Authorities charged two New Jersey men with stealing $6 million in postage for their Amazon third-party seller business, Fresh N Clear. Jack Koch, 44, of Elmwood Park, and Steven Koch, 43, of Pompton Lakes, bought Flat Rate Envelope postage labels meant for U.S. Postal Service compact envelopes and altered them to send their merchandise in larger boxes at discounted flat rates, said U.S. Attorney Perry Farhat Tuesday in Newark. The complaint charges the men with buying and altering more than 240,000 labels from January to September. Attempts to reach their attorneys were unsuccessful. Amazon didn’t respond to questions.

Vault Micro released updates for its CameraFi Live streaming app that allow e-commerce retailers to add real-time product information during a broadcast. They can add information such as item name, images, pricing and discounts, it said Monday. A live broadcast allows merchants to highlight items’ features and gives customers a way to ask questions and give feedback in real time, it said. Vault Micro CEO Seongil Kim said the company is working with live e-commerce platforms so nonprofessional users can start “live-streaming without difficulty.”

COVID-19 forced Movado Group to pivot strongly toward online sales in Q3, said CEO Efraim Grinberg on a Tuesday investor call. Sales on the Movado.com online store more than doubled from the 2019 quarter, he said. The Movado brand “also had strong e-commerce results across our brick-and-mortar partners and marketplaces,” he said. Q3 sales in those channels grew by more than 150% from a year earlier, he said. “While we’re optimistic about how our brands will perform for the holiday season, we are cognizant of the resurgence of the coronavirus around many parts of the world, and recognize that this year’s holiday shopping will be very different than any we have ever seen.”

Consumers are using different types of payments as they try to shop safely in person and online during the holidays, found the Electronic Transactions Association and Strawhecker Group (TSG). Nearly three-fourths of U.S. consumers will use electronic payments as their first choice, including traditional credit/debit cards, contactless cards and digital wallets. Eight in 10 have used one-click payment, 37% frequently. TSG cited a 9% increase in spending using credit/debit cards Feb. 1-Nov. 1, with COVID-19 accelerating the shift to cards and digital payments. Since the start of the pandemic in the U.S., spending on credit and debit cards jumped 32% in grocery and retail stores. The survey of 961 consumers was fielded Nov. 9-11.

Amazon and the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center announced Tuesday "Operation Fulfilled Action" to prevent counterfeit goods from entering the U.S. Also supporting the operation are Customs and Border Protection and DHL. Amazon will help the IPR Center identify, interdict and investigate individuals, companies and criminal organizations engaging in illegal import of counterfeit products, said IPR Center Director Steve Francis. Amazon sidelines inventory if it suspects a product may be counterfeit, combining its own intelligence and that from the IPR Center and other agencies, said Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon vice president-customer trust and partner support. The company’s Counterfeit Crimes Unit, created this year, will lead the operation (see 2006250036). Last year, Amazon invested over $500 million to prevent such fraud, it said.

Amazon’s pharmacy programs are a “large opportunity for adoption” among the e-commerce giant’s 70 million U.S. Prime households, Cowen analyst John Blackledge wrote investors Tuesday. Amazon announced two pharmacy offerings Tuesday: Amazon Pharmacy, a store on Amazon where customers can complete an entire pharmacy transaction on a PC or mobile device via the Amazon app, and a Prime prescription discount benefit that offers members up to 80% off generic and 40% off brand name medications when paying without insurance. The offerings complete a multiyear effort by Amazon after it bought PillPack in September 2018, said Blackledge, which gave Amazon license to deliver prescriptions in all 50 states. Customers can add insurance information and ask their prescriber to send new or existing prescriptions directly to Amazon Pharmacy for fulfillment. Prime membership includes free, two-day delivery on Amazon Pharmacy orders. A September Cowen survey showed 42% of respondents regularly take prescription medication for an ongoing condition. Of those, 69% pick up the medication at a pharmacy, 29% receive it by mail and 13% pick up at a hospital pharmacy. Prime members were slightly less likely to use mail-order pharmacy services at 27% vs. 32% for non-Prime households.

