<<I am not sure what you wanted me to readon your link but this story was very interesting.>>
Glenn sorry. That link I thought would take you into an article on the sales tax issue. But I'm glad you enjoyed my wrong link anyway.;-)
It appears that some shoppers are pissed off with on-line shopping, while I'm up early selling my speculation stocks. Even some of my Cisco.
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NEW YORK (AP) - Shoppers were bombarded with all of the dot-com ads this holiday season pushing them to buy, buy, buy online. But many who were wooed to the Web aren't so happy about their Internet shopping experiences.
With the holiday season in full swing, e-shoppers are telling tales of pathetic customer service, out-of-stock merchandise, botched orders and late deliveries. Some are giving up and heading out to brave the crowds at the mall.
``Everyone was telling consumers to try the Internet this Christmas. It would save time and be easy,' said Vic Heman of Los Altos, Calif., who is still awaiting many of his online orders. ``But I wonder if they (the online stores) were really prepared to get the goods to the customers?'
Internet shopping took off last Christmas at an unexpectedly rapid pace, but there were lots of glitches that left consumers frustrated, irritated and disappointed.
This year, online merchants promised that things would be different. With more than 10 million new people expected to shop online this holiday season, e-retailers knew they couldn't afford to mess up again.
``It is a make or break time. There is no forgiveness period this year,' said Paul Bates, vice president of the information products group at online market research firm Bizrate.com.
To prepare for the onslaught of shoppers, many retailers beefed up their back-end operations, upgrading the technology that runs their Web sites and building new distribution centers so that they could stock more goods and deliver them faster.
Confident that they were better prepared for this Christmas, many cybershops dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into advertising to lure shoppers to their online stores.
The crowds are coming, and for some Web sites, the increase in orders is way above their own lofty expectations.
But, if they're not able to deliver the goods, merchants risk losing customers to competitors, potentially threatening their survival.
``They are selling so fast that there are 18 wheelers lined up outside of their warehouses and the pickers are picking faster than the stockers can stock,' said Jim Daniell, chief executive of OrderTrust, which helps companies run their Web sites.
Some merchants - including Amazon.com and Toysmart.com - are so backed up with orders that their top executives have had to help in the warehouse. Other sites have dozens of items out-of-stock.
Many are cutting off standard ground delivery, telling shoppers if they buy now they will have to pay a steep premium to get the goods there fast. There are even those, including Walmart.com, that are warning shoppers who visit their Web sites that they can't guarantee delivery by Christmas.
But those consumers who bought online don't care how busy these e-retailers might be. Many placed their orders well before Christmas, were told their purchases were on the way and now are sitting empty handed.
Heman, for instance, still hasn't gotten two orders that he made in mid-November: shoes from Stevemadden.com and kids clothes from Gap.com. He e-mailed both companies about the problems, but has yet to hear anything back.
And that's not all. He's also waiting for a pair of rain boots from Eddiebauer.com, a men's sweater from Nordstrom.com and toys from Amazon.com. All were purchased in early December.
``When you buy online, you assume there may be a little bit of a delay, but now we are heading into nail-biting time,' said Heman, who bought 60 percent of his gifts online this holiday season. ``I might have to start cutting pictures out of catalogs or downloading pictures off the Internet so that I can show people what I bought them if the stuff doesn't come by Christmas.'
Also troubled is Dallas resident Annette Rogers. She bought a video of the 1960s movie ``Mad Monster Party' on Amazon.com on Nov. 25.
When she made the purchase, the confirmation said the video usually ships within two or three days. But this past weekend she received an e-mail telling her that it would not arrive for four to six weeks.
``Once you place an order and it is confirmed, you feel like you can check it off your list,' Rogers said. ``Then your find out it isn't coming and you have to scramble right before Christmas when the mall is the most crowded.'
Other shoppers complain that they paid for gift-wrap but boxes came unwrapped. Some say that they were given the wrong delivery tracking number, which made it impossible to figure out if their goods were on the way.
And when problems arise, consumers are even more frustrated by unanswered e-mails, rude customer service agents and long delays on hold when they try to contact the Web merchants.
When such problems occur, a lot of people ``are reminded of the satisfaction that you can get by going to the mall, buying something and immediately having it in your possession,' Rogers said.
AP-NY-12-15-99 0004EST>> |
