E-commerce is just about the hottest topic in town but this week as even more dot com companies go bust.

Two online pet stores (www.wetnose.com and www.pets.com) have vanished from the web while lifestyle site ebop will call in the liquidators if no further funding is found by the end of the month.

No matter how much trouble the dot-com sector seems to be in, the reason for these disasters is simple to understand: A large number of the companies working in it couldn't manage a party in a brewery!

Leading consultancy Plaut surveyed 1,264 experienced net shoppers in six countries and revealed that online businesses were missing an estimated $6.1bn in sales because they were incapable of setting up a workable e-commerce operation.

According to these virtual consumers, eight out of ten attempted online purchases fail, while one third of transactions require phone calls to complete.

Plaut then did a survey of 25 major UK e-commerce sites and found serious problems in order cancellations and returns processes in 72 per cent of sites.

Only 15 per cent of the companies examined provided a level of customer service equivalent to that expected by consumers on the high street.

Is it any surprise that people are worried about spending money on the web?

So what can newcomers to e-commerce do to make sure their site offers a good client experience? Quite simply, spend some time assessing what makes a good experience and translate that into pages that are easy to understand and need fewer mouse clicks to navigate. Then make sure that a returns process is built into any web-sales operation and be certain that returns and customer credits are given the same priority as sales.

Confidence has to be earned. It is not something that happens by accident.

Take time to talk to your website developer and make sure they understand what you want them to deliver.

There are some excellent designers out there but there are some truly bad ones as well.

Make sure to spend your money with a company that knows what it's doing.

Web site development, in case you hadn't noticed, is not cheap so you don't want to have to do it too often.

Get opinions, quotes and information from as many designers as possible and go with the one you feel comfortable with.

For many people, Web design is an arcane art akin to alchemy, so make extra sure you get a good explanation of where your money is being spent.

Don't forget that it isn't just the little companies who have a problem with this.

Highlights, or rather lowlights, of the Plaut research, were:

Dell Computer Corporation: Uncontactable either via phone or email, despite being put on hold by phone operators for more than 90 minutes.

Dixons: Retailer delivered goods 21 days after confirming that the order had been cancelled.

Racing Green: Customer charged for goods that had been confirmed as cancelled.

Toys R Us: Retailer completely lost the online order, could not accept returns by post and suggested they were taken back to the nearest high street store.

WH Smith: Retailer refunded money after goods were returned, minus the VAT and without any explanation.

Disgusting, isn't it?

www.plaut.co.uk