, G.P.A.'s, SAT's, blood pressure and cholesterol levels -- you name it. So here's a new score to obsess about: the e-score, an online calculation that is assuming an increasingly important, and controversial, role in e-commerce.

The company reported net income of $7 million, or 1 cent a share, on sales of $12.8 billion. It was less profit than analysts had estimated, but the revenue was in line with forecasts.

Recently ousted Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson has landed a new job leading ShopRunner, an online service that provides two-day shipping from a variety of Internet retailers... ShopRunner began as part of GSI Commerce, which eBay bought for $2.4 billion last year. After that deal closed, eBay spun off ShopRunner into another company but still retains a 30 percent stake in the service.

Amazon has set a torrid hiring pace in recent months, accelerating a rate of employee acquisitions that was already well ahead of most large corporations.

Amazon.com Inc unveiled a new effort to develop original comedy and children's TV shows to distribute over the company's video streaming service.

Although headquartered in State, Amazon already collects sales tax in Kansas, Kentucky, , North Dakota and . What's more, here's a coming his list where and when you'll be taxed on Amazon purchases: Texas, July 2012 California, September 2012 Virginia, September 2013 Indiana, January 2014 Nevada, January 2014 Tennessee, January 2014 South Carolina, January 2016 ...

AmazonSupply is a new Amazon initiative that will attempt to capture a portion of the commercial business with a powerful assortment of anything from materials and metal wires to office and janitorial supplies. Prices are low and shipping will be free on orders over $50.