As e-commerce site consumers themselves, just about all respondents say they have experienced problems.When this has happened, a majority simply abandoned the transaction, and one out of four switched to competitive sites.
As part of this survey, respondents were asked to provide their own experiences as customers to online e-commerce sites.More than a third, 34 percent, report that they experience problems in their online transactions on a fairly frequent basis with e-business sites, at least several times a week. (See Figure 1. in the report)
In an era when things run on Internet time, even those individuals who run Web applications themselves quickly lose patience with quirky online experiences. Thus, there is a very quick and detrimental business impact. In fact, 26 percent of respondents who experience problems with a transaction would switch to a competitor, while another 57 percent would simply abandon a transaction entirely, the survey finds. (See Figure 2.)
And among a segment of respondents there is even a finality to a negative online experience. A total of 15 percent of respondents would simply no longer do online business with the site’s vendor. (See Figure 3.)
There are plenty of issues to report as well. The most common issue, reported by eight out of 10 respondents, was slow response times with the sites they were attempting to access. Another two out of three say they received error messages when attempting to log onto a page at the site. More than half, 57 percent, say they have encountered sites that were down altogether. (See Figure 4.)
Respondents to this survey—perhaps because they are in the business themselves—are not shy about letting e-business site managers know they have a problem that needs to be addressed. About a third of the survey respondents (34 percent) say they reported the issues they encountered to the site owner. However, among those that did, only 42 percent were satisfied with the response they received.
Issues with the performance and availability of Web applications can mean losses of big money, the survey finds. Close to a third of the respondents to this survey say that they have spent more than $1,000 over the past year in online transactions. (See Figure 5.)
One respondent reported how an elite hotel chain offered a special rate for their anniversary. “There was a specific time the rates would become available. Unfortunately, the site was swamped and no one could connect.”
Another reports that the Website she visited charged her twice, but lost the order. “I submitted a final purchase and got an error”, she reports, “I used the back button to get back to the purchase page and submitted again and got another error. My order was lost in processing and my credit card was charged twice.”
Performance Under Pressure: 2009 OAUG ResearchLine Survey was produced by Unisphere Research and sponsored by Oracle. Unisphere Research is the market research unit of Unisphere Media, a Division of Information Today, Inc., publishers of Database Trends and Applications magazine and the 5 Minute Briefing newsletters. To review abstracts of our past reports, visit www.dbta.com/research. Unisphere Media, 229 Main Street, Chatham, NJ 07928. Tel: 973-665-1120, Fax: 973-665-1124, Email: Tom@dbta.com, Web: www.dbta.com.