Business-to-business e-commerce is on a tear and set to grow even more over the next few years. Are industrial distributors keeping pace or falling behind?

While more peak-season shopping will likely be done online this year than ever before in North America, one of the most important factors in a shopper's decision to use the web will be cost rather than speed of delivery, according to a consumer survey conducted by Canadian parcel and freight service Purolator International, along with the Stony Brook University Center for Survey Research.

Twenty years after the launch of the commercial internet, most merchants still fail to optimize the online checkout experience for the customers who visit their virtual storefronts. The result is that they stand to lose as much as 36 percent of sales due to the frictions that remain from discovery through checkout. Merchants could lose additional sales during payment processing.

Consumers find it easy to use social media for brand engagement, but that doesn't mean they are using it.

The majority of U.S. shoppers plan to do the bulk of their holiday shopping this year online. But retailers know that not all shoppers are created equal, and new research highlights some of the differences.