Why does e-commerce still suck?

[garyk]

OK,

From a users perspective this is and as a long standing developer I just think that understanding just *how* your end-users use your product is vital in building a great product.

So this is a common scenario and it just happened again, hence this post.

Go onto retailer site, add items to basket. Go to checkout, damn, cant remember my password, hey very typical use case scenario. Click the 'forgot password' link, enter email address and password reset link gets mailed. Click link in email, brings me back to the site, enter new password, all good.

One slight problem...all my items in my basket have gone! uhhhherrrrr basic basic basic usability test..FAIL! The only saving grace for this retailer (river island) is that it had links at the bottom of the page for all the products I had viewed so I could add them back to my cart.

I have experienced this on quite a few sites, seems fundamentally flawed. Well either that or perhaps I'm being too picky????


Gary

 

[cmcp]

The same grace saved Topshop with my custom last week, didn't carry my basket over when I logged in. Managed to use the recently viewed to get them back before the rage set in.

 

[nickjlucey]

I don't know, In an ideal user friendly world you would expect to not have to log in at all. But I can see that perhaps you might want to avoid the problem you describe, you would probably only need a cookie or something to add these.

On the other hand though, you're in an internet cafe, person before you has a shopping basket full of stuff, you log in, next thing you know you have a shopping basket full of stuff, you assume the website is playing silly buggers and don't buy anything.

interesting topic though!

 

[matt.chatterley]

I have experienced this on quite a few sites, seems fundamentally flawed. Well either that or perhaps I'm being too picky????
Gary

I'm always amazed by the number of what i would consider "relatively big name" sites that have rubbish user experiences.

To some extent you expect it with very small businesses - that doesn't excuse it, but still, it's more understandable than when the company is large enough to have a proper budget for detailed testing and analysis!

It's not just eCommerce shopping though - some internet banking systems are painful to use and even downright uncooperative at times!

 

[owenou]

two points:
1. Is internet safe? there are so many hackers knowing internet very well. With more and more people do e-business, there will must be increasing number of hackers...As soon as they get your info, how could you do? he will spend all your saving IN ONE MINUTE!
2. Seeing is believing. There must be differences between displayed goods in the web and practical goods in the real life. So i think e-business will develop however, it will encounter bottleneck in due time. Or maybe one day it will change our current shopping style.
Above are my ideas!

 

[garyk]

I'm always amazed by the number of what i would consider "relatively big name" sites that have rubbish user experiences.

To some extent you expect it with very small businesses - that doesn't excuse it, but still, it's more understandable than when the company is large enough to have a proper budget for detailed testing and analysis!

It's not just eCommerce shopping though - some internet banking systems are painful to use and even downright uncooperative at times!

Agreed Matt, if it was some small independant using a cheap or even open source solution (not slagging off OSS e-commerce I know oscommerce is quite good) I could understand it but these are typically expensive bespoke solutions that just dont seem to have been thought through.

Gary

 

[Wubbleyou]

I can think of a few security issues with carrying over the basket to a logged in state, but anything that is properly validated should survive.

You're right though, from an end user perspective, the very least they should do is ask the user if they want to keep or discard their basket after they have logged in.

 

[stugster]

We were buying a lot of furniture recently. Half an hour after playing around on the site, BOOM... basket went AWOL.

You're right though, e-commerce is horrible. But what would replace it?

 

[Gandhiappliances]

Well, I too had both sort of exprience some are good while some are bad. E commerce has now become the main source for online lead generation, infact it more than lead generation it can be described as an online business. We are now living in the world of tech and now no one has got any sort of excuse, those who have adopted new technology and have invested in online mode has very well being able to remain ahead of the competition.

 

[Optegris]

Tesco is shockingly bad. This was my experience...

1 - Visit and try and find what I wanted (tricky in itself)
2 - Added to basket and went to checkout, asked for my clubcard number
3 - Entered it, postcode was wrong ad didn't match, told to go to the clubcard site
4 - Spent ten minutes trying to find out how to update the postcard, gave up.
5 - Went back to the site, chose option to use a new clubcard
6 - Poof, basket emptied
7 - Started from point 1) again
8 - Used the new clubcard option
9 - Went through multiple screens adding address details
10 - Poof, basket gone again, start from point 1)
11 - Finally got through to the checkout and paid

Now the only the reason id didn't think shove it is because the item I was after is only sold by Tesco (the new Robbie Williams autobio, not for me I hasten to add). It would actually have been quicker and less stressful to drive to the bloody shop!!!

Amazon still ranks well up there in my book with the ease of use, product choice, pricing and the cleverest upsell tools I have ever seen...

 

[deniser]

We had the opposite problem with our site. We set it so everything stays in the basket for 3 days. People were then complaining they couldn't delete from their basket. It took me ages to realise that this was because they had pop up blockers which were blocking the message "Are you sure you want to delete?". Of course we rectified it as soon as we realised but it must have annoyed many people for at least a year before we noticed! Ooops.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

I understand companies like supermarkets where you hopefully will make many repeat orders over the years having a log on selection to save you time

But with what most would consider one off sales or at least long periods between sales and no account customers why should you need to log in

We dont use log in for any customers, have been running since 2003 and never had anyone complain about login procedure

 

[fisicx]

I've been banging on for years that the layout/design of a site isn't that important. If the site is usable and accessible, consideration given to the UX and the content meets the needs of the visitor they will forgive a dated or clunky layout.

