New Delhi: E -commerce companies are sparing no effort—and expense—to woo consumers to loosen their purse strings during the upcoming festival season. The biggest online retailers in India are expected to collectively spend an estimated ₹ 400 crore on advertising to promote Diwali sales, a 10% increase from that of last year, according to top media buyers.

Tech giants Microsoft, Amazon and Google are joining forces with international organisations to help identify and head off famines in developing nations using data analysis and artificial intelligence, a new initiative unveiled Sunday.

Soaps, face packs, shampoos and medicinal products made from cow urine and dung may soon be just a click away as an RSS-backed centre says it is set to sell these on e-commerce major Amazon India.

Deen Dayal Dham, a centre run by the RSS in Farah town of Mathura in Uttar Pradesh, will first put up a dozen products related to health, beauty and apparel on the website for sale, a manger at the centre said.

Amazon India’s flagship campaign ‘Apni Dukaan’, to connect with customers in the remotest parts of the country, could run into copyright issues. Pune-based businessman Ravi Jain, who registered apnidukaan.com as a domain name back in 2007, wants Amazon to stop using the campaign.

Amazon is investigating allegations that some of its staff sold confidential customer data to third-party companies particularly in China, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.

According to the newspaper, which did not give figures, employees of the online giant sell internal data and other confidential information -- usually through intermediaries -- to merchants who sell their goods on the US giant's website.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the richest person on the planet, said Thursday he was creating a philanthropic fund to help homeless families and launch preschools in low-income communities, committing an initial USD 2 billion to the cause. Bezos made the announcement on Twitter a year after asking for ideas on how he could use his personal fortune — now estimated at more than USD 160 billion — for charitable efforts.

Schools, hospitals and governments have quickly embraced Amazon.com Inc. as a go-to source for supplies, propelling the company’s three-year-old business platform into a $10 billion annual enterprise. Its success may soon provide as much revenue as the Amazon Web Services cloud-computing division and its digital-advertising services.

Amazon.com Inc. has filed for a series of trademarks that suggest the company is planning to roll out more clothing brands, part of its bid to become a bigger fashion destination. Over the past few weeks, the e-commerce giant has filed U.S. trademark applications for eight apparel lines, including ones aimed at outerwear and children’s gear.

The two big e-commerce players — Amazon and Flipkart — together are expected to clock gross merchandise value (GMV) ranging between $2.5-3 billion during the five-day festive season sale this year, RedSeer Consulting has estimated in its latest report. This is a jump of almost 67-100% in GMV against a similar period last year, when they together had clocked a GMV of $1.5 billion.

Refunds due to as many as 1,500 Amazon customers have been siphoned off by hackers, according to a legal complaint filed by the e-commerce giant. The incident came to light after the legal cell of Amazon filed a complaint in Lucknow yesterday. Based on the complaint, an FIR was lodged against unknown hackers at Vibhuti Khand police station. Notably, many customers had initially complained that refunds were not being credited to their bank accounts.

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