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Study Says 25% of Online Transactions Go Wrong
TheKodiak writes "According to this article in the Dallas Morning News, a study by Andersen Consulting, one fourth of all online transactions fail..." The story's a little vague; at one point it claims 25% of all online purchases have some sort of problem, at another it says, "More than 25 percent of the [tested] sites were blocked, crashed during the transaction or under construction." Maybe it's best that you read and intepret this for yourself. It left me puzzled.
lots of times I have something go wrong, but another click and it works fine. Only once that I can remember did I get a site that was just completly screwed up.
First post?
greetings
Cyberstar
It looked to me like they were counting the broken sites on the list of screwed up transactions. Personally, i only count it as fucked if they bill me too much, or too little, or send me the wrong item, or no item at all...that sort of thing.
Just my take.
Damn first posters. read the freakin' article. *sigh*
-Andy Martin
-Andy Martin
If y'all don't like me, blow me.
Most of the problems listed in the article have NOTHING to do with the websites, but mostly with the delivery; things being smashed, late, etc.
As for things being late...wouldn't that be EXPECTED around the holidays? Even Xmas cards can take weeks!
It will be interesting to see which sites were "tested" and exactly what problems occured...like if they counted user problems, like information not being correctly entered
-growing old is inevitable, growing up is optional
Anyone who says that one fourth of all online transactions fail is an uber gutten.
Why was the sample size so low?
Over how many weeks did they check each site?
Did they exclude error factors like their own LAN?
I think AC just wanted those results for some purpose and just made the study to make them.
No doubt a few
I've been doing online purchasing since 1997 and had about a 75% success rate. The problems ranged from getting the wrong product shipped torunning out of stock. The understocking was unique to their web site because they didn't update the database.
If anybody remembers, one of the leading advocates of Internet taxation is none other than Dallas's own Mayor Ron Kirk. I wonder if there is any connection to this article's production and good ole Ron himself.
I'd say most of the problems these sites are having are because the owners simply weren't prepared for the onslaught of the buying season.
The surveyors particularly said that Amazon had a good business model that should be emulated. Now, while this is likely to flood the courts with more patent disputes, this just means that Amazon has more experience with the heavy customer load of Christmas
"The answer is it may not be better to go to the Web . . . yet."
The yet is the important part. E-commerce is still new, and the bugs are being worked out.
I only take a drink on two occasions - when I'm thirsty and when I'm not.
I only take a drink on two occasions - when I'm thirsty and when I'm not.
Brendan Behan
What sort of a problem are you having with chroot?
Michael Gentili
- He's just some guy, you know?
The real problem with online shopping is all the middlemen that have inserted themselves into the clickstream between buyer and vendor to skim the top off e-commerce. Claiming to provide valuable services for the vendors, such as demographics, fancy web design, and first choice on the broker-owned portal search engine (for an extra fee), all they really provide is poor quality web forms, out of date listings, and lost orders.
I as a client don't need any of the services they are providing to the vendor. In fact, I may even object to the fact that they are collecting demographics and I certainly object to the way that various portals reorder their search results according to the vendors they have on special that day (AltaVista and Yahoo are both guilty here -- I use only Google now).
I don't live in the US, and I have been faced with stupid web forms put up by these para-sites that let you choose any country from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, and then require a State and 5 digit zip code (postal codes in Japan are 7 digits, and there are no States) or they'll refuse to process your order (* required field).
These sites are often out of date. This has bitten me twice this year, once severely (a hotel refused to honor a reservation because the price on the agent's web page was out of date). And I had a toy company email me 3 days after I submitted a form to tell me they were out of stock.
Another hotel never got my reservation (the agent was supposed to FAX it to them!).
I have no sympathy for vendors that can't write their own web pages. Only a year or two ago, before all these portal sites crawled out of the ether, buying on-line was just like the normal mail-order catalog model of buying. Now it's a maze of bad code and bad service, and I for one now refuse to shop at any company that can't take the time to update their own web pages, and I don't use portal sites that get paid to order their search results.
From my perspective as a purchaser, the hit rate, whilst not 100%, is not low enough to stop me buying online, and is certainly not 25%.
From my perspective working for a financial organization doing E-Commerce, the failure rate I see is very small fraction of the figure quoted.
DWR is Ajax for Java
I've been buying stuff online for the past few years. I've ordered over 70 DVD movies (from dvdexpress.com), and not one screw up. I've ordered from amazon.com (notice the past tense...bastards), with no problems ever......cdnow no problems.....I've even ordered from shady looking places without any screw-ups. Only once, about a year ago, I ordered a wall scroll from anime nation and they sent the wrong one, I emailed them, and they sent the right one and let me keep the other one as well! Have I just been lucky? Or are these people just going to the wrong sites. I don't count server errors as a screw up, because then the order is not really placed, and it's not always their fault. that's my 2 cents.
geek77
If what you say is true..... then I still don't care.
Out of the 600$ I have spent so far in online purchases, the only one that went wrong was a 15$ Bjork import CD from Amazon.com a few months ago. It was undeliverable because they couldn't acquire the import from Sweden. Doh! If that is part of the 25% that go bad then it's a bit understandable I guess.
