(FORTUNE Magazine) – We've all heard impressive statistics and gruesome tales of shopping horror from our recent e-Christmas. But beyond the broad-brush figures, we wondered, how did individual online retailers perform? We turned, as we have before, to Resource Marketing in Columbus, Ohio. During the holiday season, it fielded a SWAT team of e-analysts who stress-tested the top 50 sites, spending 20 hours at each, ordering products and seeing whose customer service bore up under the crush. E-shopping was "great," says Resource Marketing managing director P. Kelly Mooney, "but the service experience was broken." Shoppers were unable even to place an order 25% of the time; 20% of packages arrived late or never; and 36% of sites had busy or unhelpful customer-service numbers. The chart below is a comparative ranking that reflects 88 ratings, from site navigation to product availability to return policies. For more detailed data, surf to www.resource.com.

Everything Is Relative Comparative total rankings for 50 sites based on 88 e-shopping ratings.

[#] Internet-only retailer [*] Multichannel retailer

Above par

[#]eToys [#]garden.com [#]Cooking.com [#]Fogdog Sports [#]Amazon.com [#]eve.com [*]REI.com [*]Land's End [*]L.L. Bean [*]Banana Republic [#]boo.com [*]Gap [#]Bluefly [#]drugstore.com [#]800.com [#]PlanetRx.com [*]NORDSTROMshoes.com [*]Hallmark.com [*]DrugEmporium.com [#]CDNOW [*]Brooks Brothers [#]RedEnvelope

Below par

[#]Violet [*]macys.com [*]1-800-FLOWERS.COM [#]Outpost.com [*]Sephora [*]barnesandnoble.com [#]Furniture.com [#]Reel.com [#]living.com [*]Williams-Sonoma [*]marthastewart.com [#]PC Flowers & Gifts [#]indulge.com [#]gloss.com [#]Sparks.com [*]KBkids.com [*]jcrew.com [*]Target.com [*]Crate & Barrel [*]nike.com [#]gifts.com [#]Buy.com [*]Toysrus.com [*]DisneyStore.com [*]cozone.com [#]Alloy [*]Wal-Mart

DATA: RESOURCE MARKETING

internet funds And Many Happy Returns!

Mutual funds with Internet-only stock portfolios blasted into the millennium with a display as dazzling as the New Year's Eve fireworks in Paris. The funds' scalding 1999 performance has inspired others to get in the game too. A year ago the five at right were the only Internet funds around. But the last half-year has seen that number more than double, to 13, as big guns like Goldman Sachs introduced their own Net funds.

Funds 4th qtr. 1999 Total assets % increase return return 1999 from 1998

Munder NetNet 79.67% 175.65% $7,203 mil. 2,164% Internet Fund 67.94% 216.44% $1,154 mil. 5,096% Amerindo Tech 46.83% 250.60% $603 mil. 828% Monument Internet 85.11% 273.14% $145 mil. 8,987% WWW Internet 79.26% 167.03% $101 mil. 1,457%

SOURCES: LIPPER; FINANCIAL RESEARCH CORP.

The largest holdings in the funds 1. CMGI 2. AOL 3. Exodus Communications 4. VeriSign

SOURCE: MORNINGSTAR

amazing facts The Future Isn't Now

The Internet has transformed the business world, right? Well, not according to a significant number of businesses. Some 51% of 702 European and U.S. companies polled by the British research firm MORI think that e-business isn't important today. Still, even those who said no think e-commerce has a future: Only 14% say it will remain unimportant in a couple of years.

The Importance of e-Business Today

Not at all important 11% Not very important 40% Fairly important 25% Very important 17% Essential 7%

Heard It Through the Grapevine

With the success of job-listing sites such as Monster.com, online recruiting is all the rage. But even the most Internet-savvy companies rarely rely on Internet recruiting services. A scant 8.1% of new employees at Internet companies are hired that way, according to an IDC study. Even at cutting-edge businesses, the biggest job connection remains the most traditional one: word of mouth.

internet litigation What's Mine Is Mine

Forget the utopian rhetoric about sharing and open code--you know e-companies have gone mainstream once they start suing each other. Patent infringement, it seems, is the latest buzzword. Below, some notable pending suits (in each, the defendants dispute the charges):

Plaintiff Defendant Claim

Amazon.com Barnesandnoble.com Booksellers square off as Amazon charges that B&N has lifted its 1-Click ordering technology.

Priceline.com Microsoft Name-your-price service claims Microsoft's Expedia travel site is using its price-matching system.

SBH Inc. Yahoo A woman says Yahoo violated her patent for allowing users to select products from multiple sites and pay at one.

CoolSavings BrightStreet.com, CoolSavings charges six companies E-centives.com, with copying its method of et al. distributing online coupons.

Trilogy CarsDirect.com Parent of CarOrder.com claims Software infringement on its method for choosing features and options in a car.

top web properties Excite-ment

Excite@home passes Go and collects 27 million visitors. Next challenge: Lycos

Rank Rank Site in Dec. in Nov. thousands of visitors

1 1 AOL 42,908

2 2 Yahoo 42,361

3 3 Microsoft 40,488

4 4 Lycos 30,348

5 7 Excite@Home 27,670

6 5 Go Network 21,348

7 6 Amazon 16,631

8 -- NBC Internet* 14,928

9 11 About.com 12,612

10 9 Time Warner Online 12,235

11 12 Real.com Network 11,866

12 14 AltaVista 11,629

13 10 Go2Net Network 11,236

14 13 eBay 10,388

15 15 CNET 9,647

16 18 ZDNet 9,609

17 16 LookSmart 9,409

18 20 GoTo.com 7,057

19 24 Infospace Impressions 6,915

20 25 Viacom Online 6,427

*Includes traffic for its properties Snap and Xoom.com, which were previously listed separately.

SOURCE: MEDIA METRIX

vc climate Top Five Deals in January

1. Buildnet $107.1 million The age of the e-carpenter is upon us. Buildnet, which connects residential construction companies with suppliers and resellers, will spend its latest haul on a 25-city campaign to teach builders how to use electronic purchasing software.

2. AgWeb $100.0 million B2B again. Though still just a concept, AgWeb reaped a rich first round of funding to create a portal for farmers and agribusinesses that will offer real-time commodities prices, consulting, and more.

3. HomeRuns.com $100.0 million Boston is a hotbed of online groceries, it seems, as HomeRuns.com bagged a giant-size round of financing. The cash will help it take on local rival Shoplink and then (presumably) battle Webvan for mastery of the world.

4. Artistdirect $97.0 million Artistdirect's latest infusion barely attracted notice in the wake of the big music-related mergers last month. But its various Websites--including a portal and a site that lets users download music--have the implicit approval of heavyweight investors like Sony Music, Warner Music, and BMG.

5. Medibuy $77.0 million This medical supply B2B player (notice a trend here?) received its latest cash from gold-standard VCs Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins, among others.

SOURCE: TECHNOLOGIC PARTNERS

IPOs to Watch February's big-money initial public offerings.

Expected Est. Expect Company IPO date price to raise

Buy.com Week of Feb. 7 $10-$12 $154 mil. Organic Inc. Week of Feb. 7 $12-$14 $72 mil. Pets.com Week of Feb. 7 $9-$11 $75 mil. Varsitybooks.com Feb. 10 $12-$14 $53 mil. Palm Inc. Feb. 28 $14-$16 $345 mil.

SOURCE: IPO.COM