eBay Inc. is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that allows users to buy or view items via retail sales through online marketplaces and websites in 190 markets worldwide. Sales occur either via online auctions or "buy it now" instant sales, and the company charges commissions to sellers upon sales. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in September 1995. It has 132 million yearly active buyers worldwide and handled $73 billion in transactions in 2023, 48% of which was in the United States. In 2023, the company had a take rate of 13.81%.
PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers; it serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods such as checks and money orders. The company operates as a payment processor for online vendors, auction sites and many other commercial users, for which it charges a fee.
United Parcel Service, Inc. (UPS) is an American multinational shipping & receiving and supply chain management company founded in 1907. Originally known as the American Messenger Company specializing in telegraphs, UPS has expanded to become a Fortune 500 company and one of the world's largest shipping couriers. UPS today is primarily known for its ground shipping services as well as the UPS Store, a retail chain which assists UPS shipments and provides tools for small businesses. UPS offers air shipping on an overnight or two-day basis and delivers to post office boxes through UPS Mail Innovations and UPS SurePost, two services that pass on packages to the United States Postal Service for last-mile delivery.
Package delivery or parcel delivery is the delivery of shipping containers, parcels, or high-value mail as single shipments. The service is provided by most postal systems, express mail, private courier companies, and less-than-truckload shipping carriers. Package delivery is different in each country, and how packages are delivered is closely connected with the cost for delivering to that country as well as population. In 2019, China, The United States, and Japan were the leaders in package delivery while Latvia, Macau, and Iceland were the bottom three. The population of the bottom three barely totals 2 million while the population of the top three tops totals more than 2 billion. Package delivery is an every day occurrence in the US while many other countries do not have this luxury.
Iceland Foods Limited, trading as Iceland, is a British supermarket chain headquartered in Deeside, Wales. It mainly sells frozen foods, including prepared meals and vegetables, alongside non-frozen grocery items such as produce, meat, dairy and dry goods. The company also operates a chain of shops called The Food Warehouse.
Costco Wholesale Corporation is an American multinational corporation which operates a chain of membership-only big-box warehouse club retail stores. As of 2021, Costco is the third-largest retailer in the world and is the world's largest retailer of choice and prime beef, organic foods, rotisserie chicken, and wine as of 2016. Costco is ranked #11 on the Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. Costco uses a club warehouse wholesale retailer channel of distribution while also selling their private label brand directly to consumers.
The UPS Store is a franchised subsidiary of United Parcel Service which provides, according to its website, shipping, shredding, printing, fax, passport photos, personal and business mailboxes, and notary services.
Online shopping is a form of electronic commerce which allows consumers to directly buy goods or services from a seller over the Internet using a web browser or a mobile app. Consumers find a product of interest by visiting the website of the retailer directly or by searching among alternative vendors using a shopping search engine, which displays the same product's availability and pricing at different e-retailers. As of 2020, customers can shop online using a range of different computers and devices, including desktop computers, laptops, tablet computers and smartphones.
Drop shipping is a form of retail business in which the seller accepts customer orders without keeping stock on hand. Instead, in a form of supply chain management, the seller transfers the orders and their shipment details either to the manufacturer, a wholesaler, another retailer, or a fulfillment house, which then ships the goods directly to the customer.
Sephora is a French multinational retailer of personal care and beauty products, offering nearly 340 brands alongside its own private label, the Sephora Collection. Its product range includes cosmetics, skincare, fragrance, nail color, beauty tools, body products, and hair care items.
A duty-free shop or store is a retail outlet whose goods are exempt from the payment of certain local or national taxes and duties, on the requirement that the goods will be sold to travelers who will take them out of the country, who will then pay duties and taxes in their destination country. Which products can be sold duty-free vary by jurisdiction, as well as how they can be sold, and the process of calculating the duty or refunding the duty component.
Brick and mortar is an organization or business with a physical presence in a building or other structure. The term brick-and-mortar business is often used to refer to a company that possesses or leases retail shops, factory production facilities, or warehouses for its operations. More specifically, in the jargon of e-commerce businesses in the 2000s, brick-and-mortar businesses are companies that have a physical presence and offer face-to-face customer experiences.
Shoppers Food & Pharmacy, also known as Shoppers Food Warehouse, is a chain of 22 supermarkets located in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., metropolitan areas. Shoppers has fresh produce, Swift Angus beef, Smithfield natural pork, all-natural chicken, Dietz & Watson delis, fresh seafood, steamed shrimp, as well as hot food bars.
In retail, a product return is the process of a customer taking previously purchased merchandise back to the retailer, and in turn receiving a refund in the original form of payment, exchange.
Shopify Inc., stylized as shopify, is a Canadian multinational e-commerce company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario. Shopify is the name of its proprietary e-commerce platform for online stores and retail POS (point-of-sale) systems. The platform offers retailers a suite of services, including payments, marketing, shipping and customer engagement tools.
Package forwarding, also called parcel forwarding, is an international shipping service offered by shipping companies to international online shoppers who want to do cross-border online shopping. Package forwarding is becoming more and more popular among international shoppers because of the high growth rate of e-commerce websites and shipping limitations of most such websites. Package forwarding service is provided by package forwarders to make cross-border shopping convenient and easy, getting rid of the problems in payment and shipping. A package forwarding service is different from mail forwarding. Mail forwarding refers to the mail in traditional meaning, or magazines or papers that are normally called mail, while package forwarding refers to online purchases or orders that are shipped within a bag or a box.
Doorman was a privately held American technology company specializing in logistics services and products. The company managed and operated fulfillment centers and independent driver fleets in densely-populated urban areas, addressing the last mile gap between online retailers and their customers. It also developed, marketed and operated the Doorman mobile app, which allowed consumers to use their iOS or Android-based smartphone to schedule evening delivery of goods purchased online, or arrange pick up of goods intended to be shipped back to an online retailer.
Affirm Holdings, Inc. is an American technology company offering financial services to shoppers and merchants. Founded in 2012 by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, it is the largest U.S. based buy now, pay later lender. As of 2024, Affirm reports nearly 19.5 million users, processing $26.6 billion in payments annually.
Coupang, Inc. is a US-based e-commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington and incorporated under the Delaware General Corporation Law. Founded in 2010 by Bom Kim, the company sells apparel, electronics, toys, food products and other products marketed in South Korea.
A package redirection scam is a form of e-commerce fraud, where a malicious actor manipulates a shipping label, to trick the mail carrier into delivering the package to the wrong address. This is usually done through product returns to make the merchant believe that they mishandled the return package, and thus provide a refund without the item being returned. It can also be done by the seller, generally by creating fraudulent online stores or creating fake listings on sites such as eBay or Mercari. This makes it very hard to perform a chargeback, as the tracking shows the item has been delivered. This is also known as an FTID scam, standing for Fake Tracking ID. When this scam is successful, the tracking number will show that the package has been delivered to the correct address, when the package was instead delivered to a different address. This package is generally empty or filled with garbage. However, this scam has mostly been “patched” via new technology provided by the various couriers globally. It is estimated the scam cost retailers £18,000,000,000 in lost revenue.
