Online Retailers

Hardly a creature was stirring yesterday inside the snowbound L.L. Bean megastore in Marlton, where workers closed up early. But as they were locking up, the Internet servers that process orders placed on llbean.com were on fire. "We're getting slammed," Bean spokesman Rich Donaldson said. "We're setting new records [for sales] every hour. " The company's direct sales - those taken by telephone and Internet - yesterday doubled the total on the same day last year. "This could be our best week ever," Donaldson said, noting that L.L. Bean does 80 percent of its business through direct channels.

Should online retailers be required to collect state sales taxes from their customers?

Brick-and-mortar retailers won a well-deserved and long-overdue victory last week when the Senate passed a bill requiring their online counterparts to collect state sales taxes. As consumers have turned increasingly to the Web to make purchases over the last decade, conventional retailers have been put at an unfair disadvantage. They have to collect state sales taxes, while most Internet retailers don't. That hands online retailers a virtual discount equivalent to the cost of the sales tax. In New Jersey, the tax is 7 percent; in Pennsylvania, it's 6 percent.

Tired of being outsold by online retailers, earthbound merchants have convinced legislatures in five states to force Web-based sellers to collect and remit sales taxes. Twenty others are working on similar laws. Now, it's time for New Jersey to join the trend and stop forgoing hundreds of millions of dollars in Web-derived tax revenue that it can use to meet its budget while protecting local businesses. Online retailers have an unfair advantage over florists, appliance stores, clothiers, music and gift shops, and other local businesses.

DAN ROITMAN, chief executive of the Center City -based Stroll, is no fan of the Marketplace Fairness Act, the so-called Internet sales-tax bill expected to be voted on in the U.S. Senate on Monday. The legislation would empower states to reach beyond their borders and compel online marketers - like Stroll - to collect state and local sales taxes for online purchases. The sales taxes then would be sent to the state where a shopper lives. Stroll is an Internet-based marketing platform that sells audio language-learning products and had more than $80 million in revenues last year.

The most frequent complaint about the holidays? The hassles of the season sap our holiday spirits and cut into the time we can spend with friends and family. And the king of these time-intensive hassles is holiday gift shopping. This holiday season, the Internet has given weary shoppers the best gift of all - time. Not only has the sheer quantity of products available online increased, but online "stores" have also become graphically compelling, content-rich and service-oriented.

TRENTON - A sales-tax exemption measure designed to encourage major online retailers to locate in New Jersey has been introduced in the Legislature. The bill would help alleviate disparities between online retailers, who are not required to collect New Jersey's 7 percent sales tax unless they have a physical presence in the state, and bricks-and-mortar stores, according to Democrats. "My goal and the goal of legislative leadership has always been to find a way to balance the interests of the retail merchants and the Internet merchants in a way that will ensure equity and a level playing field going forward," said Assembly Majority Leader Louis D. Greenwald (D., Camden)

Even the garage is going online. Pep Boys , the Philadelphia-based car-parts retail chain, will make its whole stock of auto parts available online, direct to your home or neighborhood store, after Jan. 1, chief executive officer Michael Odell told a packed house at the Association for Corporate Growth's monthly meeting in Center City last week. "We have to have it," Odell told me. "Or else, look what happened to Borders ," the bookstore chain wiped out by online competition.

The number of people who took to their mouse before leaving the house for Black Friday shopping increased significantly this year, according to an Internet ratings service. Those shopping from a home Internet connection the Friday after Thanksgiving increased 29 percent from last year, Nielsen/Netratings, an Internet-traffic-monitoring service, said yesterday. The service recorded 17.2 million "unique visitors" at more than 100 representative online retailers Friday, compared with 13.3 million on Black Friday 2004.

Despite a holiday season dampened by a struggling economy and high unemployment, shoppers will find much to be jolly about in the ways retailers will actively court them this year. Savvy spenders can expect extended store hours, free-shipping offers, reasonable layaway programs, and revved-up online shopping sites. Retailers have good reason to spice things up for value-conscious shoppers. Although holiday retail sales for 2011 are expected to increase 2.8 percent over 2010 to $465.6 billion, according to the National Retail Federation, that growth is lower than the 5.2 percent increase last year.