Read this one carefully. The headline states that 25% of online transactions go bad, but the study doesn't show anything like that. The study shows that if you take 100 eCommerce sites (at random?), you'll have problems with a lot of them.
No surprise there, but 80-90% of online transactions probably occur at the top 50 or so sites right now. The fact that some random retailer's site still says "Under construction" doesn't mean that lots of people are getting failed transactions, it means that their online dollar is going elsewhere until that vendor get its act together.
They're ignoring delivery issues, so it looks like the main thing they're pointing out is that lots of retail outlets don't really have professional web sites yet. This is news?
Order a book from fatbrain. Now try to order a book from www.somerandomcompany.com. Did one fail? Does that mean that 50% of online transactions fail?
Personally, the fact that ridiculously conceived studies like this actually make news really annoys me.
Many of the same things can go wrong with the orders there and yet I'd bet that nobody would think to somehow "blame" the telephone. Because there is a computer involved this becomes news.
I personally have ordered many goods and services over the internet both from the UK where I live and the USA and have never had any serious problems at all. On a related topic I use a new internet bank and I have had a few problems with their systems. When I've contacted them they have all been sorted out efficiently though. The real issue is how many online 'transactions' fail and can't easily be resolved.
Sig is taking a break!
..is in order on the part of the consumer. We all know going to the mall this week is paramount to suicide. Why would ordering things via the internet be any different? Do consumers -really- expect to be able to get their CoolNewToy via USPS Next Day Air?
Sure, a few problems crop up during the order process, but any store that's got its act together will tell you -at order time- that there's a problem. At the -very- least, I've seen them send out one of those confirmation emails that say 'We're out of stock, sorry!' or somesuch.
Just my opinion, but people that order things (even if they're listed as 'in stock') anytime this week, and expect to get it, need to be cleansed from the gene pool.
I want a rock.
My friend at Anderson Consulting makes money for his employers setting up internet shopping sites. I think this might just be a well crafted piece of marketing. I do not reflect on the accuracy of the study, merely the conclusions drawn.
Rupert.
I didn't spend the time to read the article but I can say that, for me, over 25% of online transactions have gone wrong. Poor interface or poor software on the venders end usually seems to be the problem. The problems I'm speaking about are with accually getting the transaction submitted. For instance, after filling out the web forms and pressing the submit button, a page is returned filled with MS SQL server errors. If I can get the sytem to accept the transaction, I normally don't have any problems.
I would take anything Andersen Consulting says with a HUGE grain of salt. In my experience they're just a bunch of money-grubbing halfwits. This article in particular (wrt to Amazon.com references) appears to have the editorial integrity Mindcraft. The whole story is likely: Using an Amazon.com-supplied list of known problem vendors, we found out that 25% of them had problems processing an order.
:)
In any case, my results with on-line purchases have been excellent.
The ones I've used are:
http://www.buy.com/ Plextor 40x scsi-2 cdrom drive - excellent deal - around half the price of my local Fry's Electronics, AMAZING cd-rom drive, too. The first time my g/f saw it ripping a track in cdparanoia, she thought it was broken because there were no -'s on the progress meter (which indicate jitter correction - most drives need it, this one doesn't)
http://www.celestialseasonings.com/ tea! for the varieties my local grocery stores don't stock.
http://www.paragoncomp.com/ FIC PA-2011 motherboard which no one else had in stock at the time. Still happily running my k6/200
http://www.vitalinx.com/ Hauppauge WinTV 401 - great price - also when everyone else didn't have it in stock. Works great w/ the XawTV and the drivers at its site. lircd makes the remote useful, too.
Apropos the big scuzzy about Amazon lately, this seemd to be a rather amusing remark:
Andersen did not list any problem Web retailers, but the consulting company did highlight Amazon.com as a company that others should imitate.
Read this comment carefully.
The headline states that twenty-five percent of online transactions go bad, but the study doesn't show anything like that.
The study shows that when you gather 100 eCommerce sites (at random?), you'll have complications with many of them.
That is no surprise, but around 80-90% of current online transactions probably occur at the top 50 or so sites at this moment.
The fact that some random retailer's site still says "Not Exactly Finished" doesn't mean that a whole bunch of people are getting failed transactions. It means that their online dollar is going somewhere else until that vendor get its act together, or what have you.
Furthermore, they're ignoring delivery issues, so it appears the main thing they're pointing out is that lots of retail outlets don't exactly have super-duper-professional web sites yet. This is not news.
Order a nice, juicy book from fatbrain.
Now try to order a book from www.somerandomcompany.com. Did one fail? Does that mean that 50% of online transactions fail?
Personally, the fact that hare-brained studies like this actually make news really annoys me.
What exactly is a gameboy computer game? There's gameboy and there's computers. I see no mutant gameboy-computer hybrid on the horizon or anywhere else, for that matter.
I hope this doesn't spread, or my parents will start saying, "You spend too much time on that gameboy." That would just be annoying. So please, join me in writing the author of that article with a demand that she complete the sixth grade or higher before she continues to write her little news--oh, it's The Dallas Morning News. Nevermind about the whole letter thing then;
they don't teach sixth grade in Dallas.
It's all Bcos once money's all paid online shops care the hell whether the stuff gets to the right door the right way (75 % !!) or not (25% ??). Some kinda arrangement gotta exist so that these shops do not get to cash the full price before the ordered stuff reaches safely. Also the OutaStok issue needs atten. Some current online count in server database need to exist so that the non-existant stuff does not get sold off.