So yes I agree totally about the whole poor e-commerce experience. Most were put together by developers who are great at doing just that but who lack any usability experience and raley understand the basics of UX.

Until people stop worrying about the shade of blue in their logo or how to integrate a facebook feed and start to do some real user testing, most e-commerce sites are going to remain clunky, awkward to use and designed to reduce conversions.

Why for example do you need my telephone number AND email? Why do I have to look at my basket everytime I add an item? Why do I have to choose a currency when you only ship to the UK? Why does the form validation have the error message at the top of the page when the dodgy field is down the bottom?

I could go on (and on and on and on).

 

[cmcp]

Layout and design are intrinsic to a UX.

 

[fisicx]

I know what you mean but the design and layout are a result of of the planning not the starting point. All too often people begin with a template with no content, no research and no idea on who their target customers are going to be.

The wiki article is great introduction: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience and mashable dispells some of the myths: http://mashable.com/2009/01/09/user-experience-design/

User Interface is NOT User Experience. It's part of it but not the whole of it.

 

[cmcp]

That's not the same as saying layout/design of a site isn't that important.

 

[fisicx]

My mistook. I was trying to indicate that planning, research and testing are far more important than fussing over the layout. And once the site has gone live the layout will continually evolve. Any designer that starts a project with a sample layout needs poking. Until you have the wireframe sorted and ensured the actual buying process is super slick any template is irrelevant. The whole UX concept is one of continual improvement, adapting and changing to needs the needs of the user.

This was the point of the thread. All the effort seems to go into the interface design instead of the user experience. The developers have taken the easy route intsead of considering the actual needs of the user.

 

[cmcp]

I think you need to distinguish layout from styling elements for colour and feel (which I'd disagree with to an extent)... A wireframe dictates a layout. It makes no sense to suggest a layout isn't important but a wireframe is.

 

[fisicx]

Probably some confusion here about definitions. By wireframe I mean an unstyled site, only has content and navigation and is used to test the processes. The layout is the skin that lies over the template and often erroneously called the design. If properly coded the layout can be fully controlled using CSS. If the site structures are wrong or informations flows clunky then fiddling with the layout is pointless.

Getting a bit off topic here. The problem with the ecommerce sites under discussion is the UX. It wouldn't matter how pretty the site, the buying processes were so flawed the UX was soured.

 

[cmcp]

It's confusing because what you're saying is contradictory!

A good point to note about this chaps experience is that the design didn't stop him buying. It didn't stop me buying when it happened at Topshop, and it doesn't stop a lot of other people buying.

You asked yourself, why demand my email and phone number. It's because sometimes they can. You're not going to go elsewhere for their goods. This is a good thing for the business case. It's never the same for all situations, but sometimes the cost of a little hurdle for the user maybe brings in a ton of wealth in terms of CRM for the business.

You're right about SME and standard distros. They'll take whatever comes out the box, but these big boys are not lazy. They know what they're doing.

 

[garyk]

A good point to note about this chaps experience is that the design didn't stop him buying. It didn't stop me buying when it happened at Topshop, and it doesn't stop a lot of other people buying.

Agreed cmcp although there are two key points about buying on this occasion; 1. I knew there was an offer on and I had promotional code and 2. this was for xmas pressies for the missus! If it wasn't for that I would have been gone with no sale.

 

[SillyJokes]

I ask for email and telephone number because if there is any issue with the order it helps me to contact the customer. You'd be amazed at how infrequently people check their email and how little response we get to important queries we make by email.
Best contact method for getting a response and solving issues seems to be text which is less intrusive than a phone call.

I hate sites you have to have a password to shop in as I never remember the password and it creates all the issues mentioned before.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

The telephone number and email are used two fold by us

Email is needed to confirm order received, confirm order dispatched and contact customer if any problems with the order

Phone and email is also required for delivery we supply both to our courier who emails customer to give a estimated 1 hour delivery window and they also have the phonme number if any problem finding customer, but only available to driver if he contacts his dispatch office

 

[dagaul101]

I suppose many sites would cite the security aspect as to why it is like this

 

[Vacman2000]

My site has a shopping trolley recovery, it rembers what you put in there.
But hey mine is on a free open source pakage oscommerce creloaded with B2B

But then it has its limitations, a trade off I supposed

 

[fisicx]

I ask for email and telephone number because if there is any issue with the order it helps me to contact the customer. You'd be amazed at how infrequently people check their email and how little response we get to important queries we make by email.

Phone and email is also required for delivery we supply both to our courier who emails customer to give a estimated 1 hour delivery window and they also have the phonme number if any problem finding customer, but only available to driver if he contacts his dispatch office

Excellent reasons for having both telephone and email. But do you give these reasons on the website? Do you explain the delivery/follow up procedures to the cutomer?

This is just one of the reasons why so many ecommerce sites fail. They have a standard set of fields on their forms with poor validation and sometimes quite intrusive questions. But if you engage with the visitor and explain what's going on then there chances of conversion increase.