The perils of online shopping

Online shopping may not have gone completely mainstream, yet. New numbers show there are plenty of people browsing online, but not so many buyers.

The number of online buyers dropped in the second quarter for most sites from the year before, according to comScore. Zappos.com, for example, saw a 30 percent drop and Gap saw a 26 percent drop, according to comScore.

"It's pretty clear that people are looking at more alternatives, evaluating more options, getting better prices--but not buying," Gian M. Fulgoni, executive chairman of comScore, told the New York Times.

The numbers are still staggering. Shoppers spent $130 billion online in the last year, according to comScore. But e-commerce sites lost billions more because customers abandoned their carts when they ran into problems while checking out, according to Tealeaf, a company that helps e-commerce sites monitor customer behavior.

In fact, there are many frivolous shoppers looking for a good deal and researching what's out there instead of pushing the purchase button at the end of the day. There are some sites that make buying easier for customers and are having luck retaining the visitor all the way through the sale, according to the New York Times.

One of them, Bill Me Later, purchased by eBay last year, lets people click one button to check out. They get a bill in the mail later. TrialPay, a start-up company, gives people a free product if they buy another product.

While the online sales world is trying to figure out how to keep shoppers from abandoning their carts, there is one distinct advantage to online sales. Companies have an easier time tracking a would-be buyer online and learning his or her likes and dislikes.

"In the real world, the jeweler or optician has no way of knowing who I was or how to get me back in the store, but online you can do all that, which is why it's such an amazing retail opportunity," Saul Klein, a partner at Index Ventures, which has invested in e-commerce companies, told the New York Times.

For more on e-commerce trends:
- check out this New York Times article

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