US Online Buying Ahead of Europe

In fact, European e-tailers are at roughly the same level of performance as American sites were in 1999. For example, in terms of providing in-stock information, only 32% of European e-tailers show this information, ranging from a low of 8% in Spain to a high of 58% in France. This compares to the 44% seen in the US for 1999.

In the U.S., e-tailers have improved their ability to guarantee that product is instock when it is ordered. The percentage of sites showing this information almost doubled from last year, climbing from 38% to 72% of the sites. Also, the study showed that it takes a bit longer to place orders this year, but not because the websites are slow. E-tailers are generally expanding their product lines and it is taking consumers longer to find and navigate to the products they want. Typical ordering time increased to 13 minutes this year, compared to only 10 minutes in 2000.

'That's still a lot faster than most store visits. Online buying still has the edge on convenience. Pure e-tailer's sites continue to be a bit faster than traditional retailers' or catalogers', reflecting apparently better web-savvy designs,' said Bob Mann, an associate partner at Accenture.

Orders seem to be arriving at about the same speed as last year, a bit less that seven days, on average. Mann adds, 'e-tailers are padding their arrival estimates, like they did last year, making promises of 10 to 14 days for goods to arrive. They are generally doing better than that.'

Costs for shipping packages are almost exactly the same as last year, averaging an additional 15 percent of product costs. This is despite price increases for many major parcel carriers since last year's study. However, fewer sites are offering free shipping -- only two companies in this year's study, down from 14 last year.

In Europe, consumer online buying faces some very different challenges in comparison to the USA. The reality is there are very few pan-European sites. Most sites serve only one country, and even large, cross-border e-tailers such as Amazon and Etam have country-specific web pages that use the consumer's language. Consumers can run into trouble if they try to 'force' a country site to ship across the border, sometimes even crashing the site. With these barriers, it is perhaps not surprising that e-tailing has developed more slowly in Europe than in the USA and it shows in the study results.

European sites are actually a bit faster for placing orders than was seen in the States this year -- averaging 11 minutes to place an order, with France doing best at seven minutes, and Spanish sites being slowest at twice the time to place an order, 14 minutes. Overall, it appears European sites are less complex that their US counterparts and are easier to navigate as a result. The longer time for the Spanish sites is at least partially due to their apparently greater emphasis on security -- they often requested passport or bank information before an order would be accepted.

National postal services have a much greater influence on online buying in Europe, than in America. Quite often it is the only choice for shipping that consumers get, and it is possible that lower reliability for postal delivery is the reason for fewer delivery promises. On the plus side, shipping charges are much lower for consumers in Europe than they are in the States. Overall shipping charges are about 20 percent less in Europe, averaging just over 11 percent of product value. Germany has the lowest rates at less than 8 percent, with Spain more than doubling that at over 16 percent.

All articles 2006-22 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.