Anyone else here ever ordered from Kozmo.com?
:)
I have an absolute 100% success rate.
I hit the site, they deliver the goods within an hour, if they don't they come back with it! that simple! same thing with WebVan.com If you don't get it during delivery, you don't pay for it or they can bring it later on.
Chances are the 25% number comes from Newbies and massive stores like Amazon and B&N and all.
Anyone know where I can order Maudite or Chimay online?
I must say, this really makes me wonder, because I have been shopping online for more tha a year (I would guess that i have bought more than 25 items online) and I have NEVER had an experience where i received the wrong goods, or anything like this (thats not entirely true, i've had one incident, but the vendor was not to blame, the problems there were caused entirely by the shipping company, and in fact, the vendor was extremely fast to remedy the situation)
And, I have bought not only from major vendors, but from all kinds, both in the US, UK, Germany, Denmark and the far east.
So, all in all, no bad experiences for me, and a 100% succes ratio.
I usually email them about this, and I usually get a reply saying "We know there's a world outside the U.S., honest! In fact, we know all about the Global Economy and will be shipping internationally in just x weeks!".
But I wasn't complaining that they weren't prepared to do business with me. I was complaining that they didn't say so in bigass blinking neon letters at the top of the order form!
Hopefully I've learned by now to check first, but sometimes that isn't even possible due to the way some sites split up their order forms.
Another thing: Why does the typical order form have separate fields for "Address 1", "Address 2", "Address 3", "City", "State/Region", "ZIP/Postal Code", and "Country"? Why can't it just give me a text box labelled "mailing address"? The people who wrote the software that will feed this information to the printer have no idea how to format a mailing address in my country. My country doesn't have states, it is a state, and we don't divide it into regions. So what am I supposed to put in that field? I try to leave it empty, but often the scripts will complain and I'll have to put "N/A", which the scripts will proceed to print on my package between the city and country lines.
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
yeah yeah - with all the 'new media' outlets and the old media scrapping for market share of eyeballs they are really cranking up the bullcrap factor - just like the number of dead in Venezuala, just pick a number bigger than your competing network ("50,000 dead" - now that ought to sell papers and get the ratings back up, jeez) and hang onto your liability disclaimer ("this news report is for entertainment purposes only, we are not responsible for the accuracy of any content, we're just passing on whatever juicy gossip we hear").
I've been making deals over the Internet for about 2 years and maybe I'm just careful but of all the eBay stuff (a Bandai FriskyTom! Gimme gimme!!) and cheapbyte CD's and about 10 books from Book Exchange and deal arranged on mailing lists - maybe *2* have gone wrong: one was an Error 404 on tigerdirect.com last xmas trying to buy a Lego Mindstorm (ok, so just drive the 5 miles to ToysR'us) and once a guys sent me the wrong signal generator - that's IT. I'm actually amazed at the integrity of the people I've delt with considering the opportunity for wire fraud.
Boojum
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I did about 90% of my christmas shopping online this year. From site amazon.com to the obscure paragongifts.com. The only bad experience was when I ordered a book from bn.com then realized it was backordered. I had a little trouble canceling it, but nonetheless it was canceled by the next day. I didn't get a tracking number from all the vendors, but the ones I did get, the shipping companies gave pretty good timeframes for shipping. I really don't see where AC gets all their 'statistics' and after the cnn article and this back to back, I think we need to urge the media to be more responsible, if you don't understand it, don't try to report on it. Mabye they can all learn a little fron Jane's.
Moderators: what's up? The post was both ontopic and funny, not a troll. Looks like AC discrimination at work again.
I wonder how many of the sites that have problems use NT? Several weeks ago, I read an article about how ToysRus was having problems and had to limit the number of users on their site at any given time. Guess what OS....yep NT.
Andersen comments:
All you AC people out there (the newbiees that is). Your getting screwed. AC is charging you out at > $250/hour and you're getting shit. Don't buy into their "AC is family" bullshit and get out while the getting is good. AC will suck you dry.
And to all the companies that are using AC....suckers you are getting screwed. Andersen misrepresents its consultants as experienced when the most experience they have is through training at the boot camp in St. Charles IL.
I personally have worked with Anderson Consulting on several occassions, and I have to say that my experiences are not good.
They somehow manage to get contracts in many fields, including technology, but are rarely skilled in those areas (even the people who work specifically in technology).
Granted, they are normally smart people, but you can't commission people to do work on the premise that they will pick it up as they go along, they should know the stuff at the start, this is apparently why large corporations pay around $2000 a day for anything over a junior consultant.
In a similar way, can we really listen to their reports on eCommerce? Surprising isn't it that 25% of transactions fail!? If I was sceptical I would say that this is very similar to the tried and tested Anderson trick of convincing people that something is wrong when it isn't really, and then also managing to persuade people to pay them to write a full report on the subject, and then pay them more to fix it. I myself buy all books online, electronic products, flights, etc and have never had a problem. Maybe Anderson thought that a representative sample might contain several jackassforless.com sites run by 1 person out to make a quick buck, but then, do they really know any better?
