John Lewis has moved into social media in order to connect with its customers – and says it will be a ‘critical’ medium for the future.

Ideal Shopping Direct is using Tealeaf technology to help it understand how and why customers abandon online purchases before following up from its call centre.

Direct from today’s Internet Retailing 2010 conference, we have the latest from the conference floor, where this morning we’ve been hearing from keynote speakers Dave Hughes, of M&S Direct, Dave Walmsley, of Dixons Retail, and Clare Gilmartin, of eBay.

Ocado said today that it is on track to expand its customer base with a new customer fulfillment centre, set to open in North Warwickshire at the end of 2012.

N Brown Group, the company that owns Figleaves.com, says that online sales now account for more than 40% of its total sales. The company also unveiled plans to cross-sell footwear, fashion and lingerie between the Figleaves audience and its other shoppers.

Best Buy has appointed Reevoo to supply reviews for its UK ecommerce site when it launches later this autumn.

Money saving website Discountvouchers.co.uk has acted to protect its brand by buying alternative domain name DiscountVouchers.com in a £100,000 deal.

Women’s fashion site Missguided.co.uk has been revamped, with the introduction of features intended to make it easier for shoppers to find the items and trends they want to buy.

Online card fraud fell by 36% in the first half of this year, says the UK Cards Association. It’s the first time a fall in the online card fraud figure has been reported since 2007.

Clare Gilmartin, EU Marketplaces vice president, eBay, takes a look at the future of eBay and at how she believes ecommerce will develop in the future. Clare is a keynote speaker at Internet Retailing 2010, to be held Tuesday October 12.

Tesco is one of the UK pioneers of internet shopping. It first started selling groceries online as long ago as 1995 – in response to demand from customers. Fifteen years on, development of the service is still led by customers, says JJ Van Oosten, chief information officer at Tesco.com and a speaker at our annual conference Internet Retailing 2010, which is being held next Tuesday.

High street retailers new to online shopping still have a chance to steal a march on the competition. Offering a truly personalised experience can put new entrants to the market ahead of the pack, says Rob Tarrant, managing director, Brandbank.

Multichannel retailer T.M. Lewin has unveiled three new international websites and says it has ‘large ambitions’ for further expansion overseas.

Sales at M&S Direct rose by almost half over the summer, the retailer revealed today. The rollout of Shop Your Way continues. However, the company warned, ‘more challenging’ times lie ahead.

With a 100,000 users already coming into its website every week via mobile, John Lewis Partnership has launched a fully mobile optimized version of its website to service this vast number of mobile customers and to transform the company into a multi-channel retailer

Mail order giant The Orvis Company has joined the growing number of companies going straight to m-web rather than apps, with the roll out of a mobile-optimized website that lets customers easily and conveniently purchase Orvis goods. However, the site is optimized for smartphones

Pure-play etailers such as Play.com and Amazon are outperforming their high street rivals when it comes to implementing mobile commerce, boasting superior design and functionality, according to a new benchmarking study by eDigitalResearch. However, the study also found that some retailers – though not those two high fliers – are upping prices for the mobile channel in a ‘convenience premium’

Mobile service providers will soon be able to deliver fully regulated end-to-end financial services, following an agreement by financial services group Voice Commerce to provide payment and mobile money services to mobile operators through Alcatel-Lucent’s Mobile Wallet Service

Monitise, a global leader in mobile money solutions, has formed a partnership with DeviceFidelity that will allow mobile phone users to conduct contactless Visa payWave transactions.

Tesco’s online grocery service has seen spending rise on the back of improvements to its service – but its non-food internet service Tesco Direct is recording ‘modest losses’.