Stories about: CDNow

It may be comforting for its rivals to know that Real Groovy Records faced the usual difficulties of any fair-sized retailer in its move into cyberspace: merging incompatible third-party supplier catalogues into one searchable database, integrating instore and online loyalty systems and keeping customers informed about the status of their orders.

Many organizations are struggling with escalating demands for storage and better disaster recovery - while plodding through a tough economic climate with frozen budgets and overworked staffs. These organizations realize that saving money on storage is nearly impossible without costly investments in networked storage technologies. Unfortunately, storage networking isn't cheap and doesn't offer a quick fix to immediately reduce storage costs.

IT managers for online retailers and at Visa card-issuing banks will soon be confronted with installing the latest weapon in the increasing war against online fraud: payer authentification applications.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is warning more than 100 online retailers that they'd better not make holiday shipping promises they can't keep.

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is warning more than 100 US online retailers that they'd better not make holiday shipping promises they can't keep.

A year ago only Internet companies could afford to acquire other Internet companies. A Yahoo Inc. could afford to spend US$5 billion on another dot-com, whereas traditional brick-and-mortar companies were left in the dust, under pressure to make an Internet play yet unable to afford to buy into the market.

Say you're a pop-music fan and your favorite band is the Beastie Boys. Chances are you've devoted some time to considering Mike, Adam and Adam's place within the larger pop-music pantheon. You might have even considered how, within this mosaic, the Beasties relate to other artists - that they're wittier than Limp Bizkit, for instance, and more nasal than EPMD. But you've probably never evaluated them on a scale of "Plainness" and "Simplicity." And chances are you'd never describe the Beasties to an uninitiated friend as being "like Helloween or Oingo Boingo, but less elaborate and sophisticated."

MIN.DAY

To say Geoff Clendenning is entrepreneurial by nature -- as his corporate biography does -- really is an understatement. With three start-up companies already under his belt, the youthful co-founder and CEO of EPod Corp. is garnering clients and venture capital as he rapidly builds up his on-line marketing business.

Online retailers that want to emerge from the coming holiday season with rosters of satisfied customers must focus on customer support and security, and must come clean about shipping charges. That's the word from several recent studies.

FRAMINGHAM (08/07/2000) - The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has reached a legal settlement with seven online retailers that the FTC says violated federal mail order rules (which also apply to online sales) by failing to ship items to consumers by the promised date or within 30 days. The retailers - Macys.com Inc., KBKids.com Ltd., Toysrus.com Inc., CDNow Inc., Patriot Computer Corp., Original Honey Baked Ham Company of Georgia and Minidiscnow.com - will together pay US$1.5 million in civil penalties related to the retailers' failure to ship promised items in time during the 1999 Christmas season.