Online shopping

Employees of Snapdeal, an Indian online retailer, sort out delivery packages inside their company fulfillment center in Mumbai on October 22, 2014.

Order a phone, get a bar of soap — online shopping in India has some big growing pains

Business

More and more Indians are turning to online retailing sites to find big deals and do their holiday shopping. But despite big customer numbers and growing investment, there are still huge problems with the industry as it gets off the ground.

Retailers turning to product give-aways to lure shoppers to their websites

Small Retailers Push Back on Proposed Online Sales Tax

Why Brits Aren’t Especially Bothered About Going Over the Fiscal Cliff

Global Politics

Chinese Consumers Willing to Pay More for American-Made Goods

Online Retailers Battle to Avoid Sales Tax

The online retailer Amazon is getting into the ballot initiative business. The company is  pushing for a referendum in California that would eliminate sales tax for online retailers that have a limited physical presence in the state. What are the stakes for Amazon?   And what do retailers that compete against Amazon – like Walmart and Target, […]

The World

Black Friday: super shoppers and super cynics

or the past two years, the economic downturn has hurt Black Friday sales. We’re checking in with a few of our listeners to see whether they’re super shoppers or shopping cynics.

The World

Store shelves empty? Blame shrinking cargo space

Fighting for freight space is leading retailers to pay two to three times last year’s rates. What does this mean for consumers? For the answer to that question, we speak with Louise Story, reporter for our partner The New York Times.

The World

Dark days for retailers

For retailers November and December were grim, but they’re likely to look like the good old days compared with the post-holiday months. New York Times reporter Stephanie Rosenbloom joins us with analysis of the alarming facts and figures on retail sales.

The World

New lead testing law angers small manufacturers, retailers

Environment

A controversial new consumer product law regarding led and goods aimed at children goes into effect on February 10. Small business owners worry that the law, which is meant to protect children, will actually put them out of business.