Service on financial services Web sites still lags, according to Jupiter Communications Inc.
In its latest quarterly customer service survey, Jupiter found that only 39% of the top 25 financial services sites responded to customers' inquiries in one day. One-quarter did not ever respond at all, by e-mail or telephone.
But 64% of retailer Web sites surveyed by Jupiter responded to customer inquiries within one day.
Financial services companies "are going to have to think more like retailers and invest in the infrastructure to help support a more mainstream customer base," said Rob Sterling, an analyst with Jupiter's digital commerce strategies division. "We are seeing that new on-line financial services customers are mainstream, risk-averse consumers who have far less tolerance for technology and customer service issues."
Jupiter predicted that $3 trillion of assets under management would exist in on-line brokerage accounts by 2003, up from a little more than $500 billion currently. On-line trading households will grow to more than 20 million in 2003, while on-line banking households will increase to 28 million by that time, up from 7 million now.
Jupiter also predicted the percentage of the on-line population with income of more than $75,000 will drop by 20% by 2003. The mean income of people on-line will drop from $61,500 now to $55,000 by 2003.
FRAMINGHAM, Mass. The worldwide market for Internet procurement software reached $147 million in 1998 and will increase by 105% a year to $5.3 billion by 2003, according to International Data Corp.
The firm also estimated that the number of people using Internet procurement software would skyrocket from 600,000 in 1999 to 250 million by 2003.
Businesses using Web-based procurement software are projected to generate savings of up to $103 billion on transactions totaling $1.375 trillion by 2003, IDC said in its Internet Commerce Procurement Application Market Review, Forecast, and User Trends report. The report surveyed the top 40 Internet commerce procurement vendors and more than 75 organizations that use such software.
According to IDC, processing costs at Visio, a Seattle-based software vendor, have plummeted from $113 per purchase order to $6 since it implemented Web-based procurement a year ago.
SAN DIEGO Only one in three Internet users has actually made a purchase on-line, according to Internet Commerce Briefing, a reference guide to the Internet economy published by the Intermarket Group of San Diego.
It said about two-thirds of users have used the Internet to research purchases but have not then bought anything on-line.
The barriers most frequently cited by individuals include product pricing (77%), potential return hassles (67%), concerns about credit card security (65%), and personal privacy issues such as worries about junk e-mail (58%).
Difficulties in navigating merchant sites were cited as a barrier by 35% of individuals who have yet to make an on-line purchase and by 48% of those who have purchased something on-line.