With all these problems in the world of eCommerce its refreshing to know that we have AC getting to the root of the problem - I bet they are just the people the fix it for us.
Compare that to, say, Victoria's Secret where I was also shopping. When I selected the detail for items, not only did it say "This item will ship on XX date", if the item was out, it offered recommendations for similar items. I was quite impressed with that engine. Of course, after I ordered something I got a card in the mail saying "This item cannot be shipped on the expected date." D'oh. (But it still showed up!)
I ordered something from thinkgeek once pretty much as it was being slashdotted. Right at the final click to submit my order the site seemed to go down. What to do, what to do? You never resubmit, everybody knows that. Don't wanna get charged twice! So, I let the first one stand and then emailed them the timestamp (roughly) and what I'd ordered as a way of alerting them to my dilemma. I didn't hear back via email, but my package did arrive within a few days (if anything, it was even earlier than I would have expected). So whatever they're doing over there, it's pretty robust in my eyes.
d
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
It seems to me that the real villan of this story is not Anderson Consulting but rather the reporter who gulped the story down like Gerber Sugarplum baby food and spit it up all over an unsuspecting public.
...and they call it news...
Absolute Michigan
It might have been a failed transaction for Hello Direct, but I found what I needed. So it wasn't a failed purchase for me.
OK, this is just stupid. I'm a little touchy about these studies, because I build e-commerce networks for money. I also ordered all of my christmas presents and shipped them on-line this year, and constantly buy everything I can over the Internet.
... in fact, I have bought more faulty hardware from a physical store than I have from online merchants. Previous posters are likely correct ... FUD for e-business managers, and a way to generate more consulting hours for Anderson.
This Christmas season, I did all my shopping last week. All of my items were delivered, on time. I got confirmation e-mails when my order was processed, and when it was shipped. (Granted, with overnight shipping, some sites didn't inform me of shipping status until the product was already there, but I won't bitch about that.) Staples managed to send me 2 of an item I ordered, but took care of it in a prompt, professional manner.
All of the web sites I ordered off of told me whether or not an item I was looking at was in stock. None of them didn't know what was in stock or took a week to find out what was in stock. Maybe that's the way it works on www.shadyecommerce.com, but I experienced no such problems.
Granted, there are glitches. I have been double-billed, both by catalogs and web sites. The only difference between the two is that on a web site, a polite email gets my card reimbursed, and I never have to wait on hold for someone.
I have had items destroyed in shipping, (a copy of freeBSD, in fact) and a polite email was enough to insure that the replacement was delivered overnight.
I have had items run out of stock. I knew the next day, and had no problem modifying my order.
If that record, over 3 years of impulsive internet shopping, turns into a 25% failure rate, than Anderson counts differently than me. Anderson seems to forget that catalog orders and in-store purchases fail too
good. fast. cheap. (pick any two, you can't have all three)
i've made between 200-300 purchases online this year and the only one that went awry was my purchase of Solaris 8 from Sun / Modusmedia.
(i didn't appreciate having my CC info redirected from a secure link to an non-secure link)
thor
listen to WBER online
Did it ever occur to anyone that it seems like at least 25% of all web sites are under construction? If so then probably about 25% of all sites with e-commerce would be under construction and therefore qualify as having bad transactions.
Also did the sites actually crash during the transaction? It seems much more likely that either the browser or OS crashed. (especially if they're running IE on Windoze)
Then, there was Fox Store's hiccup. They had all their Doctor Who and Blackadder videos marked at around $1.50 each, by accident. This is certainly a transaction gone wrong, from Fox' perspective, but hardly from mine. My perspective said that this was one of the best transactions I've ever done online!
So, the question should be passed back to this study - from who's perspective? Without that, the study is meaningless, even if the figures have any validity in the first place.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Out of about 100 online puchases I have made only once there was a problem. The data I sent was submitted twice. Within an hour I had email from both the bank and the supplier asking if I indeed intended to order the report twice.
I'd wager the real problem with the study was the luser sitting in front of the screen clicking madly on anything that might be a clickable target, especially "Reload" and "Stop"
Case in point - I wanted a Leatherman Wave. So i went out to their web site, dealt with their annoying Javascript mess, and found a list of URLs to various web shops that sell it. I must have gone through about a half dozen before finally hitting one that didn't suck.
Lots of them refused to deal with me because I had Javascript or cookies turned off. I say "screw you, those aren't strictly necessary" - the proof is that I was able to order it from a more clueful place without changing my precious settings.
There seems to be a high correlation between lameass "JS and/or cookies required" sites and various evil empire web servers. No matter - my money is obviously not good enough for them. I'll back the guys who let me browse on my own terms.
Andersen Consulting just started a major advertising drive to get themselves into the ecommerce consulting business. There's been full page color Wall St Joural ads recently, for example. Creating FUDlike noise about the current state of ecommerce is just part of their advertising campaingn. And as others have noted they are not worth the money. They hire non-technical college grads and teach them software in 3 week crash courses that are half party. Pretty typical American business practice though - all marketing and no substance.
