How could it be that a possible $14 billion in potential sales will be unrealized this holiday season? The Holiday 2000 Online Shopping Report, published by Creative Good recently, asserts that it's
because of poor online customer experiences - nearly half of all e-commerce customers trying to make a holiday gift purchase will get confused and leave websites without placing an order and without
contacting customer service, making the lost sales "silent." "Remarkably, e-commerce website performance has deteriorated since last year. In 1999, 39% of shoppers failed to make a purchase and this
year 43% failed," said Aamir Rehman, Creative Good analyst and author of the report. "If sites can simply make the buying experience easier, they stand to gain huge increases in revenue and a larger
customer base who will return to shop after the holiday season is over." Rehman continues, "the sites that cannot convert shoppers to buyers this holiday season are likely to shut down in 2001." The
report found that despite consumers' willingness to shop and buy online, many found the experience too frustrating to complete. Forty-five percent of the failures were due to checkout alone. Customers
who were simply trying to pay for their gifts were foiled by the process. If e-commerce sites improve just the checkout process, they could gain an additional $6 billion this season, according to the
report. The Holiday 2000 Online Shopping Report includes a Creative Good prototype of an improved BestBuy.com site to demonstrate the before-and-after results of a "customer experience makeover." In
the consumer tests, Creative Good's new prototype quadrupled the conversion rate of shoppers to buyers. The entire report is available free in electronic format (PDF) at www.creativegood.com and
www.goodexperience.com.
- Anya Khait 
