Google continues to be prevalent in the U.S. search market, in October it accounted for 63.1% of all searches.

Latest figures show that eBay's visitor numbers are 13.2% down in October compared to the previous year.

For the first time since the website was established in 2001, John Lewis has seen a decline in it 's online sales. The online operation saw sales drop 8.8% last week compared to the same period last year.

Despite all the gloom and doom on the high street, the outlook for online sales looks encouraging. IMRG, which represents the e-retailing industry, is predicting turnover in the last quarter of 2008 to be 15% up on the same period last year.

Despite the ongoing credit crunch, online shopping is expected to increase this year, but there is a difference between the buying habits of US consumers compared to those in the UK.

Google has abandoned its plans to move forward with Yahoo! on its proposed search advertising deal.

The holiday season may be a diificult time for traditional high street retailers but more than half (56.1%) of US online retailers expect to increase sales at least fifteen percent over last year according to a study conducted by Shopzilla for Shop.org.