Brick-and-mortar retailers won a well-deserved and long-overdue victory last week when the Senate passed a bill requiring their online counterparts to collect state sales taxes. As consumers have turned increasingly to the Web to make purchases over the last decade, conventional retailers have been put at an unfair disadvantage. They have to collect state sales taxes, while most Internet retailers don't. That hands online retailers a virtual discount equivalent to the cost of the sales tax. In New Jersey, the tax is 7 percent; in Pennsylvania, it's 6 percent.

DAN ROITMAN, chief executive of the Center City -based Stroll, is no fan of the Marketplace Fairness Act, the so-called Internet sales-tax bill expected to be voted on in the U.S. Senate on Monday. The legislation would empower states to reach beyond their borders and compel online marketers - like Stroll - to collect state and local sales taxes for online purchases. The sales taxes then would be sent to the state where a shopper lives. Stroll is an Internet-based marketing platform that sells audio language-learning products and had more than $80 million in revenues last year.

WASHINGTON - The Senate moved closer Thursday to passing a bill to tax purchases made over the Internet, but a final vote was delayed until members return from a weeklong vacation. Although opponents hope senators will hear from angry constituents over the next week, they have a steep hill to climb to defeat the bill. The Senate voted, 63-30, to end debate, setting up the final vote May 6. That vote will require only a majority, so 14 supporters would have to flip to stop it. President Obama supports the bill, but it faces an uncertain fate in the House, where some Republicans consider it a tax increase.

BEIJING - New Chinese first lady Peng Liyuan's choice of attire has sparked a flurry of excitement over an independent homegrown label, an unusual phenomenon in a country where political figures are more frumpy than fashionable and wives usually shy away from the spotlight. Images of Peng, 50, stepping off a plane in Moscow on Friday arm-in-arm with her husband, President Xi Jinping, have circulated widely on the Chinese Internet, prompting praise of her style as understated and sophisticated.

Missing couple are safe in Peru LIMA, Peru - Peru's tourism minister said Wednesday that he spoke with a young California man who has been reported missing along with his girlfriend for more than a month and that the couple were navigating an Amazon tributary headed for Ecuador. Jose Luis Silva said that when he told Garrett Hand, 25, about all the commotion he and girlfriend Jamie Neal caused by failing to notify relatives of their whereabouts, Hand was surprised and laughed, saying that everything in Peru was "fantastic.

In the Region Glaxo to team up for vaccine in India   GlaxoSmithKline P.L.C. agreed to form a joint venture in India to produce a six-in-one vaccine to immunize children in developing countries against infectious diseases. The London-based drugmaker, which has significant operations in the Philadelphia area, has agreed to form a 50-50 venture with India's Biological E Ltd. to develop a product that would combine Glaxo's injectable polio shot with a vaccine produced by Biological E that protects against five diseases, including diphtheria and tetanus.

In the rush to assign blame for the Christmas shopping frenzy that is taking hold earlier than ever - detractors assailed Target, Toys R Us, and Walmart for planned Thanksgiving openings this year - one must follow the fingertips of American shoppers. Because the bogeyman boils down to this: online, online, online . For decades, retailers made a bundle on Black Friday by packing stores with sale goods, filling Thanksgiving Day newspapers with advertisements, and reveling in revenue as customers rolled in the next day en masse.

WASHINGTON - Emboldened by rapid growth in e-commerce shipping, the cash-strapped Postal Service is moving aggressively this holiday season to start a premium service for the Internet shopper seeking the instant gratification of a store purchase: same-day package delivery. Teaming up with major retailers, the post office will begin the expedited service in San Francisco on Dec. 12 at a price similar to its competitors'. If things run smoothly, the program will quickly expand next year to other big cities such as Boston, Chicago and New York.

Should online retailers be required to collect state sales taxes from their customers?

Tired of being outsold by online retailers, earthbound merchants have convinced legislatures in five states to force Web-based sellers to collect and remit sales taxes. Twenty others are working on similar laws. Now, it's time for New Jersey to join the trend and stop forgoing hundreds of millions of dollars in Web-derived tax revenue that it can use to meet its budget while protecting local businesses. Online retailers have an unfair advantage over florists, appliance stores, clothiers, music and gift shops, and other local businesses.