Online shopping, glitches and gotchas

By Linda Musthaler
Network World Technology Executive Newsletter, 12/17/01

Online shopping has really matured over the past two years. In December 1999, I wrote about complete failures of shopping sites due to overloaded servers and poorly built applications. I wrote about big problems with customer satisfaction, due largely to poor processes for warehousing, inventory and shipping. Many online shopping sites - some of them now victims of the dot-com bust - learned that it's not easy to get all the elements of a business-to-consumer e-commerce system just right.

For the most part, those companies that did survive have learned their lessons and have built decent online shopping systems. Still, some glitches and gotchas persist, making the shopper's experience less than completely satisfying.

I'm a diehard shopper and I'm not very tolerant of poor service or frustrating processes, whether I'm online or in a store. This article is devoted to bringing some of my pet peeves, as well as those of others, to light. Hopefully you won't see your company's e-commerce sore spots mentioned in these scenarios. But if you do, it's time to get the bugs out of your system before your shoppers click elsewhere.

Let me preface my stories with one or two things. I'm not going to mention specific company names, as these problems aren't serious enough for me to warn shoppers away from these Web sites. Also, these stories are all recent - within the last six months, at the latest. I'm not dredging up any two-year-old stories for shock value.

My worst online shopping experience started on Sept. 21 of this year. I placed an order for a few items from a non-profit organization. As is typical, I received an e-mail confirmation within minutes of placing my order. When my chosen items didn't show up within a month, I called the toll free customer service number. I was told they'd check into my order and get back to me. No one ever called back. On Dec. 4, I e-mailed the agency and asked them to cancel my order, as I no longer wanted the items. The reply? An e-mail that said, " Apparently your order has gotten lost in our computer system. You were never going to receive this merchandise. Please accept our apologies. " All I can say is, I hope Santa Claus doesn't shop there!

The issue of collecting sales tax on online purchases is confusing. When do you collect it, and when do you not? I had a disappointing experience when one e-tailer tried to charge me sales tax on shipping. I can understand tax on my items, but on the shipping service? When I questioned it, the company told me, " We don't often charge tax on orders, so our system didn't know how to handle it correctly. " I'm sure the human intervention required to fix this 65% faux pas cost more than getting it right in the first place.

On another occasion, I was shopping on a favorite site that gives me a 5% discount through an employee affinity program. I also happened to have store credit from a recent return. I placed my order and noticed my regular discount wasn't applied, although my store credit was. After numerous e-mails with customer service, I finally learned that the company's systems could handle either a discount or a credit, but not both. Again, manual intervention was required to compute my total correctly. This wasn't a showstopper, but it was time-consuming and frustrating.

My colleague Candace was shopping for books on a popular media shopping site. She wanted to order multiple copies of one item, but the shopping cart wouldn't accept it. She called customer service and learned that the e-tailer's program could not accept more than one item at a time, and that she would have to place the order several times. She placed her order elsewhere.

Shoppers were much more tolerate of these little glitches two years ago. Back then, we just loved the thrill of buying online. Today, however, shoppers have higher expectations, and it's time for e-tailers to work the kinks out of the systems to make our online experiences more satisfying.