eCommerce

Ottawa, Canada - The retailers who “won” during the holiday season in 2013 were those that offered meaningful discounts on a sizable number of products on Black Friday instead of discounting a small number of door crashers. According to analysis from 360pi and Retail Systems Research, poor financial performance followed those retailers who discounted during the week leading into Black Friday, and those who kept discounts in place following Cyber Monday generally fared better than those who raised prices.

New York – Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. has filed for an initial public offering (IPO) with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that media reports indicate could be worth as much as $24.3 billion, making it the biggest U.S. initial public offering ever.

According to Bloomberg, Alibaba is seeking a valuation as high as $162.7 million, in the upper end of the proposed price range and higher than that of any other public Internet company in the U.S. except Google and Facebook.

The increasingly competitive yoga apparel category just got a little more crowded. Sports Authority has launched an exclusive yoga line called Bloom, which it says it created specifically for women who enjoy being connected to the outdoors.

New York – Worthy, a secure online marketplace for pre-owned luxury goods, will be moving its global headquarters into New York City's jewelry district. The company will be moving into the 28th floor of the Fred F. French building located at 551 Fifth Avenue.

Pittsburgh - For the first time ever, the majority of consumers are visiting retail websites on smartphones and tablets rather than on traditional desktop and laptop computers. According to Branding Brand's Mobile Commerce Index report, in August 2014, mobile devices generated 51% of all online retail visits, the majority of which occurred on Apple devices.

New York -- Twitter announced on Monday that it has started testing a “buy” button embedded in posts that allow users to buy a product with a couple of clicks. The test comes at a time when competition in mobile e-commerce is growing. Facebook has been testing a “buy” button on its platform since July, and Apple is expected to debut a phone-based payment system on Tuesday as part of the newest version of its iPhone.

Twitter is taking a page from Facebook and testing its own Buy button, which will allow users of the social media platform to purchase products directly from Tweets.

According to group product manager Tarun Jain, a small percentage of U.S. users will see some Tweets from its test partners featuring the Buy button. That percentage will grow over time, depending on users’ response.

Saks Fifth Avenue is launching a new user-generated content hub on its e-commerce site. Called #SaksStyle and based on the Curalate Fanreel image integration platform, #SaksStyle allows customers to display photos from Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr in a social shopping environment.

Here are three reasons to like (and very possibly emulate) what Saks is doing with its latest social venture.