New ecommerce site The Clothes Parlour is launching, offering what founder Joan Lilley describes as day-to-night designer fashion at prices that are not ‘faint-inducing’. Screen Pages has designed and developed the ecommerce site.

White goods retailer DRL is among the first customers for new technology from Bazaarvoice that lets search engines index user-generated content.

Delivery service Shutl is planning to take its 90-minute delivery service nationwide, and has teamed up with Pod1 to develop an app that will allow it to do just that. By Christmas, it says, it expects to offer its service through retailers in major conurbations across the UK.

The decision by online retailers to freeze VAT in January helped push up sales in the first half of January, according to figures from payments processing company Retail Decisions. But with reports today that consumer confidence is falling and the first sign of slowing sales at John Lewis, can that last?

Kindle book sales on Amazon have overtaken paperbacks for the first time, the online retailer said today. The company also reported a 26% rise in international sales, including the UK.

Looking for a New Year’s resolution that’s easy to keep? Optimise your website’s performance to ensure maximum revenue from ecommerce, advises Graham Parsons, chief executive of Reflective Solutions.

Different payment options unveiled this week look set to open up wider choice in the way consumers can pay. Sage Pay is now offering its retailers the ability to offer one-click payments through its Token System, while eWise’s eWise payo allows customers to pay direct through their own bank’s website.

British consumers spent £44bn online in 2010, equivalent to almost a third of the £146bn spent over the internet in Europe. A report from the Centre for Retail Research, carried out for Kelkoo, predicts a 14% rise in UK spending over the year ahead.

Mobile payments have entered the retail market with an unexpected bang as Coffee giant Starbucks announces plans to let caffeine seeking consumers pay for their coffee using mobile payments on selected smartphones in the US through the company’s loyalty app

With Starbucks launching its in-app billing based contactless payments service in the US and Apple, Nokia and Android all expected to start offering contactless payments this year, you’d think it was a done deal. But there is still some distance left to run, says an Phil Burroughs, commercial director at rmi (retail marketing international)

Kiddicare.com has seen an explosion of use of its mobile app and site over Christmas. M-Retailing talks to Simon Harrow, Technology Officer, KIDDICARE.COM and Mark Collin from Infogain about Kiddicare’s move into mobile

Experts say that natural cosmetics company Lush’s ecommerce website seems to have been ‘riddled with vulnerabilities,’ and was ‘clearly… in breach of PCI DSS compliance.’ What does this mean for other online retailers? We consider the implications.

UK’s ecommerce firms are increasingly flexible when it comes to delivery, according to the Snow Valley Online Retail Delivery Report 2011. The report found companies were offering more flexible delivery options while innovation was improving throughout the industry.

Online entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized retailers can learn from shared experiences, best practice advice and more at this year’s Internet Retailing Insights Conference, part of Internet Retailing Expo. Read on to find out more about the event, which will be held on March 23 and March 24 at the NEC, Birmingham.

The understanding of m-retailing and social commerce may be on the rise, but a study by One-iota has found that only one in five of the UK’s top 100 retailers have a mobile optimised website and only 4% have integrated a shopping function into their social media fan pages

Marks & Spencer (M&S) has signed-up to O2’s “You Are Here” location-based marketing service, that will see opted-in O2 More users get pinged a text or MMS offering them a free 250ml smoothie when they approach M&S stores

UK retail department store Debenhams has launched an SMS mobile marketing campaign which runs on the same platform and in conjunction with its email marketing in a move designed to extend the retailer’s cross-channel marketing capabilities

Leading UK budget hotel chain, Premier Inn, has rolled out an app that lets customers check availability, make reservations and manage their bookings on iPhone, Android, Nokia and BlackBerries

Tesco has signed up as launch customer for TradeDoubler’s new ARC tool. ARC gives developers the ability to create widgets and other revenue-driving tools for use by affiliates, and share in the income generated, and TradeDoubler says it expects the concept with “change the affiliate landscape”.

Figleaves-owner N Brown Group has spent £800,000 to add two brands, Slimma and Splendour, to its portfolio.