ChoiceStream

Sales for discount apparel retailer Bluefly.com Inc. declined in the third quarter, but the company also narrowed its net loss. Web sales decreased 13.6% to $17.1 million from $19.8 million. The average order size was $274.58 compared with $292.03 in the prior year. The company added 34,753 new customers. However, spending on sales and marketing decreased 63.4% to $1.5 million from $4.1 million. Read the full article

The company has released WebSphere Commerce 7, the latest version of its e-commerce platform, which includes integration with social media and mobile. According to IBM, the overarching goal of the platform is to create a more personal experience at the consumer level. IBM is seeking to create a mobile commerce site, integrate commerce functionality on a social network and target messaging and promotions across channels, including creating coupons based on contextual content. “This is about enabling our customers to deliver a consistent customer-centric experience across multiple channels,” said Bill Holtshouser, program director of WebSphere commerce and product management at IBM. “It is realized by using cross-channel precision marketing.” Read the full article

For online holiday shopping this season online shoppers are being adviced to use more social media (Facebook and Twitter) services and to consider expanding the repertoire of retailers they shop at online. For sure, there will be a lot of good deals. But shoppers may have to search a little harder and wider. "I’d say don’t skimp on looking at Web sites," said Kurt Peters, editor in chief of Internet Retailer. "If you’re looking for a deal, don’t rule out sites that you might not be familiar with if they have good prices." Read the full article

The majority of global markets are growing significantly faster than the United States. Bill Gates has even stated that in the 21st century, a business must use e-commerce to survive. In this economy, thinking outside the proverbial box and expanding a company without taking on significant overhead or structural changes means selling beyond geographic borders. Read the full article

A huge majority of U.K. consumers plan to shop online for holiday gifts this year, says a survey commissioned by the London-based trade association The Interactive Media in Retail Group. According to the survey, 93% plan to shop online for Christmas gifts this year while 25% plan to do more shopping online this year than last year. “Younger shoppers are already buying pretty much everything online, so retailers may do well to focus on older shoppers—a growing sector with more money to spend,” says James Roper, CEO of the Interactive Media in Retail Group. Read the full article

Google stepped up its push to sell more advertising on cellphones, announcing it will purchase mobile advertising start-up AdMob for $750 million in stock. The purchase—one of Google’s largest deals—underscores how the search giant is trying to get more creative to extend its dominance in Internet advertising to mobile phones. AdMob sells ads across thousands of Web sites that are tailored for cellphones and was one of the first companies to serve up ads that run inside software for the iPhone and devices that run Google’s Android mobile-device operating system. Read the full article

Meanwhile, agencies and even rival mobile ad networks appeared to welcome Google’s proposed $750 million acquisition of AdMob as a ringing endorsement of the emerging mobile ad market. The hefty sum that Google is willing to spend to snap up the leading mobile ad network shows that the long-hyped potential of mobile advertising is finally becoming a reality, they say. Read the full article

According to a new survey, 93% of consumers are planning to do at least some of their shopping online this Christmas, with 71% planning to buy more than half of their gifts on the web. The survey by eDigitalResearch and IMRG reveals that more people are planning to shop online this year, and now that the threat of Royal Mail strike action has receded, there is some cause for optimism for online retailers. Read the full article at Enconsultancy

Transactional advertising network provider Adgregate Markets, a finalist at the 2008 TechCrunch50 conference is launching ShopCloud, a platform for building portable shopping carts and other e-commerce applications. ShopCloud’s platform lets developers build a variety of applications around e-commerce, including distributed shopping carts, lead generation forms, polls and surveys, and social media apps. The platform also promises security and the ability to build and run secure transactional applications even in non-secure content pages. Read the full article at Tech Crunch

Though it’s far from giving the store away, Amazon has responded to the recession by keeping prices low and keeping up its good deals on shipping. Revenue soared 16% for the first half of the year, and the company shredded third-quarter expectations with earnings surging by 69%. Read the full article at Advertising Age