December 21, 1999
Web posted at: 5:55 p.m. EST (2255 GMT)

From staff and wire reports

NEW YORK -- About one in four attempts to make holiday purchases over the Internet typically ends without completion of the sale, a new survey has determined.

More than 25 percent of the Internet sites surveyed could not take orders because the sites crashed, were blocked, were under construction or were otherwise inaccessible.

These conditions were part of the findings by Andersen Consulting, a management and technology consulting firm with more than $8 billion in annual sales.

Andersen surveyors attempted to purchase 480 gifts at 100 different Web sites but could complete only 350 orders.

The survey found that a major marketing problem is that relatively few sites can tell an online customer at the time of the order when to expect receipt of the product, and this makes it difficult for a customer to shop against a deadline -- like three days until Christmas.

Correspondent Don Knapp contributed to this report.

Andersen Consulting Survey

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