eBay is seeing fast growth in its UK market, where the use of mobile has seen dramatic take-up. The company is now working to allow customers to take a picture of a product with their smartphones in order to search the site for it.

Retailers and brands have less than two months to stake a claim for their own dot brand name in the first round of applications. It’s important, says global registry services provider Afilias, that companies consider whether this step is for them before the window closes.

Flying Brands is selling its flagship Flying Flowers business to Interflora, as part of the £2.4m sale of its gift division. The sale leaves the online and catalogue shopping company to focus on its gardening and garden bird supplies business.

Maplin has opted to give its customers the option of 90 minute delivery using the Shutl service. More than 60% of the UK’s population will initially be able to use the service, which starts by supplying from 83 Maplin stores across the UK.

Ideal Shopping Direct has bought ecommerce platform company createtoday.com. It says the move will help its Create and Craft business outperform its competitors.

Thorntons is concentrating on a multichannel future, the chocolate maker said today, and will close up to 180 stores over the next three years. The company today reported falling sales and profits but said its online sales were up.

‘Breathtaking’ growth in ecommerce has seen Domino’s Pizza grow its online sales by 43% in the last year. The company says it regularly turns over more than £1m from internet transactions in a day.

Yell Group has launched its first transactional sites as it looks to reinvent itself from directories business in a declining market to provider of eMarketplaces to smaller businesses. The company today announced falling sales but rising profits.

The UK’s smallest companies are behind their European counterparts when it comes to using ecommerce. An Epson Business Council study found that UK microbusinesses are less likely to sell online, while they are also slow to use social media.

Yodel expects the number of flowers it delivers ahead of Valentine’s Day to double. The delivery company puts the surge down in part to internet ordering.

Waitrose’s online shopping site will use behavioural retargeting technology to remind shoppers travelling around the internet what they previously bought and what they forgot to put in their supermarket trolley. The company is using Criteo technology to power the move.

The Hut Group, the retailer behind brands from TheHut to Zavvi, reports a 70% rise in sales for 2011. Thirty-five percent of sales, said the group, now come from overseas.

Mothercare has announced its new chief executive will be Simon Calver, who joins the company from Amazon-owned LOVEFiLM. In the role, Calver will face the challenge of rebuilding the company’s sales and profits, particularly in its key UK market.

Online sales grew by a more modest 11.3% in January after a December of fast growth, according to the latest BRC figures. The figures also showed that total UK like-for-like sales sales were down by 0.3% as consumers tightened their belts.

TUI today reported rising online sales in its key UK market as it updated the markets on progress since the end of its third quarter. But overall UK sales were down by 10% in January compared to the same time last year.

UK retailers are making their delivery services more flexible, an annual report from MICROS UK found. But there’s still room for improvements that could help retailers gain a competitive advantage, says report sponsor MetaPack

Supermarkets’ websites are testing their users, according to the latest e-Performance Observatory from usability specialist YUSEO. Only 51% of those set a series of tasks to achieve on six supermarkets’ websites were successful, while users said they were less likely to use all of the supermarkets after completing the tasks.

In our latest preview of one of our major events of the year, Internet Retailing Expo (IRX 2012), we have an interview with serial entrepreneur John Sollars, who will be speaking at the Fast Track Conference on March 21, the first day of the free-to-attend two-day event. Now managing director of Stinkyinkshop.com, he shared with us some of the lessons he’s learned from his experiences.

Amazon.com, owner of the UK’s largest online trader, amazon.co.uk, reported growing sales but a 58% fall in profits as it upped spending on technology and infrastructure. The company said the Kindle e-reader was its biggest seller in both the US and Europe.

Multichannel veteran John Walden is the new appointment at Argos. Walden, who was previously responsible for areas including ecommerce and catalogue sales at US retailers including Sears and Best Buy, is faced with the task of turning around falling sales at the leading UK multichannel retailer.