Amazon expanded its Amazon Home Services offering, bringing the number of markets it serves to 15, it said in a Wednesday news release. Joining Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Seattle are Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Miami, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, San Jose and Washington, D.C. Customers can shop for custom and pre-packaged services through the Amazon marketplace. With custom services, consumers create free requests by describing the service they need using text and photos and submitting the request to get estimates from local professionals. Home entertainment installations fall into the custom category, while TV wall mounting falls into the pre-packed service category, Amazon said. Customers are 11 times more likely to leave reviews on verified service purchases than on products, Amazon said, saying the number of new applications from service pros quadrupled in the past three months.

Sony’s 2013 HTCT260H soundbar with wireless subwoofer was an Amazon Deal of the Day Monday. The $299 300-watt system, with Bluetooth and NFC (near field communications), was sliced by 43 percent to $169.

Worldwide online retail sales are expected to reach $1.7 trillion this year, up 17 percent from 2014, a report released Tuesday by Juniper Research said. The growth can be attributed, in part, to social media companies acting as direct sales platforms and using strategic retailer partnerships, the report said. The research also predicted that by 2020, smartphones will account for more than 40 percent of all global online retail transactions.

Amazon Prime, the membership program that will reward subscribers Wednesday with “more deals than Black Friday,” has 44 million U.S. members, who spend an average $1,200 annually, said Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) in a news release Tuesday. Non-Prime members spend roughly $700 per year, said the research firm. Some 47 percent of Amazon customers are Prime members, it said. U.S. Amazon Prime membership has more than doubled since CIRP first started measuring it in 2012, said CIRP Partner Josh Lowitz. Amazon adds millions of 30-day free trial members during the holiday shopping period, he said. The conversion rate from 30-day members remained steady at about 70 percent through the most recent quarter ended June, said CIRP, while 95 percent of Amazon Prime members renewed a paid membership after one year. Amazon’s efforts to make Prime membership more valuable with “enhanced video and music offerings” and additional shipping benefits “appears to have paid off,” it said. CIRP findings were based on surveys of 500 U.S. subjects who made a purchase at Amazon.com from April-June.

The American Booksellers Association (ABA) and a trio of authors’ advocacy groups urged the DoJ Antitrust Division Monday to investigate Amazon on antitrust grounds, saying in separate letters that the online retailer is abusing its position within the industry. Authors United urged DoJ to launch an investigation of Amazon’s “abuse of its dominance in the world of books,” claiming that Amazon has negatively impacted the U.S. book industry. The ABA sent a separate letter to DoJ in support of the Authors United letter, and said in a news release that the antitrust investigation request also has support from the Authors Guild and the Association of Authors’ Representatives. The Authors Guild said it plans to also send a letter to the DoJ. Amazon didn’t comment.

Amazon is celebrating its 20-year anniversary next week with a mid-summer sale day for Prime members. The company has lofty goals for the single-day event, which it said will offer “more deals than Black Friday,” considered the biggest shopping day of the year. Amazon is extending Prime Day beyond the U.S. also to include members in Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Spain and the U.K. The discounting event brings awareness to a traditionally slow shopping season and is a way for the retailer to push the Prime program, a $99-per-year membership that includes free two-day shipping -- and free same-day shipping in certain markets. Non-Prime members can sign up for a 30-day free trial of the service and participate in Prime Day deals, Amazon said. On July 15, new and existing Prime members in the U.S. can begin shopping deals at midnight and new deals will begin “as often as every 10 minutes,” said Amazon. Discounts will span categories including electronics, toys, movies, clothing, patio, lawn and garden, sports and outdoor items, it said. Amazon also pushed Prime Photos, a recently added cloud-storage feature. Amazon invited members to experience Prime Photos and enter a contest to win a $10,000 gift card in Prime-eligible countries. Entrants submit photos showing “happy moments” of experiences they’ve enjoyed due to saving time on Prime shipping between July 6 and July 15 at the contest page: amazon.com/primeliving. Photos will be selected and featured daily on Amazon’s social media channels leading up to Prime Day, Amazon said. One winner will be selected in each country based on the image that most creatively captures a happy moment of #PrimeLiving, it said. Winners will also be invited to have their photos become screen savers on Amazon Fire TV, it said.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office wrote eBay and PayPal Tuesday about the companies' amended user agreements and their potential to allow "robo-messaging." The letters point to particular sections of the updated agreements that Schneiderman's office said allow PayPal and eBay to contact "customers using 'autodialed or prerecorded calls and text messages' for a wide range of purposes, including to 'collect a debt, poll opinions through surveys or questionnaires' and 'contact [users] with offers and promotions.'" The FCC sent its own letter to PayPal Thursday, saying it's "concerned that these amendments [to the user agreements] may violate federal laws governing the use of autodialed, prerecorded, and artificial voice calls, including text messages." The FCC also repeated its rules for collecting written consent from customers before beginning robocalls, and warned that the current language of the user agreement might violate regulations. The commission said it prohibits a company from "requiring a consumer to consent to receive autodialed or prerecorded telemarketing or advertising calls as a condition of purchasing any property, good, or service, and the company must give consumers notice of their right to refuse to give such consent." Schneiderman's office requested answers to questions in its letters to both companies be submitted by June 19. "We have received a letter from the FCC and the New York State Attorney General's office, and look forward to responding," a PayPal spokesperson said Thursday. "We strive to be as clear as possible with our customers and clarified our policies and practices las[t] week on the PayPal blog. Our customers can choose not to receive autodialed or prerecorded message calls."

Amazon is opening a fourth Texas fulfillment center, in Dallas, to join centers in Coppell, Haslet and Schertz, it said Tuesday. The 500,000-square-foot facility will create “hundreds of new full-time jobs,” said Amazon, and will process smaller items including books, electronics and consumer goods. Amazon, which has created over 3,500 full-time jobs and invested more than $400 million in Texas, said it continues to expand operations to meet customer demand there.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed the True Origin of Digital Goods Act into law Thursday, said a news release from the Republican's office. The legislation requires online retailers whose primary business is distributing commercial music and movies to provide their contact information on the site so consumers know who they are and how to contact the website owners, said a Thursday RIAA news release.

Amazon Prime has 41 million U.S. customers, about 42 percent of Amazon shoppers, who spend $1,100 on average annually with the retailer, said a Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) report. That compares with non-Amazon Prime members who spend about $700 per year at Amazon, said CIRP. Some 34 percent of Amazon’s U.S. customers own a Kindle device, and 5 percent own a Fire TV box or stick, while less than 1 percent of Amazon customers own an Amazon Fire smartphone or Echo, said CIRP. Amazon Prime subscriber numbers held steady in March, said Josh Lowitz, CIRP partner. The incoming class of Amazon Prime members who joined in the 2014 holiday quarter included an “unsurprising percentage of shoppers that did not continue their membership following their 30-day free trial,” said Lowitz.