Small businesses can apply for a grant from FedEx through its 7th annual contest that offers $220,500 in cash and prizes. To enter, for-profit businesses must have fewer than 99 employees and have been operating for six months or more. Read more
The National Retail Federation weighed in on some perplexing holiday-shopping sales figures. The US Commerce Department released data last week that showed a lower-than-expected growth rate for the fourth quarter of 2018. The numbers were delayed due to the government Read more
Walmart grew its US ecommerce sales by 43% in the fourth quarter. The company said Walmart U.S. eCommerce continued to benefit from the expansion of grocery pickup and delivery and a broader assortment on Walmart.com. Note that its fiscal year Read more
Amazon is setting a path to net zero carbon delivery of shipments to customers with the help of improvements in electric vehicles, aviation bio fuels, reusable packaging, and renewable energy. On Monday, it revealed a goal of reaching 50% of Read more
The next phase of eBay’s Managed Payments rollout will impact larger merchants. As we reported in November, eBay is turning off Integrated Merchant Credit Card Accounts (IMCC) in two phases beginning March 1, 2019 – meaning sellers will no longer Read more
Mobile selling app Mercari is dramatically raising shipping costs for those who use its prepaid shipping labels, leaving users worried that some items will become too expensive to buy and sell through the venue, which is like a mobile version Read more
Etsy posted an apology for what it called a bill payment error after some sellers reported the company took large sums of money from their credit cards and bank accounts on Friday afternoon. EcommerceBytes reported the problem on the AuctionBytes Read more
Online marketplace Bonanza has partnered with TaxCloud so that its sellers can connect their stores to the fee-based online sales-tax compliance service. TaxCloud has made similar arrangements with Etsy and Shopify and is also available in the Amazon Marketplace Appstore. Read more
eBay completed its acquisition of UK classifieds site Motors.co.uk this week, having announced its intention to buy the car-selling site from Cox Automotive in October. Motors.co.uk became part of eBay’s Gumtree UK classifieds site, which eBay said would help UK Read more
There was a shooting outside eBay’s California campus on Thursday, according to CEO Devin Wenig, but it appears to be unrelated to the company. The San Jose Mercury News said a hijacked UPS truck was involved in the incident – Read more
