The North Carolina Department of Revenue said today it is working with online retailers who operate affiliate programs in the state to resolve issues of tax liability.

The state said it will waive all back sales taxes and penalties for online retailers that sign an agreement by August 31 to start collecting sales tax.

Amazon.com reported today that its net income for the first quarter increased 68 percent to $299 million, or 66 cents per share, compared with net income of $177 million, or 41 cents per share in the first quarter of 2009.

Analysts expected earnings of 61 cents a share on revenue of $6.87 billion, according to a consensus forecasts from Thomson Reuters.

Visa said today it has agreed to buy online payment processing firm CyberSource in an effort to strengthen its ecommerce business.

Visa said it will pay $26 a share or about $2 billion for CyberSource. The deal is expected to close in Visa’s fiscal fourth quarter. The transaction will dilute Visa’s earning for that quarter by about 4 or 5 cents a share.

MasterCard Worldwide said today is has entered into a three- year exclusive alliance with ecommerce aggregator Next Jump to launch the MasterCard MarketPlace.

MasterCard MarketPlace offers access to hundred of merchant -funded discounts and special deals each day from a network of thousands of merchants across the U.S.

Special offers from the MasterCard MarketPlace include free shipping from a network of participating merchants across a wide variety of categories including apparel, jewelry, electronics and children’s clothing.

The significance of longtail keywords can be exemplified by thinking about the following two people:

Volusion, a provider of online shopping cart software for businesses recently introduced its newest credit card fraud protection service, Fraud Score.

Volusion spoke with WebProNews about Fraud Score and how it works to protect online merchants of any size from fraudulent transactions.

Customer satisfaction with ecommerce websites has rebounded a year after experiencing its first decline since 2004, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).

The e-commerce sector gained 1.8% to 81.4 on ACSI’s 100-point scale, nearly matching its all-time high of 81.6 set in 2007.

eBay is starting a new series of events to help small businesses and part-time eBay sellers "accelerate their businesses" on eBay, which has 90 million active users. The series is called eBay: On Location, and has dates set for Atlanta, Dallas, Chicago, and San Jose.

Nearly a quarter (23%) of consumers plan to shop online for Valentine’s Day gifts, with nine percent reporting they will spend more money online for gifts compared to last year, according to a new survey by eBillme and Javelin Strategy & Research.

Javelin surveyed 1,200 consumers to measure projected online spending for the quarter and found consumers plan to spend an average of $236 online which is in line with spending levels from Q1 2009.

Nearly a quarter (23%) of consumers plan to shop online for Valentine’s Day gifts, with nine percent reporting they will spend more money online for gifts compared to last year, according to a new survey by eBillme and Javelin Strategy & Research.

Javelin surveyed 1,200 consumers to measure projected online spending for the quarter and found consumers plan to spend an average of $236 online which is in line with spending levels from Q1 2009.

Nearly a quarter (23%) of consumers plan to shop online for Valentine’s Day gifts, with nine percent reporting they will spend more money online for gifts compared to last year, according to a new survey by eBillme and Javelin Strategy & Research.

Javelin surveyed 1,200 consumers to measure projected online spending for the quarter and found consumers plan to spend an average of $236 online which is in line with spending levels from Q1 2009.

Nearly a quarter (23%) of consumers plan to shop online for Valentine’s Day gifts, with nine percent reporting they will spend more money online for gifts compared to last year, according to a new survey by eBillme and Javelin Strategy & Research.

Javelin surveyed 1,200 consumers to measure projected online spending for the quarter and found consumers plan to spend an average of $236 online which is in line with spending levels from Q1 2009.

Time Inc. said today it has purchased personal shopping engine StyleFeeder in an effort to expand its ecommerce presence.

StyleFeeder will become part of Time’s InStyle family of brands and its ecommerce technology will power shopping on InStyle.com. Financial details of the acquisition were not released.

Procter & Gamble said today it would begin piloting an online store this month in an effort to improve brand loyalty and sales.

P&G has tapped ecommerce firm PFSweb to manage the online shopping site called the "eStore." P&G said PFSweb will own and operate the eStore and exclusively feature P&G products to consumers in the U.S. The eStore is set to launch this spring, following a pilot of the site with 5,000 consumers that will begin in the coming weeks.

Online holiday spending during 2009 reached $29.1 billion, representing a four percent increase over the same period last year, according to a new report from comScore.

"The 2009 online holiday shopping season was a positive one as its growth rate slightly surpassed our forecast and returned to solidly positive rates after nearly a full year of marginally negative growth," said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni.

If any of your Christmas presents were a bit odd-looking or seemed like impulse buys, it might be because the gift giver did his or her shopping using a small, accessible screen.  eBay reported today that mobile transactions picked up dramatically this holiday season compared to last.

Update: Google has now introduced a gadget wizard for the Store Gadget. The company says:

Today, we’re excited to introduce a new feature for the store gadget: a wizard that streamlines the store creation process. By automating the manual steps in the original instruction guide, the new store gadget wizard should leave you with even more time to focus on your business.

Online holiday spending reached $19.9 billion in the first 41 days of the shopping season, marking a 3 percent increase over the same time period last year, according to the latest report from comScore.

The most recent week saw above average online spending growth of 4 percent versus a year ago, two days shattered the $800 million mark in spending, led by Thursday, December 10, with $852 million.

Google has launched a new product that online retailers may find incredibly useful for improving the product search on their site, and potentially increasing sales and reducing bounce rates. It’s called simply Google Commerce Search. Think Google Site Search, specifically tailored to e-commerce and product sites. Google couldn’t have timed such a release any better with the holiday shopping season arriving. 

As you may know, Black Friday is a pretty popular day for online shopping as well as offline. With that in mind, it is no surprise that a lot of people turned to eBay to find deals and work on their holiday gift buying.

It’s no secret that the economy hasn’t been good this year, but today’s Cyber Monday, and if you’re planning on doing some shopping online, Google wants to help.  Individuals who pay for things using Google Checkout may be able to save as much as $20 per purchase thanks to a new promotion.

A post on the Official Google Blog urged readers this morning to "save with exclusive discounts of $5, $10 or $20 at hundreds of participating stores, including TigerDirect.com, BlueNile.com and Petco.com."