Consumer e-commerce spending swung north after a post-election falloff, emailed Adobe Friday, analyzing more than a trillion visits to U.S. retail sites Nov. 4-10. The analytics firm reaffirmed its holiday forecast, predicting $189 billion, a 33% year-on-year increase, will be spent online Nov. 1-Dec. 31, pending another round of stimulus checks or physical store shutdowns due to COVID-19. Consumers spent $1.9 billion the day after the election, down 12% vs. the three prior days. Online spending also reached $1.9 billion on Nov. 5, a 2% dip year on year. An upward trend began Nov. 6, with spending reaching $2.1 billion, up 9% year on year, and $1.9 billion on Nov. 7, an 11% rise. Spending reached $2.5 billion, up 26%, Nov. 8, $2.4 billion, up 24%, Nov. 9, and $2.5 billion Nov. 10, up 27%. Ten days into the holiday season, $21.7 billion has been spent online, Adobe said. Despite the spending slowdown after the election, enough big shopping days remain “to make up lost ground,” said Adobe Digital Insights Director Taylor Schreiner. Though discounting began earlier this year, Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday “have great staying power and are expected to set new records, with growth in the 35 to 40 percent range," Schreiner said.

Amazon expanded in-garage delivery to 4,000 U.S. cities and launched limited in-garage delivery service through Whole Foods in five markets, it said Thursday. Amazon's Key In-Garage Delivery service went live last year (see 1904230033) in 50 cities in a partnership with the Chamberlain Group, which makes smart garage door openers. New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, Washington, Houston, Boston, Atlanta and Phoenix are among the new cities with access to the contactless delivery service. For a limited time, new Key by Amazon customers can receive $30 in Amazon credits after their first in-garage delivery. Amazon also launched Whole Foods in-garage delivery Thursday in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle, with a $20 credit for first delivery. It plans to expand the service to other U.S. cities. Key service lets eligible Prime members with a myQ-compatible smart garage door opener receive packages securely inside their garage. Customers have to first link the myQ app with the Key service, then select the “free in-garage delivery” option at Amazon.com. Customers can be notified of delivery using the Key by Amazon app or the Amazon mobile shopping app. Those with a Ring smart home camera and a Ring Protect plan ($3-$10 a month) or a LiftMaster smart garage camera with a myQ video storage subscription ($3-$10 a month) can view videos of their delivery. Drivers receive temporary, one-time access after the Amazon delivery app confirms their identity and delivery route via multistep authentication, says the Amazon website. Drivers are vetted through background checks and are instructed to go no farther than 5 feet inside a garage, it said. Amazon said it has had more than a million successful in-garage deliveries.

Amazon may have violated EU antitrust rules by distorting competition in online retail markets, the European Commission said Tuesday. It's concerned that large quantities of nonpublic seller data are being made available to employees of Amazon's retail business, allowing the data to be aggregated and used to calibrate detail offers and strategic business decisions to the detriment of rivals. The EC's preliminary view is that use of nonpublic marketplace seller data lets Amazon avoid the normal risks of retail competition and leverage its market dominance in France and Germany, the two biggest EU markets. The EC began a second investigation into business practices it said might artificially favor Amazon's own retail offers and those of sellers who use its logistics and delivery services. It's looking at whether criteria for enabling sellers to offer products to Prime users under the Prime loyalty program leads to preferential treatment of Amazon's or those sellers' retail businesses. Amazon "disagrees with the preliminary assertions of the European Commission and will continue to make every effort to ensure it has an accurate understanding of the facts, a spokesperson said. "No company cares more about small businesses or has done more to support them over the past two decades" Public Knowledge Policy Counsel Alex Petros urged U.S. policymakers to "look to the Commission as a model for aggressively working to address these serious concerns" and to create a digital regulator for oversight of platform markets. The antitrust case is "trade protectionism by another name," said Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Ryan Young. "Amazon has made retail more competitive," with third-party seller services giving smaller businesses access to a global market they didn't previously have. Meanwhile, traditional large retailers such as Walmart and grocery stores have expanded their online options to compete against Amazon, he said.

Verishop launched a social shopping app Monday, a mashup of social media and e-commerce. The fashion shopping app is opening to its community of brands and users, “allowing everyone to upload photos and videos, tag products in their content, share their curated collection boards, and follow people and brands that inspire them,” it said. Calling browsing “the new window shopping,” Verishop is adding user-generated content so people can share their ideas; a feature allowing users to follow brands and one another; a way to save and share public and private collections; profiles for users and brands; and “for you” and “following” feeds of shoppable content personalized using artificial intelligence. It offers “fast free shipping,” free returns and 24/7 customer care.