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Attention Holiday Shoppers: You Have a Greeting Card! By Beth Cox December 21, 1999 Seems like I''m going to be the resident curmudgeon (curmudgeon-ess?) on E-Commerce Guide -- especially if I keep having weeks like the last one. My gripes, in no particular order, included spam email that started out by saying: "Welcome Friend! Thank you for joining Flooz and FlyCast, the fastest and most thoughtful way to give a gift." Ah, excuse me folks, I haven''t signed up for anything. My e-mail box is already overflowing with mail, both legitimate and less so. After much effort, I have been able to slow the river of porn site solicitations to a small trickle. Now I''m getting mail from supposedly reputable companies telling me I have joined something that I really haven''t! They go on to say: "We look forward to serving you on all your special occasions. Go ahead, make someone happy. Send Flooz today!" There''s not even an "unsubscribe me" return address. Arghh! Something else that got my narnies in a bunch last week: I''m starting to get e-mail holiday greetings from otherwise well-meaning public relations folks who apparently think it''s cute to waste my time directing me all over the Web to retrieve electronic cards wishing me a happy holiday. Folks, this is NOT making my life easier. Silly me, I''m such a good little doo-bee that I actually retrieved the cards. Double Arghh! If there''s a "save-the-bandwidth" federation, please sign me up. Also in the e-mailbag: A nice little message from somebody who read my recent rant on delays in shipping from e-commerce companies. I was advised to "get over it" and told that I should have ordered earlier. My correspondent suggested that the delay was my fault - akin to flying out of LaGuardia Airport on a day that you know will be busy. Just start earlier next time. Sure. Next year I''ll start my Christmas shopping in July. You know, I''m a little wearisome from listening to the True Believers. Does e-commerce have great potential? Of course. Are we there yet? No way. The major news media has this figured out, and they are doing a good job of honing in on the delivery issue. NBC-TV had another piece on the subject last week, and Dec. 17th''s New York Times carried an article quoting a number of irritated consumers around the country complaining not only about late delivery, but also about incomplete delivery and lack of communication from companies involved when a problem arises. In all fairness, the Times article does say that: "The difficulties of online retailers reflect, in large part, their very success. Traffic at online stores is up 45 percent this month from last December, according to Media Metrix Analysts expect online sales to triple from last year, the first big holiday season on the Internet." Still, BizRate.com''s current e-commerce timeliness rating of 7.91 is well below the 8.11 that BizRate measured for the corresponding period last year, the article said. And as the online stores became swamped at the end of the holiday season last year, BizRate''s score fell to 7.39 by the end of December 1998, from 8.17 at the end of November. Now, please don''t call me a naysayer. I''m convinced it''s all going to get better. But in the meantime, let''s not play the emperor''s new clothes game. Or I''ll have to send you a holiday e-greeting.