Shares of online retailer eBay Corp. (EBAY) traded sharply higher in after-hours trading following a stronger-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter earnings report this afternoon.

The company reported earnings of 52 cents per share, beating the 47 cents that analysts had been expecting to see. During the same period last year the company had earnings of 44 cents.

Over the past week, people in the Northeast have been dealing with the after math of the blizzard that struck over the holiday weekend, but even worse hit are retailers that lost out on huge post-Christmas holiday shopping as people were forced to stay at home.

While it is impossible to put an exact number on just how much retailers lost out on, ShopperTrak, who tracks sales and customer traffic at over 70,000 stores and malls, estimated that retailers lost around $1 billion during the blizzard.

Shares of e-commerce giant Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) are trading lower in after hours trading despite posting better than expected earnings this afternoon for its fourth quarter.

Going into this afternoon's earnings release, analysts were expecting to see Amazon show earnings of 72 cents per share, on revenues of $9.04 billion in revenues.

Today was an odd day considering that the bond traders were out and banks were closed for Columbus Day. There were gains most of the day ahead of earnings season, but we came down substantially off the highs. It still feels like the DJIA will crack 10,000, but the trading is getting choppy as we enter what may be the biggest earnings season in a couple years for growth investors.

Here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 9,885.80 +20.86 (0.21%)
S&P 500 1,076.18 +4.69 (0.44%)
Nasdaq 2,139.14 -0.14 (-0.01%)

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Online retailer Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) is due to report its second quarter earnings Thursday following the market close, and investors are hoping for a repeat performance of the company's strong first quarter results.

Analysts are expecting the company to report earnings of 31 cents per share. Ironically, when the company was due to report earnings for its first quarter, analysts were also looking for 31 cents per share, but Amazon was able to easily beat out those estimates by posting 41 cents a share for the first quarter.

Want to stock up on Hershey's tasty treats? Get in while the getting is good.

Stating that its "current business model is not sustainable," Hershey Co. (NYSE: HSY) is closing its online store -- HerseysGifts.com -- as of July 31. After that, consumers with a sweet tooth for products such as chocolate-covered Macadamia nuts or a five-bound Hershey bar will have to visit local stores. Products can be customized for special occasions and run from $10 to $150.

Cloud computing is a type of on-demand hosting services on the internet. Not only a necessity for mainstream e-commerce sites, it also increases efficiency, is scalable, and lowers expenses. The monetary savings may be misleading to consumers and businesses who do not fully understand the potential risks involved.

With a pay-as-you-go type structure, users are only charged for the amount of traffic, bandwidth, and memory used. Online businesses become more efficient by only utilizing the storage and space needed, while also being assured capacity for any usage increases. The buzz has been building for years, so cloud computing has attracted a diverse customer base, ranging from popular social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, to educational websites of Arizona State and Northwestern University.

Shares of the popular internet auction site eBay, Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) are moving strongly higher today following its first quarter earnings numbers that came in well above analyst estimates.

As we discussed in our earnings preview, we knew that it was going to be a tough quarter for the company, which had sales drop in the face of declining consumer sales. Despite this, the company was able to post first quarter earnings of 39 cents per share, which is handily above the 32 cents per share that analysts were expecting to see. It earned 42 cents per share during the same period last year.

Online auction giant eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) is going to be reporting its first quarter earnings today following the market close, and analysts are looking to see the company show 33 cents per share for the quarter.

eBay has been working hard to weather the current economic storm, but has a lot of work ahead of it.

With all the gloom in the global economy, I got to wondering whether there is anything else going on in the world of business. I'm looking for growth because I think that's what will ultimately bring the economy out of the doldrums. Not surprisingly, that growth is coming from technology companies. In Growth Matters, I look at consumer technology companies that point the way to growth trends -- and in the process introduce services and products you may want to explore.

I was surprised to learn that the world's second largest e-commerce company, behind Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), is Germany's Otto Group. I interviewed Thomas Voigt, Vice President Corporate Communications for the Otto Group, who said, "The Otto Group companies focused on multichannel sales at an early stage and added E-Commerce to their traditional mail-order operations, in order to plan for the future."

Shares of online auction giant eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) have dropped sharply today, pushing the stock down to lows not hit in seven years.

The stock, which has dropped over 20% so far this year, is down 8% on the day to $10.54. One of the big reasons why the site has been struggling has been the lack of confidence among buyers stemming from rampart counterfeiting that has been taking place on the site.

We all know that the current economic slowdown was bound to hurt holiday spending, and today we get news of just how much an impact it had on online shopping, as comScore announced that shoppers spent 3% less this year compared with 2007.

The report was based on spending between November 1 and December 23, and showed that consumers spent $25.5 billion online, compared with $26.3 billion in the same period last year, another clear signal that people are cutting their spending because they are worried about the economy.

A bright spot in the report did show that Cyber Monday, the Monday immediately following Black Friday, was the second biggest day ever for online spending, with an increase of 15% in sales from last year, to $846 million in sales.

While most retailers were looking at dismal holiday shopping seasons this year, online retailer Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced that it had its best holiday season in history.

Early indications are showing that retail sales figures could be down as much as 5.5 to 8% during this year, as rising unemployment and general concern over the economy has led to most consumers tightening up their spending this year.

Amazon, which has probably actually been benefiting from the current economic slowdown, saw massive sales on December 15, which is typically the company's strongest day of the year. This year it saw sales of 6.3 million and shipments of 5.6 million units on the 15th, its strongest day in history.

While this is a week when many of us are celebrating and enjoying some much needed time with friends and family, things are not looking so cheerful over at eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) as slow sales and low traffic are hurting sales on the popular online auction site (subscription required).

This is the first holiday season for the company under its new CEO, John Donahoe, and things are definitely not looking too jolly. According to research firm comScore Inc., the site has been losing a lot of valuable traffic to its competitors, such as Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) that have more fixed-price products for consumers to purchase, an area where eBay is still lagging.

For the period of November 3 through December 14, a time when many of us were busy spending hours online researching those perfect presents to hand out this holiday, eBay was just not getting the hits that it usually does, and traffic was down by 16% from the same period last year. In contrast, Amazon was enjoying a modest increase in traffic of 6% during the same time frame.

The week got off to a shaky start in the wake of several earnings disappointments, thus a lot of attention will be paid to Amazon (NASDQ: AMZN) when it reports its second quarter numbers this afternoon after the market closes.

Analysts are looking to see Amazon show earnings of 26 cents per share, and revenue of $3.96 billion. The last time that the company reported earnings was April 23, when be itat analysts' estimates by 2 pennies, with a reported 34 cents per share for its first quarter.

It has definitely been a tough couple of months for retailers, but we could see some strength in Amazon as a result of changes it made during the quarter which allows users to shop the store from their cell phones via its new service TextBuyIt.