Purchases made online from desktop computers during November and December totaled $56.4 billion -- up 6 percent over the previous holiday season, comScore said in a news release Friday. Total holiday digital spend reached $69.1 billion -- a 13 percent growth from 2014 -- and mobile commerce was 18 percent of total holiday digital commerce, said comScore. "I believe that we've seen a paradigm shift in 2016 where the future of retail will increasingly be defined by consumers' behavior on mobile," said Gian Fulgoni, comScore chairman emeritus.

A “record number” of holiday shipments, “fueled largely by the steady rise of e-commerce, are flowing through the FedEx global networks,” Chairman Fred Smith said on a Wednesday earnings call. Just this past Monday, FedEx picked up more than 26 million packages globally, Smith said. “It's no secret that e-commerce is changing the dynamics of the transportation industry and driving remarkable growth.” Due to the rise of e-commerce, on its “busiest days” this holiday selling season, FedEx on average is doing “approximately double” the volume it did eight years ago, said Mike Glenn, CEO of FedEx Services. A “big part” of e-commerce is “handling returns,” Smith said in Q&A. “So some years ago, as we saw the market evolving, we decided it would be a very, very good thing for us to have a supply chain capability to offer a broader portfolio of value-added services to our e-commerce customers, because this was a huge part of the marketplace,” Smith said. “It wasn't just planning on how to get it to the end customer, but how to efficiently process the returns and merchandise.”

Neiman Marcus Group’s CEO apologized for the “continuous” e-commerce website outages the company had throughout the Thanksgiving weekend, starting with Black Friday. “No one wanted you to be able to shop on neimanmarcus.com more than we did,” CEO Karen Katz emailed customers Wednesday: “We pride ourselves on delivering outstanding service to you, whether on our websites or in our stores.” As a make-good, Katz said, Neiman Marcus was offering $50 discounts off a $200 regular-price online purchase all day Wednesday.

An annual effort to stop websites from illegally selling counterfeit products continues to grow, said an Immigration and Customs Enforcement announcement. Along with law enforcement agencies in 27 countries, ICE's Homeland Security Investigations unit shut down 37,479 websites that sold counterfeit merchandise online, up from the 29,684 seized domain names last year, the agency said Monday. The National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center, a U.S. interagency collaboration led by HSI, joined with Europol and Interpol for the operation, called In-Our-Sites VI. "Over the past year, and leading up to Cyber Monday, the IPR Center and its partners used both criminal and civil actions to successfully seize domain names," said ICE. This was the sixth year the anti-counterfeiting website operation.

With the holiday selling season fast approaching, retailers are “thinking through every element” of their e-commerce plans to “significantly boost sales during the busiest shopping time of the year,” Jason Miller, Akamai chief strategist-commerce, said Friday in a blog post. The quality of the “user experience” is one of the "biggest drivers" of online sales, so retailers should place “increased emphasis” to bolster several key “customer touchpoints” during the holiday rush “to ensure positive brand interactions that convert browsing into sales,” Miller said. For example, Akamai research has found that more than half of consumers expect a Web page to load in three seconds, or less, he said. “So if your page does not, shoppers will most likely use the back button and visit your competitors,” he said. “Getting content close to users and caching content to avoid round trips to origin servers will increase performance.” Said Miller: “The importance of exceptional user experience across all channels cannot be undervalued. The reason many consumers decide to research and shop online as opposed to going to a store is convenience and simplicity. If customers find that a site is not easy, they'll find another resource.” Retailers that make the e-commerce effort to “consistently delight their customers” will be well “on their way to driving impressive results this holiday season,” Miller said.

