Aamir Rehman

In 1999, 39% of shoppers failed to make a purchase and this year 43% failed," said Aamir Rehman, Creative Good analyst and author of the report."If sites can simply make the buying experience easier, they stand to gain huge increases in revenue and a larger customer base who will return to shop after the holiday season is over.Rehman continues, the sites that cannot convert shoppers to buyers this holiday season are likely to shut down in 2001."

To research the report, Creative Good conducted 53 consumer tests in their proprietary listening lab methodology, where the at-home shopping experience is closely simulated.The tests were conducted on eight major e-commerce sites in large holiday categories: toys, books/music, electronics and apparel.

Despite consumers' willingness to shop and buy online, many found the experience too frustrating to complete.45% of the failures were due to checkout alone.Customers who were simply trying to pay for their gifts were foiled by the process.