E-tailers score well on timeliness of holiday deliveries

Buying gifts online was a popular option this holiday season. But how well did e-tailers do at fulfilling guarantees and getting orders to customers in time for Christmas? <br> <br> Not bad, reports Keynote Systems, an Internet-services company that tracks online retailers&#39; performance.<br> <br> Keynote tracked six last-minute orders at 40 retail sites, all placed within the last hour or so of their Christmas-delivery-guarantee timeframe. Of the 21 sites for which data is now available (it is still being processed), 16 met their guarantee for all six items. Among the on-time deliverers: Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Cooking.com, Wal-Mart, Sears, Macy&#39;s, Gap, Home Depot, J. Jill, KBtoys, and eToys.<br> <br> A few merchants struggled, however. Best Buy and Smarter Kids each missed one of the orders, Tower Records missed two, and Buy.com missed three. CDNow delivered all six items late.<br> <br> Overall, most e-tailers exceeded their delivery expectations during the holiday season, Keynote found, despite the fact that some struggled with such last-minute orders. Compared with last year, when the average delivery took less than five days, this year was a bit slower: taking six days from the click of the &#34;buy&#34; button to the doorbell. <br> <br>