DHL Express has published research highlighting growth opportunity for retailers and manufacturers with an international online product offering. The report, "The 21st Century Spice Trade: A Guide to the Cross-Border E-Commerce Opportunity," looks at the markets and products that offer the highest growth potential, the motivations and preferences of customers making international online purchases and the success factors for online retailers that wish to expand overseas.

United Parcel Service Inc.'s holiday-season scorecard is out, and for the third year in four it reads e-commerce: 1, company: 0.

What to say? As corporate chieftains prepare for a round of no doubt excruciatingly painful fourth-quarter conference calls with Wall Street, they find themselves on unusually uncertain ground.

The growth of e-commerce is putting enormous new demands on U.S. highways, airports and other infrastructure, which must be modernized with sustainable funding, FedEx Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Frederick Smith said.

In a move similar to UPS and its access point location program launched two years ago, FedEx has struck a deal with Walgreens that will place staffed parcel pickup and drop-off operations at local Walgreens stores.