Like Sears and several other major retail sites, Microsoft Cashback became a temporary technical casualty on Black Friday, a time when generally hesitant consumers were actually trying hard to buy holiday gifts.

After touting the "positive traction" of its Live Search Cashback feature in a press release just two weeks before, Microsoft became one of several major online retailers to lose potential sales opportunities by letting its Web site glitch on Black Friday.

Frustrated consumers trying to cash in on special Black Friday promotions and other Cashback deals reported that the site was down for much of Friday morning.

Microsoft wasn't alone. The Sears retail site was offline for two hours, according to an account in the Associated Press. Other sites with technical problems included Amazon, Kohl's, Saks, and Target. Amazon and Target, however, only slowed down.

But, in fact, about 15 percent of the 30 retail sites tracked by Keynote Systems experienced difficulties on Black Friday, with most of the issues cropping up in the areas of shopping carts and checkout systems.

Particularly at a time when consumers are pinching their pennies hard around holiday shopping, it would certainly make sense for all retail sites to do whatever they can to ease the shopping experience for customers, instead of allowing technical issues to get in the way.

Yet Microsoft, a major supplier of software used on Web and other enterprise servers, is one online retailer that really ought to know better. As previously reported in BetaNews, under Microsoft's Cashback program, launched in May, shoppers who buy consumer electronics, computers, clothing, and other goods located through Live Search searches get discounts from Microsoft of anywhere from around 2% to 15% on prices that have often already been reduced by retailers, anyway. Once the Live Search savings reach $5.00, Microsoft hands the money back directly to the consumer, paying out through the user's choice of check, direct deposit, or PayPal.

In continued attempts to leverage Cashback to catch up against online search leader Google, Microsoft issued a press release in mid-November claiming that Cashback is drawing more advertisers and higher click-to-buy conversion rates for Live Search. But for potential buyers to purchase anything through Cashback, of course, they first need to be able to access the Cashback site.

Troubles with online shopping are nothing new. In a 2007 study by Forrester Research, more than 25% of Web shoppers said they'd experienced problems with online buying during the 2006 holiday season.

About 17% complained about shipping delays, 15% about out-of-stock or back-ordered merchandise, and 12% about "sluggish performance" of Web sites, said Sucharita Mulpuru, a Forrester analyst, in a presentation at the National Retail Association (NRA) show in New York in January of this year. A similar study from Forrester for 2007 wasn't yet available.

The Forrester analyst also gave numbers from Internet monitoring firm Gomez, Inc. showing that some major retail sites were entirely inaccessible almost 12% of the time during peak traffic times -- including the December holiday shopping period -- from late 2006 through mid-2007.