Last Christmas, online shopping was a disaster.

The sector was plagued by broken promises, websites that crashed and presents - even turkeys - that weren't delivered in time for Christmas Day.

But after pumping millions of pounds all year into foolproof transactional websites, e-retailers are keeping fingers crossed that they'll make it through the coming holiday shopping season and reap grand rewards.

A flurry of e-Christmas activity will kick off in the next few weeks.

Already, gardening website e-garden.co.uk has thrown its hand into the ring by taking orders for Christmas trees and decorations online. Portals are starting to talk about their Christmas schedules. Freeserve plans to run The Twelve Days of Christmas promotion, kicking off on December 1, with 12 retail partners over 12 days, giving away Christmas prizes every day.

Boys toys website Firebox - one of the retailers involved in the Freeserve promotion - expects sales to rise by five times normal levels over the Christmas period. It is running other promotions with Maxim and LineOne and Blue Carrots, and giving away a free Zap Cap (a bottle opener) for orders over £50.

This year, more than any before, much is being wagered on a good e-Christmas. For some retailers a bumper Christmas could mean the difference between survival or liquidation, with those that fail to make a profit during the season the unfortunate ones facing closure in the new year.

Despite the unavoidable shake-out of dot.com retailers in the new year, the odds are in favour of consumers flocking to the internet to do their Christmas shopping.

Jo Tucker, managing director at the Interactive Media in Retail Group thinks this year will be a successful e-Christmas and expects online shopping revenues to soar to £500m, half that the IMRG says has been made in all the first ten months of this year.

"We're all time-poor at the moment and the thought of going to a busy high street to do Christmas shopping is a nightmare," says Ms Tucker.

Part of the reason why it will work this year, adds Ms Tucker, is that all the important factors are now in place, such as fulfilment and choice.

The fact that all the big high-street retailers, including Debenhams, Argos, Marks & Spencer, Kingfisher, Next, WHSmith, Arcadia and Boots, are now heavily involved in e-commerce should go some way to eroding consumer security fears about shopping online.

But unless retailers start breaking clever marketing campaigns in the next few weeks, they may not have the time to prove their mettle in the e-Christmas rush.

E-commerce may no longer be in its infancy, but few retailers have had much success with selling over the web.

The first e-Christmas in 1998 is now just a bad memory for those involved, especially Microsoft, that sunk millions into the project to get people buying Christmas presents online.

And last year not only were retailers far too concerned by the y2k bug to invest too much in e-commerce systems but, by and large, they rushed to market too quickly and were simply unable to cope with demand.

According to Continental Research, UK consumers, in the last year, spent a grand total of £175m on buying Christmas presents online - an average of £97 each - with 69% saying they were satisfied with the process.

Retailers that failed consumers back then, have now spent millions trying to win them back this year. That's why this year - the next 56 days - will be a crucial period for everyone in the online retail game.