Study Finds 56 Percent Of Employees Surveyed Shop Online From Work - Elron Software survey - Industry Trend or Event

EDP Weekly's IT Monitor, Dec 6, 1999

Excessive Online Shopping At Work Effects Productivity, Network Performance

Not only does an independent study commissioned by Elron Software find 56 percent of employees surveyed shop online while at work, nearly one out of five employees report shopping either "very frequently" or "somewhat frequently" from the corporate desktop. The study was conducted for Elron by IT market research firm NFO Interactive.

Confirming the trend, research conducted by International Data Corp. shows a 42 percent increase for online shopping at work compared to online shopping at home.

"This research highlights the increasing trend of employees taking advantage of their company's high-speed Internet connection. This may be allowed according to a company's usage policy -- however online shopping tends to be one of the more time intensive Internet applications, unlike checking news or a stock quote," says Ivan O'Sullivan, president of Elron Software's Internet Products Div. Elron provides software that helps develop and enforce usage policies to make sure the Internet resource is not abused.

Brickler & Eckler, a Columbus, Ohio-based law firm, recently implemented Elron's Internet Manager product to monitor and filter Web usage by employees. They configured the product to alert administrators of excessive online shopping during company time.

"We allow online shopping during breaks, lunch, and before and after work -- and we see quite a bit of shopping during those hours," says Eric Schmidt, IS director for Brickler & Eckler. "Internet Manager will notify us if somebody is shopping excessively during work hours, but we haven't seen a problem with it so far."