Online retailer Amazon has predicted that 9pm on Monday December 5 will be the UK’s busiest pre-Christmas shopping moment. The prediction comes from its

ByBox, the delivery to locker specialist, is investing £2m to expand its network of locker banks. The company says most of the new lockers will be within the M25, and come as the company invests to strengthen its presence in the online shopping market.

US movie streaming company Netflix is to launch in the UK next year. The move brings a significant new competitor to a market currently dominated by Amazon-owned Lovefilm but Netflix says the move is likely to push it into the red for several quarters.

John Lewis is among the organisations urging internet users to give the hour they gain when the clocks go back to help someone online for the first time. Race Online 2012 aims to get as many of the 8.7m adults who have never used the internet to do so.

Oracle has said it expects to improve its crosschannel commerce, merchandising and online customer experience through its purchase of Endeca Technologies.

Tag management company TagMan plans expansion in Europe and North American following fresh funding from investors.

‘Tis that this of year again for the IRBTAECP.
As ever, the aim of the evening is for retailers to muster a team of 4 and compete tooth and claw to ensure that House of Fraser …

House of Fraser has unveiled its vision of the store of the future, opening what it says it the first shop dedicated to a Buy & Collect service. House of Fraser.com opens today in Aberdeen’s Union Square.

The way we shop for groceries will change dramatically by 2016, with as-yet-unknown innovations expected to alter the way we shop and encourage more shoppers into multichannel shopping, according to new research from IGD.

So far this year British shoppers have spent £47bn online, £5.5bn of that total in September alone – 15% up on the same month last year. But there’s strong evidence, according to the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index figures, that while consumers are spending on smaller items they are holding back from big-ticket purchases.

It’s just got a step easier for retailers to include Facebook in their ecommerce sites, following the integration of Facebook’s Open Graph platform into eBay’s ‘open source ecosystem’ X.commerce. But does that make Facebook a must have?

Ecommerce sales rose by 17% at N Brown Group, which said it had invested in growth online, in stores, and overseas. Online sales now account for 48% of its home shopping revenues, and the company is preparing for a multichannel future in which a ‘significant majority’ of its sales come through online.

Sales at private fashion sales site BrandAlley rose by 70% in the first nine months of the year. The company says social media innovations and the hunt for luxury on a budget are behind a growing number of online visitors to the site.

Homewares retailer Lakeland is set to introduce new multichannel services that connect the store to online. The new initiatives emerged at this week’s Internet Retailing 2011. Here we also round up of some of the highlights of the event.

Fraudulent losses in online shopping have fallen to their lowest level for at least five years. Financial Fraud Action UK figures show that fraud in online and other card not present transactions were down by 8% in the first half of the year.

Almost three in 10 UK albums are now bought in digital format. But the fast growth of digital sales – up by a quarter in the last year – has not made up ground lost as overall album sales fall.

Supermarket Tesco is gearing up to take its new ecommerce website overseas. It is to launch in the Czech Republic later this year before expanding further in 2012.

Leading UK pureplay Play.com is to change hands for £25m. The entertainment retailer will join the Japanese-owned Rakuten network, which owns ecommerce businesses in 10 countries, now including the UK.

Flying Brands, which owns multichannel businesses including Gardening Direct and Flying Flowers, today saw its share price more than halve following a warning that it is likely to need to renegotiate its banking arrangements this autumn following disappointing trading.

Debenhams’ multichannel sales shot up by more than 70% in its latest financial year, the company said today. The fast growth came in a year that like-for-like sales fell by 0.3%, excluding VAT.