Amazon lowered the entry point for top-brand tablets Thursday amid preseason retail jockeying for consumers’ dollars. In a buy-five-get-one-free deal, Amazon is offering a “six-pack” of Fire tablets for $250 using the code “Cases6pack.” Starting price for the Fire is $49 for a 7-inch, 8 GB version with a microSD slot for expanded storage. The company launched three more tablets this year -- the Fire HD 8 ($149), Fire HD 10 ($229) and Fire Kids Edition ($99, including two-year guarantee) -- while keeping the Fire HD 6 ($99) from last year. In the Fire TV line, Amazon introduced three devices, all with Alexa voice integration. The 4K Ultra HD Fire TV is said to be 75 percent more powerful than the previous version while coming in at $99. Fire TV Stick with Voice Remote ($39) adds voice search, and Fire TV Gaming Edition bundles Fire TV, a game controller, 32 GB microSD card and Shovel Knight and DuckTales games for $139, Amazon said. The company gave its Alexa digital assistant more smarts, it said, with support for shared Google calendars, integration of additional connected home devices from SmartThings and Insteon and the ability to read out NCAA football scores and schedules, Amazon said. For Q3, Amazon’s net sales grew 23 percent to $25.4 billion, up from $20.6 billion in the year-ago quarter, the company said. Operating income was $406 million in Q3, compared with an operating loss of $544 million in Q3 2014. The company had a profit of $79 million versus a $437 million loss in the year-ago quarter, it said. For Q4, Amazon forecasts sales of $33.5 billion to $36.75 billion, with growth of 14 to 25 percent.

Lionsgate has begun accepting bitcoins as payment for DVDs and Blu-rays at its LionsgateShop.com online store, the studio said in a Tuesday announcement. Lionsgate has partnered with the GoCoin digital payment processing company to accept bitcoins via the site, it said. “Our acceptance of bitcoins at our online Company shop reflects our commitment to offer greater choice, convenience and accessibility to our next generation consumers,” said Lionsgate Vice Chairman Michael Burns in the release.

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba will spend $4.6 billion to buy 19.99 percent of Suning, one of the largest CE chains in China, the companies said Monday in a joint announcement. Their “new alliance brings forth a new commerce model that fully integrates online and offline” sales, they said. Through their collaboration, Alibaba and Suning “will be able to provide holistic and more convenient shopping experiences, as well as superior customer service to users looking to purchase online and through mobile devices,” they said. The deal includes plans for Suning to open a “flagship store” for CE goods and home appliances on Alibaba’s Tmall.com platform, they said. Alibaba also will benefit from the deal by tapping into Suning’s vast logistical and supply chain network with coverage in 90 percent of China, they said.

Amazon added Amazon Acoustics as a perk for Prime customers. At no additional cost, Prime members in the U.S. can stream the 30 original recordings available in Amazon Acoustics on Prime Music, which is accessible to Prime members on Fire devices, Amazon Echo, and other mobile devices with the Amazon music app. The collection is a mix of established and up-and-coming artists, said Amazon. For a limited time, all Amazon customers will be able to listen to a selection of the songs on Amazon Acoustics, while they shop, via a pop-out player placed at the top of every Amazon page, said the e-tailer. Prime members can listen to the entire collection as part of their membership, it said.

Amazon was “thrilled with the results of Prime Day,” Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky said on the company’s earnings call Thursday, referring to its Black Friday-like sales event earlier this month (see 1507060032) to build the ranks of $99-per-year Prime members. Prime Day “surpassed all of our expectations” by “any metric,” said Olsavsky, saying customers saved “millions” and Amazon signed new Prime members “in higher rates than we’ve ever seen.” Olsavsky didn’t say how many of those who signed up canceled memberships after scoring Prime Day deals. In Q&A, Olsavsky said Prime Instant Video customers look like “normal Prime customers” but have a higher pickup in retention rates and free trial conversions. “So we're very happy with the linkage between our digital offerings in the Prime customer base,” said Olsavsky. On Prime Day, customers “bought more devices than on any other day,” he said, saying it was a “bigger day than Black Friday” for Amazon, with orders up 266 percent year over year. He said worldwide Fulfillment by Amazon unit growth approached 300 percent, “so not only was it a great day for Amazon, it was also a great day for our sellers.” Olsavsky didn’t break out the impact of Prime Day but said it was incorporated into Amazon’s Q3 sales guidance of $23.3 billion to $25.5 billion, which would be 13-24 percent growth over Q3 2014. Amazon shares closed 9.8 percent higher Friday at $529.42. Wedbush Securities expects Prime Day and Amazon Web Services profitability to drive Q3 results “to at least the high-end of the guided ranges,” said analyst Michael Pachter. Amazon's Q2 sales grew 20 percent $23.18 billion, it said. “Unexpected profits well above the high end of guidance and consensus clearly reflect the tremendous leverage in Amazon's model,” Pachter said. Olsavsky cited investments Amazon has in place to bolster the Prime platform including Amazon Originals video content, Prime Music and Prime Now. On the device side, he called out the latest Kindle Paperwhite, Fire TV and Echo as Prime drivers.