Articles by Michael Mahoney

Despite a fourth-quarter 2000 loss that came in just ahead of Wall Street expectations, Amazon.com announced Tuesday that it is laying off 1,300 workers -- 15 percent of its total staff -- and closing a distribution center in McDonough, Georgia and a customer service center in Seattle, Washington. Morningstar.com stock analyst David Kathman told t...

As recently as a year ago, it was an easy decision for a top-level executive to join a Net company. Sure, they would work extra hard and take a lower base salary, but in the long run, their insanely generous stock option plans would be well worth the toil Poof. The clock struck midnight and the compensation packages that seemed like such a no-lose ...

The ability to use an Internet auction to solicit sealed electricity contract bids played a crucial role in helping bring some order to California's protracted energy crisis, state officials told the E-Commerce Times In the 27-hour online auction, held over Tuesday and Wednesday by California's Department of Water Resources (DWR), 39 power companie...

Seventy-five percent of children are willing to discloseprivate family information online in exchange for goods and services, according to a new report released by eMarketer. The tendency of children to disclose such information is especially significant because the new U.S. Congress is gearing up for an Internet privacy battle on Capitol Hill, wh...

Following one of the hottest trends in e-commerce, Internet grocer Webvan.com announced Monday it has joined forces with another e-tail site, in this case Petsmart.com, to open a pet store on the Webvan site. However, while other online partnerships have generated mutual benefits, there is some doubt about how much either of the companies involved...

Northern California buckled under the impact of rolling blackouts for thesecond day in a row Thursday, but Internet retailers based in the Silicon Valley say they have not suffered any power outages or lost sales -- yet Walmart.com, which is based just outside San Francisco, said the crisis has had no immediate impact on traffic or sales and that i...

Most Net users and e-commerce watchers haven't heard a great dealabout CDNow lately. But that mightbe the way the former high-flier wants it After CDNow dominated the e-commerce headlines in 2000 with its financial troubles, a U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lawsuit, and a buyout by media giantBertelsmann AG, the company appears to have vanishe...

In a bid to survive the ongoing dot-com shakeout, Drkoop.com (Nasdaq: KOOP) said Tuesday that it will cut 45 workers primarily in its Austin, Texas offices and move the company's headquarters to Santa Monica, California. Michael Davis, vice president and research area director for the Gartner Group, told the E-Commerce Times that Drkoop.com's late...

The Worldwide E-Commerce Fraud Prevention Network, whose members include Amazon.com, American Express, Buy.com and Expedia.com, announced the launch Monday of MerchantFraudSquad.com,a new site dedicated to combating online fraud MerchantFraudSquad is the first initiative of the Network, a non-profit organization formed last fall. Since the coalitio...

While individual e-tailers have come under fire from some quarters for underwhelming holiday sales, many online shopping malls and portals doubled their growth rates over the same period, according to the Yankee Group "The numbers are likely to be encouraging for portals to keep the mall concept, as online malls are growing faster than the overall ...

Boosted by strong customer service reviews, QVC.com rose to the top of Forrester Research's General Merchandise PowerRankings, beating both Amazon.com and BestBuy.com QVC.com achieved a PowerRanking of 65.07 to finish several points ahead of Amazon (62.95). Rounding out the top four were BestBuy.com (62.41) and Buy.com(61.23).

There is an interesting paradox developing in the online bookstore industry. Fourth quarter revenues (including holiday sales) are up, and books continue to be the top-selling product category on the Net, but virtually across the board, book e-tailers are falling short of analyst earnings estimates. The result: a flurry of e-bookseller stock downg...

In December, the job placement firm of Challenger, Gray and Christmas released a report saying that Internet job losses had increased for seven straight months, and that more than 40,000 dot-com jobs had disappeared in a 12-month period The sheer number of layoffs have gotten most of the attention from industry observers, for good reason. On the ot...

MVP.com announced Monday that it has laid off 36 more employees as part of a restructuring plan the online sports e-tailer began in December, when it laid off 79 people MVP.com spokesperson Paula Davis told the E-Commerce Times that the layoffs were across all departments and all levels. The sports e-tailer, backed by athletic superstars Michael Jo...

More than 90 percent of online shoppers were satisfied with their holiday shopping experiences and more than two-thirds plan to buy online again soon, according to a report released Monday by the NPD Group. The NPD e-Visory shows that 57 percent of shoppers were "very" or "extremely" satisfied with their buying experiences during November and Dece...

With the nomination Wednesday of Don Evans as U.S. Secretary of Commerce by President-elect George W. Bush, many e-commerce analysts are wondering how the potential new Cabinet member will affect the New Economy. So far, little is known about the technology views of Evans, who is reportedly one of Bush's closest friends....

Many brick-and-click Web merchants are following a basic recipe for success this holiday season, according to a new report from the Yankee Group According to "Performance Enhancing Strategies for OnlineRetailers," such offline mainstays as JCPenney.com, LandsEnd.com, andSharperImage.com will fare particularly well this holiday season, whilepure-pla...

Many e-tailers will not have the capabilities to meet growing customerservice demands this holiday season, according to a report issued by Jupiter Research and the NPD Group The survey indicates that only 29 percent of Web sites meet consumerresponse time expectations, which are at an all time high....

Auction sites are dominating the 2000 online holiday shopping season, according toa report issued by Media Metrix. For the two weeks ended November 26th and December 3rd, Web auction giant eBay averaged 60 percent more unique daily visitors than the Internet's top retail site Amazon.com, the report said....

National Security Council top cyber-official Richard Clarke said Friday that the next president of the United States has to make Internet security a top priority if the country is to avoid potentially catastrophic events. "What are we prepared to do now to reduce the probability and to mitigatethe damages when a major cyber event does occur? That ...