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.

Are you ready for the Christmas shopping season? If not, don’t panic. Simon Heyes, head of international media at Bigmouthmedia, has it in hand with a handy calendar to count down what needs doing before the big day.

Despite an increasing adoption of mobile payments, research from payments expert WorldPay, carried out by Consensus, has revealed that 39% of smartphone shoppers are frustrated by the length of the process when buying via their mobile, and 38% were irritated by the amount of information that needed to be entered

Thorntons’ stores and direct channels both saw sales falling in the first 14 weeks of the financial year, the retailer said today. It said that orders were expected to pick up in the run up to Christmas.

Social commerce and what it means for retailers was a central theme for the keynote speakers at our annual conference, Internet Retailing 2011, being held today. Speakers in the session hailed from retailers including eBay, HMV and Facebook.

Four out of 10 UK online shoppers will now be able to get their purchases delivered within an hour and a half, following logistics company Shutl’s expansion to six more UK cities, the company said today.

Only 27% of consumers surveyed were satisfied with their mobile retail experience, with only 8.6% rating their experience as ‘excellent.’ Although an encouraging 30% of consumers are already using their mobile device to make a purchase, the remaining 70% represents a massive opportunity for retailers, finds a study by Stibo Systems

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.

Homewares retailer Dunelm Mill plans to gain new attention in cyberspace through a social media campaign. The company, which started life on a Leicester market stall in 1979 and now trades from 113 stores, will be using Facebook, Twitter and online forums to raise awareness of the brand.

M&S is running a multichannel competition to find a new M&S TV presenter. The competition seems likely to generate social buzz while also finding out from the start which presenters are most appealing to its audience.

In our final preview of our annual conference, Internet Retailing 2011, we asked Gavin Sathianathan, head of commerce partnerships at Facebook, how retail and social media can work together most effectively.

Even if you have only a standard ecommerce site, it’s still important to optimise for mobile. That’s one of the conclusions from Screen Pages’ study of mobile visits to retail websites.

According to research by mobile ad network Mojiva, at least half of mobile consumers view their mobile device as a holiday shopping resource for product information, coupons and sale information, product reviews or store information – and most are planning to start their mobile Christmas shopping this month

A consumer study conducted in July 2011 by the Banking division of Simon-Kucher & Partners, global consulting firm specialising in pricing and marketing, has found that 92% of smartphone users would be willing to use mobile payments for their purchases and other forms of money transmission