This article is nothing but an attemt at marketing the "new philosophy" at Andersen Consulting. (You see, there is a reason I'm posting this as "Anonymous Coward") Ever since the managing partner George Shaheen left to CEO Webvan, the new leadership has been trying to re-invent itself as an 'e-commerce' consulting firm. If you look at the AC website, you'll get an overview of 'what e-commerce means' to the AC higher-ups. This attempt to transform the company is reaching down to the lower (analyst) levels as well, as a new training program is being implemented. Most of this sounds well and good in theory, but is remarkably dangerous to any firm trying to get on to the web for a couple of reasons: 1) The AC philosophy is to hire cheap labor (i.e. those liberal arts majors who have never even *touched* a computer, much less learned to program). This cheap labor is put through exceptionally shoddy training (i.e. "learn to program in 21 days" type of stuff) and then forced into the real world to apply those skills. I've seen so many bad practices, and shoddy programming being excused as "it's OK if it works". Without skilled employees, the company relies on the occasional skilled person to provide creativity and direction. 2) With a small handful of people driving the creative process, AC tends to arrive at "the solution". Clients sign on thinking that AC is generating unique, creative solutions to thier particular situation. The truth is, the "solution" arrived at on another client site is often repeated verbatim. (Measure twice, cut once, then paste, paste, paste). 3) The partnership of AC consists soley of old accountants. 'E-business" (and yours) is simply another cash cow for exploitation. The partnership has been pretty blunt about this. To these '25%' looking to improve your business: - Look to people who know your industry or particular needs inside and out. There are more talented people willing to work for less than the $250/hr. that AC charges for analysts. Don't snub smaller consulting firms for the slick brochures and big-money dinners. - Make sure your consulting firm has talented, creative people working for them. Someday, you will be responsible for maintaining the code the consultant puts out. AC makes money by 'partnering' (i.e. turning out such a shoddy product that *no one* can maintain it.) - Don't buy into anyones preconcieved notions of 'e-commerce', or any other buzzword. If you are spending $$$ to improve or add new business, and not getting a return on that investment, you're wasting your money. Face it, 'big five' consulting firms exist soley as a money transfer device. (Read the book 'Dangerous Company' to clear your head of any forced or preconcieved notions...)
I bought from 3 different oneline stores. All three screwed the order up completely. One never sent a confirmation email, and it took 3 emails and one phone call to finally get a confirmation of my order, which appeared on my answering machine.
Another one sent 3 different messages saying that the order had gone through, hadn't gone through and had been rejected. I finally called customer support and was told they had no record of the order. I ordered over the phone.
The third was Amazon, I ordered a 3-pack of MST movies with Manos. They sent three different movies, no Manos. I sent them several emails telling them what had gone wrong, so they sent me another package. It was the same 3 wrong movies. I sent them another email, which resulted in them asking me to return everything, since they don't really stock the stuff I'd ordered, and they had already credited my credit card. No "How would you like to handle this," no "Would you like to keep these movies instead," nothing.
Still, I've done my shopping from the office at lunch and everything was delivered there. Despite the hassle, it was still better than doing the Road Warrior thing in the parking lot at the mall.
I'm sure that everyone here has heard that the "statistic" that claims
that 25% of all women has been raped... sounds like the same people
ran both "studies"..
(For those interested, the "1-in-4" crap comes from a study done at
Berkely in the late 1980's.. co-ed's were asked questions such as "Has
a man ever given you alcohol in an attempt to get you to sleep with
him" - if the answer was yes, and the answer to the next question
("Did you have sex with him") was also yes, they presumed that was
rape.. so if a man bought a woman a drink in a bar, and they had sex,
then the feminists running the survey considered that to be rape...)
Needless to say, this is one of the worst cases of statistics abuse
ever recorded, but amazingly enough, hardly anyone knows the truth of
it..
NEVER had one error in the transaction process.
I'd love to know where these guys are getting their data. The fact is, if you know what you're doing, and insist on SSL, online shopping can be the most pain-free kind.
I think the type of "shopping" that could potentially cause the most potential trouble is the "online auction". But even with that, I've been lucky and my couple Ebay transactions have been great.
I started my Xmas shopping at the beginning of December. I ordered every gift online. Every single one arrived at least a week before Xmas. And I didn't set a foot in any mall... it's beautiful, don't you see? :-D And not only was it hassle-free, but half the items I ordered you can't find in stores anywhere. The ones you can find in stores, I got for cheaper!
Heeheehee! Not even grim sounding reports like this can stop the e-shopping craze! Better for consumers, better for geeks who run the sites! Win/Win!
...who's never had a problem ordering online? Granted, I didn't order Pokemon or Kelly Pukes-And-Sh*ts, and have only dealt with ten or so websites, but still. Even with the holiday season I had no trouble. Just last Tuesday I ordered parts for my Dad's new computer (Merry Christmas Dad, you now have my dream machine). One package arrived the *next* morning, and the other two arrived yesterday. Hardly a holiday holdup, as they were coming across country from Cali to New Hampshire. I know they said that electronics came the fastest, but what is so different from online ordering than phone ordering?
I order thousands of bucks worth of stuff a year for the last four years, and I've had just one small transaction that I would call a problem. People must be idiots if they are having a 25% problem rate.
Offtopic, but I also had a copy of FreeBSD show up pretty fscked up. The box had been torn open and then taped over. But I could still see the contents through the tear. ;) Thankfully, everything inside was
- there!, and
- in good conidition.
