Amazon

Amazon (AMZN) has a new competitor in town—Jet.com. It opened to the public early last week. The startup was founded by Marc Lore.

In the recent past, there has been a surge in the use of e-commerce across the globe. The impact of this new form of commerce has been felt in each and every industry.

The US courier and parcel delivery services industry consists of about 7,500 companies both large and small, which have combined annual revenue of about $90 billion.

The growing preference for open-source technologies and databases plays a crucial role in Oracle’s recent struggles.

FedEx was formed with a vision to change the way delivery services worked prior to 1971. It established a new industry and it has been leading its peers since then.

US online sales increased to 7.0% in 1Q15 from 4.2% in 1Q10. More consumers are preferring to shop online, which makes online expansion vital for department stores.

The US same-day delivery market could grow from $0.10 billion in 2014 to $4.03 billion in 2018 at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 150%.

Walmart announced it was testing unlimited shipping for $50 per year, presenting significant competition to Amazon’s Prime service.

For the quarter ending in December 2014, Alibaba achieved 265 million monthly active users on its mobile commerce apps. This is a sequential growth of 22%.

Part of the reason for Alibaba’s GMV growth was the growth in its active user base. The growth was driven by an increase in active buyers throughout China.

During the fourth quarter of 2014, Eminence Capital lowered its stake in eBay (EBAY). The company accounted for 2.55% of the fund’s 4Q14 portfolio.

While Sotheby’s was facing Daniel Loeb’s activist pressure, the new management team at Christie’s was implementing a global strategy.

Swift operates a diverse fleet of 18,000 tractors, 60,000 trailers, and 8,700 intermodal containers from more than 40 terminals in the US and Mexico.

eBay’s take rate fell from 3.79% in 2Q13 to 3.53% in 2Q14. However, the company isn’t worried about it since take rate is offset by healthy revenue growth.

The main reason for Amazon’s gross margin increase was the increasing proportion of third-party sellers who sell their products on Amazon.

Cross-docking is an inventory management system. Walmart made it popular. Cross-docking can lower the time required to transport merchandise.

Staples expects to spend $1 billion up front in order to achieve $1 billion in annual synergies—usually meaning reducing workforce—beginning in year three.

Gauging a company’s debt levels is crucial to understanding its financial health. Maintaining high debt levels in uncertain times can be damaging.

To address inventory issues associated with online sales at its distribution centers, Best Buy rolled out a ship-from-store strategy.

The computing and mobile phone category is the largest of Best Buy’s revenue mix, accounting for 48% of the Domestic segment’s fiscal 2014 revenues.

As part of its turnaround strategy, Best Buy is also revamping its stores and trying to encourage more robust store traffic.

Best Buy is the leading consumer electronics retailer in the US. Today, Best Buy has more than 1,900 stores and locations.

Display advertising is a type of online advertising that appears next to content on websites, instant messaging (or IM) applications, and email.

Everything is not hunky-dory with the e-commerce business. Brick-and-mortar stores complain that being online hurts them on two fronts.

Oracle’s expanded cloud platform includes new functionality for big data analytics, integration, process management, Java Platform Standard Edition, and Node.js for server-side JavaScript.

Technology and content costs include expenses incurred on new product development, data centers, and licensing costs associated with music and videos.

Salesforce1 is a cloud-based platform that serves as a foundation for building connected apps that link to mobile devices, wearables, and big data.

Salesforce.com (CRM) has a subscription business. It collects revenue for many of its offerings and applications before services. The company reports that the “deferred revenue” is rendered from its customers. In 2011, deferred revenue formed 65% of its liquid assets. It grew to 95% in 2014.

Consumer confidence is an economic indicator. It measures how confident consumers are about the overall state of the economy. It also measures how confident people feel about their income’s stability. Their confidence impacts their economic decisions—like their spending activity.

Variety first reported that Google (GOOG)(GOOGL) reached a preliminary agreement to buy Twitch for $1 billion. Then Business Insider reported that Yahoo (YHOO) had also made an offer to buy Twitch.

Microsoft Azure might not be a leader, but it is expanding very fast in terms of applications and geography. Its hybrid cloud approach offers some hope regarding its future in the cloud space.

Google’s share in the mobile advertising market could decline from ~53% in 2012 to 47% in 2014.

Box was created due to changes in the way users store and collaborate on files.

There’s no shortage of companies offering services similar to what Box offers.

The popular Internet radio service Pandora, which revolutionized the way people listen to music, posted its highest quarterly earnings in the calendar fourth quarter 2013, since its IPO in 2011.