Some of the biggest names in online sales found themselves looking to new avenues in 2007.

Companies such as Dell, Google and Amazon launched new services and experimented with new ways of making money.

Dell, long known for its exclusive direct-sales model, underwent a transformation in 2007 after seeing its position among consumers slip and its lead in PC sales fall to rival HP.

The firm launched a major campaign, striking sales deals with Wal-Mart in May, Carphone Warehouse in July and Carrefour in November.

Google, meanwhile, the undisputed online advertising champion, demonstrated its ambitions to grow beyond the internet. The company expanded its ad sales campaigns to television, radio and newspapers.

Online retailers also expanded their horizons this year. Amazon launched an online music store offering DRM-free music downloads, and received a boost in September when NBC dumped Apple's iTunes for Amazon's Unbox video service.

But many vendors endured rough patches this year. Yahoo drew the wrath of online retailers in November when its e-commerce service went down on the busiest shopping day of the year.

The largest e-commerce headache, however, was experienced by retail corporation TK Maxx which fell victim to a huge data theft that claimed an estimated 94 million customers.

The fallout from the incident ended up costing the company an estimated $128m in losses and settlements.