Maybe Walnut Creek should look into better shipping methods...- Stop posting wildly offtopic, and
- Go jump off a bridge.
If this doesn't work, repeat until it does. (Until it stops you from ever posting again, that is.)I think your summary of the problems is accurate -- with an exception. Of the e-commerce businesses I know (including some of the largest) many have lousy inventory systems that allow updating of the web site once a day. I had a recent experience with the largest e-commerce site (you guess) where the main listing showed it available for shipping "usually in 24 hours", the listing on my order said "will ship in 2-4 days" and the backorder email that I had already recieved from them told me that it would be 1-2 weeks before it would ship. I took a week and a half.
The backorder scenario you lay out also introduces a little legal problem. You can take an order without inventory, no problem. But you can't charge the credit card of the customer until you can actually ship the product -- or send notification by first class mail (a hassle -- its easier to just ship something).
I do believe that you are dead on about Andersen's motives -- it would match up with their actions in the past.
Ive ordered so much stuff online its not even funny. Ive been from this site to that site and anywhere in between. AccessMicro.com Axiontech.com(overpriced most of time), amazon fatbrain, thechipmerchant, cheapbytes, FreeBSDMall, and countless other little hole in the ground places that would scare you. The worst I have had happen is it took access micro maybe.. 2 and a half weeks to process something once. and Axion was out of stock on an item that they said was in stock. We got it straightened out with a couple of emails and they had a comporable product for cheaper (Retail K6-3 400) OU tof what 20 hours 2 had (slight) problems. Thats more like 10%. Sure thats not THE best of odd's? I will take those odd's any day for the convenience of shopping in my house however. Nothing better than reading all of the reviews on a motherboard and cruising to 5 or 6 sites and getting the best deal on it. That is just plain time consuming if you have to drive to 5 or 6 computer dealers. IF You have that many in the area. Phew Lets not overlook the fact that, some people cannot even access things yu can get on the net. So does this statistic mean anything?.. nope. Not for me anyways.
I've never had a problem buying software or hardware over the web. This Christmas I dared to move out beyond my "geek" boundaries and make purchases from J.C. Penney, Sears and Spiegel. I'm 0-and-3.
There was the confirmation email from Sears that the products were on the way, but following it up through their web site order tracking mechanism I discovered that they were unable to verify my Sears credit card (with over $1,000 free on it for a $250 order) so, in reality, it was not ordered nor coming.
The Spiegel order hiccuped and died on the web site upon hitting the "Purchase Now" button, and J.C. Penney repeatedly stated on the web site that the desired items were available, but follow-up indicated they were always back-ordered. Hey...if I know up front it's back-ordered and still make the purchase, I don't care. But the reverse....I'm not happy.
Discussions above regarding the integrity of Andersen Consulting and the use of NT servers aside, the bottom line is that it just hasn't worked for me yet.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+ "I don't know what's wrong with you, but I'm quite sure it's hard to pronounce."
It's still so early on in the Internet Revolution. While the web as we know it today is, for all practical purposes, about four years old, the concept of ecommerce was still a glint in most people's eyes three years ago, and the necessary evolution of seat-of-the-pants standards such as the shopping cart metaphor, broad acceptance of cookies, etc. is maybe one-two years old. Next we need to wait for all those users - even the dummies - to learn and understand these common concepts, and for coders to develop tools to put them into use, etc.
``Business-to-business Internet marketplaces are becoming the next red-hot E-commerce market. A flurry of year-end, big-ticket deals last week shows that major players such as Andersen Consulting, Ariba, and SAP are banking on huge volumes of business transactions moving to the Web next year.''
Think this report may be just a tad biased?
Nah, couldn't be.
Make affiliate bucks
$credibility = 0;
Their study was conducted by their employees...Perhaps it is a bit of a reach to conclude that they were _all_ using the same connection to the 'net. Their study mentions nothing about a review of their router, proxy and firewall configs. I must be completely out of my mind to think that a sysadmin might consider (only for a minute) that so many "crashed transactions" might be due to a flaw in their own setup.
Processor Al (ain't got my passwd on me)
I work for a small retail store that has had an online presense for about a year. I would say that about 10% of my job goes to filling online orders.
I have easily seen 25% of online orders fail. Why? Declined credit cards. I realize this is not what the article is talking about, but not a day goes by that we do not get a bum credit card number.
The site I work for does not do online inventory because it is simply too expensive right now (we are not even running a POS system at the store, so putting inventory online would require doing that and inventorying everything). When we get an order that specifies somehting we do not have, we:
a) immediately place an order for the product. No sense in not having it next time.
b) call or email the person immediately to give them the choice of waiting for it to come in or alternates.
c) try to work it out with the customer. Frequently we do a "next best thing" approach where we will provide the better item for the price of the (not in stock) ordered item.
