Amazon.com

Hawaii lawmakers are looking for creative ways to tax online shopping, either by requiring internet sellers to hand over customer information to the government or by enrolling in a multistate program in which websites voluntarily collect taxes.

The building binge of warehouses and data centers sacrificed Amazon’s short-term profits to lift business over the long term, the company said when it released its first-quarter earnings statement.

Wal-Mart has begun testing an online grocery delivery service in San Jose, Calif., a company spokesman said. The world's biggest retailer had been rumored to be considering dipping its toe into online grocery delivery for the past few years.

Seattle-based e-commerce solution startup Decide.com has raised $6 million in venture capital courtesy of some of the top venture capital firms and angel investors throughout the Seattle and Silicon Valley areas.

Cart abandonment is a sensitive topic for almost every online retailer. Many companies and universities are conducting research on the data behind abandonment to find what ultimately causes consumers to place an item in their cart and then leave a retailer’s website before executing a purchase. Forrester Research finds that roughly 38 percent of all shopping carts are abandoned, while other data sources put that figure as high as 70 percent.

Office Depot admits it hasn't been taking care of business when it comes to its retail store customers. The big-box retail concept offering thousands of office supply products was no longer working. "Our model was broken," said Kevin Peters, head of the retail division for Boca Raton, Fla.-based Office Depot.

Best Buy said it will boost its web presence, shrink some larger stores and open more of its smaller U.S. stores to try to win back market share from the likes of Amazon and Wal-Mart.

Retail industry lobbyists in Indiana are trying to get state lawmakers to pass an online sales tax provision that they claim would result in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. The Indiana Retail Council and the Alliance for Main Street Fairness held a press conference in the Indiana Statehouse to ask for legislators’ support in requiring sites such as Amazon.com to pay sales tax.

Local retailers are heading to Beacon Hill in Boston today as part of a new fight to force e-commerce sites like Amazon, Overstock and Zappos to collect sales tax from local residents.

Facebook commerce was a big topic of discussion by attendees and speakers at the 2011 ChannelAdvisor Catalyst Conference, which took place in Durham, North Carolina this week.