Procrastinator unite! In what must be the fastest holiday shipping support in eCommerceland, Amazon UK has announced that it will guarantee Christmas Eve delivery of eligible items for a charge of £14.99 per delivery. Orders must be placed by 8.30 a.m. GMT and can only be shipped to Birmingham or London. I anticipate that this [...]

Unfortunately Amazon.com does not publicize granular category sales data (sales, number of sellers, growth rates) but selectively shares highlights in its earnings announcements.
One exception is the jewelry category, and today Amazon announced today that its sales of diamonds have risen 75% YOY (rubbing salt in the eyes of countless third-party sellers that would like to [...]

Very good news for Amazon-crazy UK shoppers: Amazon UK today launched the Amazon Prime program with an announcement from Jeff Bezos himself on the home page. Introduced in the US in February of 2005, Amazon Prime offers Amazon customers fast shipping for a flat monthly fee for qualifying products.
£49 / year gets you “unlimited Free [...]

Amazon announced that it will, through its Lexington Fulfillment Center, help qualifying nonprofit organizations with a gift-wrapping fund-raising program during the 2007 holiday season. The announcement only covers the Kentucky location so no word if Amazon will extend this program to its other Amazon Fulfillment Centers (there are 13 other locations in the US alone [...]

The upcoming holiday gauntlet is about the most dreaded time of the year for this father of four monkeys. That extends from finding the right toy, ordering the mountain of temporary excitement, financing it (I didn’t say “paying for it” as the amount typically exceeds the joint liquid assets of the ZIP code I live [...]