PayPal Australia, a leading global online payment service, today launched a new partner programme to reward partners for doing business with PayPal. For the first time, partners that integrate PayPal within their e-commerce and web solutions can qualify for member, gold or platinum partner status to receive special benefits and financial incentives, which vary by tier.
The new partner programme supports partners that offer PayPal-enabled solutions via revenue-share opportunities, referral incentives and a certification programme. Partners can also access the latest PayPal marketing, product and educational resources via the new PayPal …

Overnight Amazon has announced it’s acquisition of Zappos for around US$920m in stock.  Zappos has built a legendary reputation around customer service and open communication, which is at odds to Amazon’s communication strategy.
The post by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh is here. In a letter to employees he writes:
We plan to continue to run Zappos the way we have always run Zappos — continuing to do what we believe is best for our brand, our culture, and our business. From a practical point of view, it will be as if …

Intabill customers appear to have been thrown a lifeline from an unknown payment provider, Payovation.
A recent post on the WebHostingTalk forums includes a letter from the CEO of Payovation, who managed to aquire the assets of Intabill just before it entered administration.
July 10, 2009
Dear Merchant,
You may have recently read or heard that Intabill has entered into voluntary liquidation or administration.
I am pleased to inform you that on July 7 2009, prior to Intabill entering into administration, Payovation purchased all core Intellectual Property from Intabill, allowing for a smooth and seamless …

Patrick Stafford from  Smart Company has reported on eBay Australia’s latest announcement to increase the exposure of “buy it now” listings on ebay.com.au.
From 10 September all store listings will have increased exposure as they will appear within the main eBay search results.  This will provide sellers with increased exposure on search results pages, however eBay is also introducing monthly store fees, ranging from $19.95 to $499 per month.
eBay Australia managing director Deborah Sharkey said that 50 per cent of eBay’s global sales were now fixed price and that, in the …

IT News and eCommerce Report have reported on the launch of the Australian PayPal developer program.  It’s the first market outside of the United States to be included in the developer program.
The program includes free technical tools and resources, PayPal developer certification and  developer days to be held in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth later this month.
Spiro Rokos, PayPal’s senior manager of technical engineering, said it would help Australians tap into revenue opportunities.

MIS reports today that the Colorado group is preparing to take the plunge into online retailing again after suspending it’s ecommerce operations a few years ago.
The company upgraded it’s 500 stores to a wide-area network to assist with real-time information transfer between stores.
“Not a week goes by without us receiving emails from people asking when they will be able to buy from us online, so we are very keen to get back into the space,” Ms Ryan, Colorado Group’s chief information officer said.
Read the full article at MIS Australia

Yesterday, Google Australia announced an enhancement that allows Aussies to search for properties on Google Maps.
On the surface, the site looks great with a number of listings for various real estate agents and portals, however upon closer inspection there are a couple of noticeable omissions from the listings, namely the two gorillas of online real estate,  realestate.com.au and domain.com.au.
Patrick Stafford from SmartCompany spoke with former chief executive of REA Group, Simon Baker who views Google Maps as a competitor but not a major threat:

A growing number of Australians are going online to compare before they buy as Australia’s leading comparison shopping website, www.getprice.com.au reports its biggest month to date.
Reporting a massive 2.7 million people shopping for the month of June, getprice.com.au has seen an increase of traffic of more than 500% to the site from June 2008.
“As one of Australia’s fastest growing websites, we are seeing a huge increase in consumers coming to us to make their money go further,” said getprice.com.au Chief Executive, Chris Hitchen.
“Knowledge is power when making purchase decisions and …