Garden.com CEO says 14% of all e-tailing packages arrived late
A QUARTER OF ALL Web sites suffered such severe technological glitches during the 1999 holiday season that customers were prevented from ordering products from those sites, according to Cliff Sharples, president, CEO and co-founder of Garden.com Inc.
Speaking last month at the Direct Marketing Association’s Net.marketing conference in Seattle, Sharples added that Web marketers can learn from their recent mistakes. He outlined some of the e-tailing glitches that occurred as marketers struggled to overcome technological, fulfillment and customer service issues. The findings were drawn from a study of 50 Web sites – a sample of highly visible sites that have attracted financial investors – conducted by Resource Marketing ECommerce Watch.
– 14% of all packages were delivered late, and 6% never arrived.
– 56% of the Web sites did not respond to e-mail within 48 hours, while 26% of the Web sites did not respond to e-mail at all.
In addition, the study found that 40% of sites are personalizing e-mail messages; 25% recognize repeat buyers; and that the average number of people an online shopper tells about his or her online experiences is 12.
“We’ve got a long way to go and a lot more to do,” Sharples said.
In a separate presentation, DMA president H. Robert Wientzen offered the following indicators of continued strong Web growth:
– The online holiday season yielded around $7.5 billion in sales of goods and services.
– Revenue for online retailers during the holiday season were four times higher than in 1998, and the number of total orders placed grew by 270%.
– 96% of DMA members are now employing the Web in their business operations, up from 90% last year. Of that 96%, 44% are conducting sales via their sites, a number that closely matches last year’s survey.
– 68% of those members that offer online sales are reporting that they’re doing so at a profit, up from 49% last year.
– The digital economy accounted for 8% of America’s gross domestic product and has generated 25% of that total new growth in recent years, according to the Department of Commerce.
– The amount of time the average cybersurfer spends online each week has risen 75% during the past two years.
– In January 1993, only 50 sites were on the Web. Now there are 15.4 million domains registered worldwide, including those of 9.4 million dot-com companies.
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