Business, Financial & Legal - Page 303

comScore have just released their U.S. online holiday spending numbers for the season to-date, where it has been revealed that consumers continued to spend online in record amounts. In just 39 days of the November to December 2011 holiday season, $24.6 billion was spent online, which is a 15-percent increase compared to the same time last year.

The week ending December 9 reached $5.9 billion in spending, up 15-percent with 3 days surpassing $1 billion in spending. For this holiday season, six individual days have surpassed $1 billion in spending, which for an economy in tatters, is quite the achievement. Cyber Monday leads this with $1.25 billion in sales, as well as Monday, December 5, which now ranks as the second heaviest spending day in history at $1.18 billion.

One of the driving forces behind this new found love for online retail shopping is the use of coupons and deals as well as the increased amount of free shipping offers from retailers. Smartphones and tablets have also helped, with more and more people using price comparison apps, both making purchases from the comfort of their own homes, or inside retail stores. E-commerce companies have noticed this trend and are now offering strong incentives to use and buy through mobile apps.

You may think theres some form of trickery to my title there, but there is not. Quite simply put, Amazing are offering consumers up to $5 off on purchases if they are to compare prices using Amazon's mobile phone application in-store.

The promotion is for one day only, this Saturday, and is a sneaky way of Amazon to increase the usage of its bar-code-scanning application, while also collecting intel on prices in the stores. Mobile commerce is a booming market right now, with more and more customers more than happy to use applications on their smartphones to either shop, or compare prices not just at home, but at work, in the shop itself, or while in the toilet.

Thanksgiving and Black Friday sales were enormous, and I'm sure Amazon want a repeat of that success when Santa comes visiting in a few weeks. Amazon's Price Check app is available on both the Apple App Store and the Android Market, the app allows shoppers to scan a bar code, take a picture of an item or conduct a text search to find the lowest prices.

Apple and Samsung have butted heads once again, but this time, on U.S. soil. More precisely, a San Jose, Ca. court at the end of last week. In April of this year, Apple sued Samsung for "copying the look and feel" of its iPhone and iPad in its Galaxy range of phones and tablets.

Apple then expanded the suit to include another 13 models, such as the Galaxy Tab 10.1, Nexus S and Droid Charge. The full trial is set to go ahead on July 30, 2012, but Apple were pushing for a temporary sales injunction on the contested Samsung devices in the U.S. as that date arrived. It seems Apple are scared of Samsung, and so they should be.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh refused Apple's request, stating it was an "extraordinary remedy." She was unconvinced that Apple would suffer irreparable harm should Samsung continue to sell their devices pending the court case, where she continued:

It looks like Apple retail stores are in for some competition from the fun-sounding creation from Google and Telstra: Androidland. Androidland was unveiled at Telstra's retail outlet in Bourke St, Melbourne, where its based in the 154 square metre space which brings together interactive technology, games and on-site experts to explain the features of Google's Android OS.

Executive Director of Telstra Mobile, Warwick Bray, said that its the first time a mobile carrier had teamed up with Google to create an Android-dedicated retail presence. He added:

Google is reportedly shopping around with multiple retailers and shipping couriers in an effort to create a service that would compete with Amazon's Prime one-day shipping option. Google could even offer same-day delivery on certain items, which would actually be better than Amazon's offering.

The way it differs to Amazon, is Google's service would not have them selling items directly to the customer, but rather allow them to handle the delivery process through deals and companies such as UPS and local couriers. When a customer is checking out at a particular retailer, Google's system would kick in and offer expedited delivery services.

Google, according to sources, have pitched the idea to Macy's, Gap and OfficeMax, but none of the aforementioned companies would comment on the story. Amazon Prime launched in the US in 2005, with a flat fee of $79 per year, subscribers could opt for free two-day shipping for $3.99 overnight shipping on millions of items sold on their site.

Super Mario 3D Land hit the Nintendo 3DS and store shelves on November 11, and has since become the fastest-selling Mario game in Nintendo's history by selling more than 500,000 copies since launch.

Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword which was released on the Nintendo Wii on November 20 has sold 535,000 copies, which makes it the fastest-selling Zelda game ever. Black Friday is filled with wonderful things, even with the way the world's economies are right now.

The two releases also spiked Nintendo 3DS and Wii systems, with the 3DS sales tripled (by 325-percent) compared with sales the week of November 6th, the week before Super Mario 3D Land launched out of its green pipe. The week of its debut, however, sales rose 49-percent from the previous week.

Well, this certainly is something to be careful of! Thailand has warned Facebook users that they could face some serious jail time for charges of lese-majeste, or insults to the kind, queen, heir or regent.

Thailand's Information and Communication Technology Minster, Anudith Nakornthap, says that even though Facebook clicks of 'like' or 'share' are only done to show support for messages, they could actually violate laws that carry sentences of between 3 and 15 years for each charge.

Wow.

Over 1000 workers based in Shenzhen, China have gone on strike against their employer Jingmo Electronics Corporation (JEC), which supplies goods for companies such as Apple and IBM.

According to China Labor Watch (CLW), a New York-based watchdog for labor rights in China, and an advocate of ethical consumerism, "the motivation behind the strike was the factory's decision to make workers work nightly overtime."

CLW adds that the workers had been asked to work from 6pm to midnight and sometimes even up to 2am on top of the usual four to four and half day shifts from 7am to 11:30 or 1pm to 5pm. CLW adds "commonly worked anywhere from 100 to 200 hours of overtime a month," but the factory actually refused to let them put the hours in at the weekend because under Chinese labor law JEC would have had to double their wages.

Thanksgiving is a great time for not just consumers, but retailers. IBM reported that online Thanksgiving 2011 sales were up over 39-percent from last Thanksgiving, with mobile shopping on the rise. eBay and PayPal are seeing similar things, with PayPal Mobile announcing a 511-percent increase in global mobile payment volume when compared with the 2010 Thanksgiving.

On Thanksgiving in the U.S., consumers shopping through mobile via PayPal most frequently between 6pm and 7pm PST. Compared to the rest of the world where consumers shopped on mobile most frequently between 1pm and 2pm PST. There was more than a 350-percent increase in the number of global customers shopping through PayPal mobile on Thanksgiving compared to last year. These shoppers were mostly located in New York, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago.

eBay says that U.S.-based shoppers bought and spent more than double versus last Thanksgiving. GSI Commerce noticed a 345-percent increase in U.S. mobile sales compared to last Thanksgiving. And Searches through the local product listings platform Milo had an incredible 557-percent increase over Thanksgiving 2010.

This is some good news for those who are based in Europe, your ISP cannot be forced to monitor or block you from using the Web. A European court has ruled that record labels and film studios can't use the courts to instruct your broadband ISP to track or try to block you.

The European Court of Justice ruled: