Poor websites will cost online retailers sales in Q4 - study'

UK internet shoppers will spend GBP 7 billion in Q4 2008 in the run up to Christmas, up almost 40 percent from a year earlier, according to research by Verdict Consulting for commerce and communication software vendor Hybris. The research found that many retailers will struggle to cope with peak sales period due to underperforming websites unable to cope with increases in demand. Restricted access, complete unavailability and poor customer experience is forecast by Verdict to result in a loss of GBP 139 million sales from the online channel, amounting to almost 2% of total online sales in Q4 2008.