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Delays to cost e-commerce
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July 1, 1999: 1:34 p.m. ET
Study finds one-third of online shoppers give up on slow downloads
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Electronic-commerce firms could lose as much as $4.35 billion annually as potential online shoppers give up making a purchase because of slow download times, according to a market research study.
More than one-third of Web shoppers may give up on making an online purchase as they become frustrated with the experience, a study released Wednesday by Zona Research said.
"We estimate approximately $362 million in e-commerce revenues could be at risk of being lost each and every month because of the impact of unacceptable download times," said Jack Staff, Zona Research director and chief economist.
"The projections of our model show these losses could significantly impact the future of e-commerce if online consumers become so frustrated they revert to shopping at traditional brick-and-mortar stores or decide not to purchase online. Online companies need to develop strategies and tools to avoid these potential lost sales opportunities."
Zona said it found that 44.1 million people in the United States shop online, and an additional 37.5 million indicated they will become new online shoppers in the next 12 months.
The e-commerce players with the most to lose, the Zona study revealed, are those firms whose Web pages take more than eight seconds to download for users with 14.4 kilobyte-per-second modems. Those companies stand to lose more than $73 million a month in e-commerce sales, Zona said. 
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Zona Research
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