Walmart is out to improve the quality of product information available to consumers on the internet - particularly from social media sources - with a supplier data collection program that will launch later this year.

Online retailers in key African markets are stepping up efforts to prevent fraud and gain the trust of consumers in order to encourage online payments in a region where, because of the vast numbers of mobile users, the potential for e-commerce is enormous.

Despite the well-publicized slowdown in economic growth, overall consumer sentiment in China can still be described as cautiously optimistic. More precisely, caution characterizes the lower end of the consumer market, while optimism envelops the high end. China, in other words, has become a two-speed consumer market. The optimistic, "high-speed" consumer market disproportionately consists of middle- to upper-middle-class and affluent households. These consumers also make up the bulk of the digital class of active online shoppers.

Ever-rising customer-service expectations are roiling the home-delivery business. Chris Sullens, chief executive officer with Marathon Data Systems, talks about what customers want today, and how service providers are working to shrink the time between order and delivery.