Weekly News: Amazon accused, Bulgarian hoaxes, Romanian m-commerce has a bright future
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.
No prices shown and poorly designed menus? No buyers!
Consumers say their biggest pet peeves with e-commerce sites are poor navigation and opaque pricing, according to recent research from Corra. The report was based on data from a survey of 1,000 e-commerce shoppers in the United States.
Some 41% of respondents say their biggest pet peeve related to finding products on e-commerce sites is poorly designed menus/a lack of subcategories for key merchandise; 30% say their biggest pet peeve is poor search functionality.
Beware of Comanda Online EOOD!
European Consumer Centre – ECC Romania said that several customers were hoaxed after they ordered products from websites operated by the Bulgarian firm Comanda Online EOOD: www.produstv.ro, www.pretulverde.ro, www.teleshoponline.ro, www.ymart.ro and www.sculestern.ro. These e-shops are promoted on Facebook and on www.shopmania.ro. All the websites are in Romanian and the prices shown are in RON (Romanian lei).
Romanians continue to be interested in m-commerce
In the next six months, 6 out of 10 Romanians plan to make online purchases using their mobile phone, according to the “Online shopping on mobile phones” study requested by Cluj-based Blugento, a company specialized in providing e-commerce solutions.
The results of the study reveal the increasing importance of mobile devices in the online acquisition, with 4 out of 10 respondents saying they are shopping online each month and 3 out of 10 using their mobile phone or tablet for such transactions.
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