US Web shoppers frustrated by poor service

NEWS Online shoppers in the US are becoming increasingly frustrated with the pitfalls of ecommerce, according to a survey from Jupiter Communications. The research house questioned 2,300 Web users and found they were less satisfied than six months ago. In conjunction with NFO Interactive, a primary research company, the findings were compared to research into online buying carried out in July of 1998. Figures show that customer confidence has dropped from 88 per cent to 74 per cent over that period. Robin Duke-Woolley, principle consultant at Schema, said: "This indicates that ecommerce is in place, but companies offering the facility haven't thought in depth about what it entails." He explained that companies are, "just bolting it onto existing business". With over a third of respondents showing an interest in spending more during the next Christmas holiday, Duke-Woolley added: "There is great interest but owners are not coming up with the goods to make it easy to shop. People have the cash and will spend." With security cited as one of the main problems in doing business over the Internet, one dissatisfied customer told Silicon.com: "It's not all about how safe your credit card details will be - it's the lack of customer support that is the downfall." Fifteen per cent of respondents said they had experienced problems with product availability, 14 per cent were put off by additional costs for shipping and packaging and 13 per cent were unhappy with the speed of Web sites.