Some other problems:
a) My manager, in charge of the online site, is getting fed up with UPS. The current shipping software that they gave him does not do email confirmation. We would love to do this (I have received nice shipping confirmation notices via USP Shipping software from other companies, so we know it exists). The UPS rep that I spoke with concerning this said "Wow. That would be a cool feature." I tried to explain to him that it already exists and is working.
b) UPS and FedEx are not guaranteeing shipping this season. We, as a site, cannot say when your package will get to you because USP will not assure us of a date. We can make sure your order goes out the day you place it, but that does not mean anything if it gets hung up at the UPS processing center for two days.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
``I aM tORGo.. I tAKE caRE of amAZoN when tHE MaSTer is aWAy''
Make affiliate bucks
www.sprintpcs.com said my order would take 15 minutes. After 90 minutes, I had no idea if the order had gone thru. Calling SprintPCS, I found they could not determine this either. This is one of only two bad online orders I have ever had. Suspicious, I found that both sites use NT and a Microsoft web server. SprintPCS main web page said they would include a $100 rebate. Nope, and SprintPCS only wrote a check after 10 weeks of calls and letters. Then SprintPCS cut my service off because they "did not receive a defective phone back at their Kentucky warehouse" as an exchange for a new phone. However, UPS tracking shows that their employee Evans received the phone. One top of this, my calls to this telecommunications company produced bad connections, dropped connections, and always 15 minute waits. I concluded that Sprint's use of NT signaled bad management, verified by numerous other problems. This is a case where the use of NT should signal to management that they should fire several managers. While at first frustrating, I now find SprintPCS mis-management amusing, a case study. I give more detail in http://www.pressroom.com/~jameson to appear as a Christmas present (by Dec. 25). --Jameson Burt, jameson@pressroom.com
What is the definition of "gone wrong." I have ordered at least 50 things online. I also did most of my christmas shopping online too. I have had very few problems ordering online... And if I did have a problem it was something that I have done wrong. I've bought plane tickets, electronics, flowers, video games, software, hardware, cheese, wine, etc... You name it, if its online, you can get it cheaper than in a store. I think the problem goes back to something that a friend and I used to speak of in high school... Stupid people. If they weren't allowed to have computers I bet that 25% would be a lot less. I'm sure everyone who reads this or looks at slashdot news is computer literate. And I'm sure you know someone else, especially when they have a faster computer than you, who deserves to have it taken away.... :)
Peapod, which offers online grocery ordering and delivery, ran into this. Peapod does fulfilment by sending people into Safeway with pick lists. This has Safeway's full co-operation, and Peapod's product list is from Safeway's product list. Despite this, 40% of ordered items aren't found on the shelf. Safeway thought it would be 5%.
Still, many online retailers are botching the ordering process. Competition will fix this rapidly. Here's a startup suggestion: a service like Web Site Garage that monitors retail sites, testing the ordering process.
I believe this kind of scenario could easily be the case. When you go into a physical storefront, you have the mere fact that you live in a distinct geographic location to mitigate the volume of purchases at a single location. With a web site, you have a single point of entry (which could actually be comprised of many servers), but one big difference is that everything happens in real time. There are no checkout lines, no jammed parking lots, etc. You pay for your purchase when *you're* ready, as opposed to when it's your turn in line. This is bound to create havoc when several hundred (or even thousand) people simultaneously decide they all want to go shopping online at the same place.
I saw this on the local news, and I was wondering where in the hell they got these figures from. They were doing some holiday shopping story or something of the like, and brought up a screen showing all the "problems" of e-commerce. I was mad because they didn't give a source of the info, because i wanted to look into it...i guess i know now.
sorry if it's OT
bye,
-jimbo
Based on number of credit card transactions taking place and the number of them of the total that are handled by Network Solutions say maybe 25% of them. I think every credit card transaction I have done with Network Solutions has gone bad.
I am A Space Oddity!!!
The media will do anything to generate a little hype and controversy. Witness the great amount of attention devoted to "on-line shopping" this holiday season. I've made well over 100 net purchases of a variety of items this past year with almost no problems. Yeah, on a couple of occasions an item that was supposed to be in stock wasn't (typically a 3-5 day delay), and one DVD never did show up (but was replaced for free by the retailer).
Maybe I'm the exception, but the dozens of friends, family and co-workers I've taught how to do net shopping haven't had many (if any) problemss, either. Is it just me, or does internet reporting by any non-net source seem to be just about worthless these days? Sheesh.
It sounds like these people are afraid of the what-if's of shopping. Sure, if you ship dishes via UPS ground they will be smashed, that is almost a garantee. That is why good commerce sites let you pick shipping options. Time-to-ship is not a mystery, you make a lot more profit on a $500 tech toy than a $15 CD. Which one would you ship first? Places like cdw and amazon.com are incredibly reliable because that is whay people pay them to be. Isn't it a given that Joe's Flowers @geocities will take longer to recieve orders and ship them? This is not an unexplainable mystery or a conspiracy, some e-commerce sites are better than others, and the best 50 or 100 probobaly get 90% of all web transactions for that reason.
Anecdotal evidence isn't proof, but ...
I've conducted [6] online transactions in the last six weeks. I had some sort of problem with _each and every_ transaction. (Maybe I just have bad luck?)
In one case, the computer system on the other end rejected my address. They called to complain, left me a voice mail message, and for two weeks my attempts to call them back were greeted with "we're sorry all circuits are busy". Eventually I emailed them, the issue got cleared up, and the shipment was sent --- except they forgot to bill my credit card.
In another case, only half of the items I ordered were actually in stock despite the fact that the web site claimed all of them were.
In a third case, I was overcharged, complained, and was then credited the amount.
