Skip ads and navigation
Advertising
Our network sites seattlepi.comHelp

Web bugs crash zip of online buying

Tuesday, December 21, 1999

BLOOMBERG NEWS

NEW YORK -- Holiday purchases on the Internet failed 25 percent of the time during a study by Andersen Consulting because the sites couldn't handle the orders.

A group of Andersen employees tried to order 480 gifts online from 100 Web sites between Dec. 3 and Dec. 10, and completed only 350 orders. More than a quarter of the sites crashed, were blocked or under construction, or were otherwise inaccessible, Andersen said.

Internet companies such as Amazon.com Inc. generally had better service than Web sites of traditional retailers, the study found. Order time averaged 11 minutes at Internet-only sites, compared with 14 minutes at the sites of traditional retailers. About 44 percent of the Internet-only stores could tell customers right away whether items were in stock, compared with 40 percent of traditional stores and 37 percent of catalogs with Web sites.

"The fundamental question being posed this holiday season is (whether) it's cheaper, faster and more convenient to shop online," said Robert Mann, associate partner of Andersen's supply chain practice. "The answer is that it may not be better to go to the Web -- yet."

Some analysts predict traditional retailers eventually will win the battle for shoppers because they sell established brands and can offer the advantages both of stores and Web sites.

For now, they've fallen behind. Traditional retailers were the least accurate with delivery-time estimates.

  • Shipping costs online were 22 percent higher for catalog companies than for Internet-only stores or traditional retailers.

  • Few Web sites can inform customers at the time of order when they can expect to receive the package.

  • It took an average of 15 minutes to place orders online in the morning, 13 minutes between noon and 6 p.m. and nine minutes after 6 p.m.

    © 1999 Bloomberg News Service.
    All rights reserved.

    • OUR AFFILIATES
    NWsource KOMO
    Pacific Publishing

    Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    101 Elliott Ave. W.
    Seattle, WA 98119
    (206) 448-8000

    Home Delivery: (206) 464-2121 or (800) 542-0820
    seattlepi.com serves about 1.7 million unique visitors
    and 30 million page views each month.

    Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com
    Send investigative tips to iteam@seattlepi.com
    ©1996-2008 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Terms of Use/Privacy Policy

    Hearst Newspapers