[thelist] e-commerce

deke web at master.gen.in.us
Wed May 30 09:02:59 CDT 2001


On 29 May 2001, at 11:51, Keith Davis posted a message which said:

> Surveys taken after last year's Christmas sales revealed that, on
> average, 60% of all web shopping carts were abandoned before checkout.
> Walmart doesn't have that problem! And some websites don't either. 

I want item A. It's $19.95.
I want item B. It's $42.50

But when I go to check out, it turns out that the total is not $62.45 but
$97.65 because of shipping, and that they won't get around to shipping
them for six or eight weeks.

Let me tell you, if Walmart charged you $30 to store your merchandise
for six weeks before you were allowed to have it, they'd have a lot of 
abandoned sales in their brick-and-mortar stores, too.

Come to think of it, they *do* have a lot of abandoned carts in 
brick-and-mortar stores.  I went into Kmart last night to buy a cell
phone battery and pick up some insulin.  They didn't have the 4.5 
volt battery used in modern Motorola cellphones, just the 6 volt one
used in the ancient Motorola cellphones, and when I got to the
pharmacy, they were standing five deep in line, so I just left the
cart there with the ten-pack of blank VCR tapes in it, and went 
home empty-handed.

But do they count abandoned carts at Kmart?  I doubt it.

deke




deke



------------------------
 "The church is near but the road is icy; 
  the bar is far away but I will walk carefully." 
                            -- Russian Proverb




More information about the thelist mailing list