In a fourth case, the delivery agent was unable to ship to my PO box (not indicated on their web site, but it was an international shipment, so maybe that's not too bad), called my housemate, obtained my work address, and shipped it there.
In a fifth case, delivery --- using the most expensive delivery option --- for inexplicable reasons took six weeks.
Anecdotal evidence isn't proof, but ...
I've conducted [6] online transactions in the last two months. I had some sort of problem with _each and every_ transaction. (Maybe I just have bad luck?)
In one case, the computer system on the other end rejected my address. They called to complain, left me a voice mail message, and for two weeks my attempts to call them back were greeted with "we're sorry all circuits are busy". Eventually I emailed them, the issue got cleared up, and the shipment was sent --- except they forgot to bill my credit card.
In another case, only half of the items I ordered were actually in stock despite the fact that the web site claimed all of them were.
In a third case, I was overcharged, complained, and was then credited the amount.
In a fourth case, the delivery agent was unable to ship to my PO box (not indicated on their web site, but it was an international shipment, so maybe that's not too bad), called my housemate, obtained my work address, and shipped it there.
In a fifth case, delivery --- using the most expensive delivery option --- for inexplicable reasons took six weeks.
At one point the author states that:
Andersen did not list any problem Web retailers, but the consulting company did highlight Amazon.com as a company that others should imitate.
Seems like this is a good way to knock off the 75% of sites that are functional, after Amazon sues them. Bring on the OFFTOPIC and FLAMEBAIT moderation.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
About 25% of online orders I have made have been delivered on time, but in the wrong quantities. CDW routinely sends me twice what I ordered, while only billing me for what I asked for. A friend of mine bought a computer at Onsale, paid for one computer, was delivered three computers. At this rate, they'll fix the problems or go out of business.
25% of online transactions fail. 25% of web servers are running windows. Coincidence? I think not!
So in the end, it wasn't the site's fault, rather a lack of planning by the people runnin it.
You have to wonder how many people have had problems transacting with NSI. If that were the case though, I'd imagine that their estimate would be much higher than 25%
We are not talking Anonymous Coward but Andersen consulting... what a bunch of clueless suit wearing bozos. Make me laugh you peasants!!!!
You are just "passe" I heard McKinsey has to walk employee dogs in order to attract anybody in the Valley cause all the bright people are in the industry..
You pathetic losers... you can't even shop at more that a fourth of the sites... you clowns!!!!!
Now S*ck my d*ck while I fix your IT infrastructure you jerks... yeah s*ck me good, careful with those teeth young man!!!
Today I found out that I received 2 monitors from buy.com. One had a packing slip that was original - the other packing slip was marked clearly - DUPLICATE -
:)
...
What I do know is that my Appian Pro Multi monitor card is getting a pair of monitors. Perfect for tracking bids at ubid.com at closing time while reading slashdot on the other. I know NT supports the 2 monitors, now I'll have to see how X runs on it.
The other time they sent 3 hard drives in response to 1 order (billed all 3). They credited my account for one of them. If they keep sending bonus stuff, I'll keep ordering
I can feel the Geek factor increasing already
.
You know it's guys like you that make /. truly great. I mean it. I truly laughed at your first beotch... honest... keep it up man, people around here are talking themselves way too seriously..
LAST BEOTCH
remember that in this article how little info
they give out concerning details: which sites ?
and any other specific inofrmation.
these "firms" make up numbers on most of these
studies, but the actual numbers are probably
higher since you hear about all of the hype of
"e commerce" but it just so happens to leave out the truth.
8 online orders placed Saturday
9 packages delivered today.
They sent me an extra (free) monitor, so actually I'm batting 1.125.
No lines, excellent selection, shipped on time.
So for me, -12.5 % of orders fail.
.
I bought a computer (refurbished auction) from them at the begining of nov. I never got it. They ignored five emails I sent them, I included the date, order number, SKU#, tracking number, etc. There is no contact information except email addresses, which always auto-replied within 2 minutes .... You will be contacted within 24 to 48 hours .... But no one ever contacted. Yesterday, I sent an email that said unless they acknowledge this problem I would dispute the charge with my credit card company. Then sent an email saying "We cannot ship the item." No mention of whether they would refund my money, no explaination, nothing. Screw them! Etailers (isn't that an idiotic word, but CNN, etc can't go five minutes with out using that term) that are nothing but a website and a shipping department will find no one buys from them twice. They can't cope when something goes wrong, and just waste my time.
AC = Anderson Consulting
;)
AC = Anonymous Coward
Coincidence?
"DNA is God's contribution to the Open Source movement"
A recent survey shows that 43.3 percent of statistics are meaningless. Judge for yourself.
My old roommate and one of my best friends works for Anderson as well. His last job, incidentally, was teaching a class on ecommerce. When he told me this I asked him if he'd ever set up a web server before (No). A database (No). Written CGI? (No). Of course I knew all these answers would be no because I basically taught him everything he knows about computers by living with him for 4 years. Why in the world are you teaching a class on ecommerce, I asked. Because I'm the most qualified in Anderson's mind, he replied. Now that's scary. BTW his next question was how do I set up an Oracle-driven ecommerce site on a Sun and I laughed so hard I nearly wet my pants.
.agrippa.
Happy Secular Days Off