E-commerce

Come May, Kindle Fires users can pocket virtual coins to spend on their favorite apps.

Announced today, Amazon Coins is a new type of virtual currency developed by the retail giant. The coins will be used to purchase Kindle Fire games, apps, and in-app items from the Amazon Appstore.

To kick off the currency in May, Amazon will offer shoppers tens of millions of dollars of free Amazon Coins to spend on Kindle Fire apps. The company will also let customers buy more coins directly through their Amazon accounts.

Amazon sees the currency as a boon for developers, as it … Read more

Another state will soon be reaping revenue from Amazon as the Internet retail giant has agreed to begin collecting sales tax from consumers in Connecticut.

Amazon will begin collecting the state's 6.35 percent sales tax on items bought on the site from within the state in November, state officials announced today. Kevin Sullivan, Connecticut's commissioner of Revenue Services, told the Associated Press that Amazon's tax collection will add $8 million to state coffers the first year, with $13 million to $15 million in the second year.

Amazon has also agreed to invest $50 million in Connecticut … Read more

The digital wallet has been anointed by many as the future of payments. In the present, however, virtual-pay apps remain largely untouched and misunderstood.

Only 51 percent of U.S. consumers are even aware of digital payment providers other than PayPal, and a teeny-tiny percentage of people -- 12 percent spanning all brands -- have actually used applications such as Google Wallet, MasterCard PayPass Wallet, or Square Wallet, according to a new study from analytics firm ComScore.

ComScore analyzed data from a panel of 1 million U.S. consumers and two separate surveys of U.S. Internet users in November … Read more

Sorry, Netflix and Hulu. Starting in June, Amazon Prime will be the only place to stream the latest episodes of popular TV series "Downton Abbey."

The online retail giant announced today that it secured a licensing agreement to exclusively stream season 3 of the award-winning series that airs on PBS in the U.S., starting on June 18. The agreement also covers season 4 and, if it's produced, season 5.

"The series is consistently in our top most watched TV shows each week, making it the most popular TV series with Prime Instant Video customers, ever,&… Read more

Amazon Studios will produce pilots for five original children's shows that are expected to make their debuts on Amazon's Web-streaming services, the company announced today.

The new pilots, which include series from the creators of "Blue's Clues" and "Sid the Science Kid," add to the six Amazon Studios pilots -- original comedies announced in December -- that are already in production.

The children's series are "Creative Galaxy," an arts and music show from "Blue's Clues" creator Angela Santomero; "Oz Adventures," a problem-solving program featuring the … Read more

It looks like Amazon is having some spotty service on its homepage right now, but shoppers can still access the site through its other pages.

When visiting www.amazon.com through the Web or on mobile, some users are getting the error message "Http/1.1 Service Unavailable." Twitter users started complaining about the apparent outage around noon Pacific time. Accessing the site through the mobile app or one of the other internal links doesn't seem to be a problem. For example, www.amazon.com/kindle and www.amazon.com/music are working just find.

We've … Read more

It's a challenge for anybody selling a wide range of anything online: how do you get the right products in front of the right customers?

Shutterstock, which sells stock-art photos and videos to customers such as ad agencies and PowerPoint presenters, has the matchmaking problem in spades. With 550,000 active customers and more than 23.7 million images, pairing the right buyer with the right photo isn't easy.

Which is why the New York-based company, which went public last October, is retooling how it presents its products to better compete with iStockphoto and other rivals.

Shutterstock has … Read more

Uber is headed toward another obstacle from city officials, and this time it's in Denver, Colo.

The state's Public Utilities Commission is proposing changes to the rules that regulate motor vehicle transportation, which could essentially shut UberDenver down.

The transportation startup announced today that it's going to fight to keep its service in the state. Uber has created a petition for Colorado residents to sign in support of Uber. The company is also urging locals to e-mail the state's governor, John Hickenlooper, and the chairman and director of the Public Utilities Commission.

"Since our launch … Read more

Amazon's golden touch continues.

Despite missing analysts' earnings estimates for the fourth quarter -- by a country mile, actually -- Amazon's stock traded up significantly in after-hours trading. Amazon's net income fell 45 percent to $97 million, or 21 cents per diluted share, compared with $177 million, or 38 cents a share, for the same period a year ago.

In the quarter, which ended December 31, Amazon continued its double-digit sales growth with sales up 22 percent to $21.27 billion.

That fell short of the average earnings estimate of 29 cents-per-share. How to explain the initial … Read more