E-Holiday Boasts High Customer Satisfaction

More than 90 percent of online shoppers were satisfied with their holiday shopping experiences and more than two-thirds plan to buy online again soon, according to a report released Monday by the NPD Group.

The NPD e-Visory shows that 57 percent of shoppers were "very" or "extremely" satisfied with their buying experiences during November and December. Another 35 percent were "somewhat satisfied," while 8 percent claimed to be "not satisfied at all."

The Port Washington, New York research firm suggested that shoppers gaining experience with buying online may account for the higher levels of satisfaction.

"Online shopping experience has taught consumers how to get the most out of the Internet," NPD Online vice president Pamela Smith told the E-Commerce Times. "It’s becoming a real viable way to do your shopping."

In fact, many shoppers insulated themselves from frustrations such as site outages and items being out of stock by buying earlier.

"I think sites rose to the occasion and consumers are learning how to shop online," Smith said. "Consumers maybe learned from all the press last year about people getting burned [at the holidays] online. They didn’t wait until December 23rd to make their purchase."

Buying More Soon

When asked what held them back from buying more, 34 percent of Internet users who did not shop online cited the shipping fees associated with buying online as the reason for holding back.

Additionally, 35 percent of online buyers cited shipping as a reason for being dissatisfied.

"Sites have to understand where they can cut down on their costs so that perhaps they can lower shipping fees or lower the cost of products, so total cost is more in line with what you can go to the store and pay," Smith said. "[Shipping costs] are not stopping people from purchasing, but they are holding them back from buying more online."

The best news in the survey may be the future plans of consumers. Sixty-eight percent said they will buy again online during the first three months of 2001, with 40 percent saying they will be back online to buy during the month of January.

E-tail's Changing Face

The report also indicates that online shoppers are increasingly coming from all walks of life. A little more than half of this year's online holiday purchasers were female, and slightly more than a third were over 45 years of age. Half of the online shoppers surveyed had incomes under US$60,000.

"We’ll stop hearing so much now that the Internet is made up of the more upscale and higher educated," Smith said. "There’s still a skew toward that, but the demographics are much more mainstream than last year."

The new report also found online holiday revenues in 2000 came in nearly two times as high as those gained during the same period last year.

"It’s really good news, especially in light of all the gloomy press about the dot-coms," Smith said. "It’s enlightening to see consumers embracing online shopping as a viable alternative. I do think there’s a bright future ahead for e-commerce."

Hard Times

Still, a majority of shoppers experienced some difficulty while shopping online. Those problems ranged from a shopping site being temporarily down (23 percent) to late shipments (14 percent) and poor customer service (6 percent).

Another 5 percent complained that the e-commerce company they wanted to visit was out of business.

Top Dogs

Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) was rated by e-shoppers as the most "important" online site. According to a recent report from Media Metrix, Amazon also won the race as the most-visited site during the season.

In terms of importance, Amazon was followed by eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY), Barnesandnoble.com (Nasdaq: BNBN), brick-and-click e-tailer JCPenney.com and the struggling eToys (Nasdaq: ETYS), according to the survey respondents.

NPD Group said it will give a detailed breakdown of online spending habits and site penetration in a later report. The e-visory was based on interviews with 2,439 Web users.