Category: E-Commerce Weekly News

Apple and Hollywood said to continue talks around early digital movie rentals Movie studios including Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures continue to hold talks with Apple and Comcast about plans to introduce premium digital rentals for new movies only a few weeks after their theatrical debut, Bloomberg reports. The plan to build an early rental offering whereby consumer could pay between $30 and $50 per movie to get access to current releases as few as two weeks after they premiere in theaters has been covered before: Back in late December, Bloomberg described the plan, noting that it’s part of the studios’ effort to shore up declines and stagnation in the home video and DVD sales market.

Asos adds search-by-photo to its fashion ecommerce app The company says 80 per cent of UK traffic for ASOS comes from a mobile device, as do almost 70 per cent of UK orders — with consumers spending 80 minutes per month on average in the app. It’s not necessarily going to find a perfect match — not least because there are only 85,000 searchable products in Asos’ index — but when not matching quite right for form, it was at least pulling in similar sorts of patterns. So you end up with the same sort of fashion feel at least. Pinterest has launched a camera-based search feature that turns a real-world object (e.g. an avocado) into a series of Pinterest results (e.g. recipes for avocado). eBay also has its own ecommerce-focused image search in the works, due for launch this fall.

US consumers want more features from e-commerce apps Consumers increasingly want and expect high-tech, personalized experiences on e-commerce apps, with at least 80% of the 505 consumers wanting app features that allow them to purchase directly through the app, sync loyalty rewards and receive discounts. According to a new survey from Clutch, a leading B2B ratings and reviews firm, many would also opt-in for product recommendations, personalized experiences, augmented reality features, and social media integration.

Amazon accused of deceptive discounting As part of its review of Amazon’s agreement to buy Whole Foods, the Federal Trade Commission is looking into allegations that Amazon misleads customers about its pricing discounts, according to a source close to the probe. The FTC is probing a complaint brought by the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, which looked at some 1,000 products on Amazon’s website in June and found that Amazon put reference prices, or list prices, on about 46 percent of them.

More than 4.000 e-shops on eMAG Marketplace eMag, the largest online retail platform in Romania, reached a number of over 4,000 partner companies registered on its marketplace at the end of June, up 74% over the same period last year. The eMAG marketplace is the retailer’s platform where partner companies can sell their products. The platform generated sales of over RON 350 million (EUR 76.6 million) in the first six months of this year. It has 500,000 unique customers each day, according to the company. → More details at Romania Insider Report: Romanians don’t file too many complaints, compared to other Europeans Romania and Cyprus are in the last positions in terms of filing complaints in e-commerce, with 52.5% and 52.4%, according to the EU’s Consumer Conditions Scoreboard. The average in the European Union is 60.3% and the Swedish consumers are the most active, with a 78.6% rate of complaints.