1 in 3 orders fails to arrive

Disturbing claims by EU boffins

[quiet_man]

This story was reported in a small way here in Ireland, but I'm wondering how widely it was covered elsewhere?

[ecic.ie...]

Summary: A survey by the European Consumer Centre (ECC) found that out of 114 online purchases from EU-based sites, only 75 resulted in a delivery.

Personally this does not fit at all with my experience of online purchasing. This report could be very damaging to consumer confidence. Anybody else think these stats are awry?

[Mike12345]

I havent seen any coverage of this story here in England, but i have had my head in the sand.

But i agree with you that this report could be damaging consumer confidence. And it certainly dos not fall inline with any experiences i have had.

Personally i think a lot of it is a blend of truth (small %) and a bit of BS (slightly higher %) but thats just my thoughts on the matter.

[Essex_boy]

Well thats odd, because I order on line several times a week over the last 4 years and have never had a problem. Not all orders are with Amazon either....

the only time Ive had trouble is buying on Ebay where I expect NOT to get my gear. Needless to say I dont use it any more.

[quiet_man]

My instinct is to assume this research must be plain wrong - but then there's just this nagging doubt that maybe us Web-savvy WebmasterWorld types will know if an e-commerce site looks dodgy and that's why WE don't lose money or place orders that aren't delivered. But what if this research actually does accurately show the experiences of the 'average' Web shopper? Doesn't bear thinking about.

I'm just pleased that this research doesn't seem to have been reported too widely - maybe the media is too concerned with protecting its revenue from advertisers with online outlets?

[mivox]

maybe us Web-savvy WebmasterWorld types will know if an e-commerce site looks dodgy and that's why WE don't lose money

That could well be part of it.

Another possibility: We've had a few customers over the last couple years who never finished checking out on our online store... they stopped right after the "give us your payment info" section, and never clicked the "send order" button on the following page.

We've gotten a couple irate emails and phone calls from folks like that, thinking they'd placed an order when they actually hadn't.

And I recently placed an order with a Yahoo Shopping merchant who'd apparently gone out of business... the site was still up, but my card was never charged, the order was never shipped, and all their phone numbers were disconnected. hehehe. They've since been removed from the Y! Shopping listings...

[jsinger]

Interesting issue. Worthy of more research. I've spoken to one or two nervous online shoppers who had been stiffed by other web retailers...but only one or two... out of many hundreds, perhaps thousands.

I can certainly see someone not getting a collectable or other unique item that becomes sold out.

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My experience, based on 10 years on the web, is that the press tends to unfairly denigrate web shopping and the internet in general. Remember all those ghastly internet virus stories a few years ago.