Shopping stats - Four in five shoppers feel 'web rage' - Will poor performing sites send online shoppers back to the high-street?

poorly.

The study showed 78 per cent of e-shoppers have turned off a computer
out of frustration with site performance, and less than half of
respondents wouldn't give a site more than two chances before trying out
the competition or heading to the high street.

While 57 per cent cited speed as the main reason for buying online, they
were increasingly irritated by the technical performance of e-commerce
sites, and 47 per cent said those that crashed halfway through a
transaction were a major cause of web rage.

While 54 per cent were frustrated by the inability to ask questions over
the phone, others cited usability issues such as complicated
registration (47 per cent), inability to find information (46 per cent)
and inability to amend orders (45 per cent).

The study also found online shoppers in North-East England and Scotland
were the least tolerant of poor performance, with almost a quarter
declaring they would never return to their favourite site if performance
was bad, versus an average of six per cent elsewhere. Shoppers in the
South East were more tolerant as 59 per cent would forgive their
favourite site's poor performance more than five times, compared with an
average of 34 per cent nationwide.

According to SciVisum, while the study confirms the growth of e-commerce
in the mass market, it serves as a warning to e-tailers to improve the
online shopping experience or risk losing business.

Deri Jones, chief executive officer at SciVisum, says: "Web rage is a
burgeoning online phenomenon. The message to e-tailers is very clear:
online shoppers are showing zero tolerance to poor performance and
e-tailers must follow this lead if they're to avoid losing customers to
competitors or the high street."