Four out of five consumers who purchased goods on line experienced at least one failed purchase attempt. What's more, 28% of all attempted purchases failed, according to The Boston Consulting Group's latest e-commerce study, Winning the On-line Consumer: Insights Into On-line Consumer Behavior.

But there's more: Twenty-eight percent of consumers who encountered a failed purchase attempt stopped shopping on line, while 23% stopped purchases at the site in question. But here's the clincher, 6% of the shoppers stopped patronizing the e-tailer's physical store as well.

 Although the numbers don't sound too forgiving, here's some insight about what caused the inconveniences. Most of the failures resulted from technical problems with the sites, difficulties finding certain products and logistical and delivery problems. However, consumers who had a satisfying purchase on line are more likely to spend more time and money on line. Satisfied first-time purchasers will engage in 12 transactions worth $500, compared to a dissatisfied first-time customer, who will spend only $140 in four transactions.

Other key findings of the study include:

• More than 57% of Internet users have shopped for goods on line, while 51% have purchased goods or services on line.
• The average consumer completed 10 transactions and spent $460 on line over the past year.
• More than 80% of Internet users logged on for communication purposes, while 2% specifically went on line to shop.

Internet retailers recorded sales of $5.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 1999, according to the Commerce Department's first ever e-sales report. Impressive as that sounds, the number represents a mere 0.64% of overall retail sales of $821.8 billion. The data is based on roughly 1,200 companies that conduct business on line, including department stores, apparel stores and grocery stores. However, the numbers do not include revenue from on-line travel services, financial services or ticket sales for entertainment.

In related e-commerce news, U.S. consumers spent roughly $2.8 billion on line during January, according to the National Retail Federation and Forrester Research's On-line Retail Index. Books, music, videos and software accounted for $653.6 million (23.3%) of the purchases. The combined air, hotel and car rental business booked on line in January equaled $582.8 million (21%) of all on-line purchases in January.  

Transforming Tomorrow

Here are ten of the top 20 Office “Inspirational Posters” May they provide food for thought that will hopefully bring a smile to your face:

1. Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings. They did it by killing all those who opposed them.
2. If you can stay calm, while all around you is chaos . . . then you probably haven't completely understood the seriousness of the situation.
3. Doing a job RIGHT the first time gets the job done. Doing the job WRONG fourteen times gives you job security.
4. Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
5. Artificial Intelligence is no match for Natural Stupidity.
6. A person who smiles in the face of adversity probably has a scapegoat.
7. Plagiarism saves time.
8. If at first you don't succeed, try management.
9. Never put off until tomorrow what you can avoid altogether.
10. TEAMWORK . . .means never having to take all the blame yourself.

Published: April 7, 2000

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