According to a study, 36 percent of US online shoppers have encountered faulty e-commerce websites while shopping online during the 2008 holiday season, while 64 percent managed to complete their purchases without incidents.

When asked about the main issues online shoppers had to face, 13 percent of respondents mentioned that the e-commerce platform they were trying to use was too slow, 8 percent claimed that a website froze or even crashed and 7 percent said that their first attempt to complete a purchase ended up a failure. 6 percent tried to make an online purchase from a website that was not working temporarily, while 4 percent discovered that their purchase din not go through, even if they initially thought they had successfully completed it.

The percentage of those who claim they did not have to face any glitches is lower among online shoppers earning less than USD 25,000 per year (27.5 percent), as compared to those earning more than USD 75,000 (46 percent). As far as geographic regions are concerned, online shoppers living in the Midwest were more likely to encounter problems when making a purchase. Only 29 percent of them claimed they completed a purchase without any incidents, as compared to 44 percent for those in the North-Eastern and the Southern regions and 42.5 percent of those living in the West.

The study was conducted by e-commerce development firm Guidance and market researcher Synovate.