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Why_Ecommerce_is_Not_Ready_for_My_Daughter_or_Me
| Why Ecommerce is Not Ready for My Daughter or Me
As the mother of a teenage clothing fanatic I'm often at my
local mall. It occurred to me that the shopping experience for
my daughter is attractive to her not because she wants to spend
my money, but because the experience of buying itself is so rich
to the senses.
For example, when we enter her favorite stores the first thing
that hits me is the music. If it's her kind of music, we're in
the right place for her. If the signs near the front of the
store have sale prices and notices about markdowns, we're in the
right place for me. Immediately there are two user needs met.
Mother's and daughter's.
Next, for me, is how products are displayed. I look for
orderliness and logical groupings such as jeans in one place,
the teeny tiny things she calls shirts in another place,
"hoodies" in every possible color in another section. I also
look for clean dressing rooms and clues as to how many items she
can load up on before she meets their limit. Meanwhile, she's
looking at colors, sizes, textures, and styles. She glides along
in her beat up sneakers touching the items as she passes by. Her
hands drift along piles of sweaters as if walking through a
field of daisies. A certain texture will stop her dead in her
tracks and I'll get that "Mom, look!" expression from her.
It strikes me that some of the stores she insists we stop into
don't offer much for me to do or look at. The décor is dark,
black, and limited to a few racks mixed with hanging things on
the walls separated by posters of half naked teenagers standing
next to cars they can't possibly afford to buy. Clothing prices
are hidden inside sleeves. Sale signs are taboo. But the music
is hip, the salespersons are scary-looking and the smell of
leather mixed with hair gel is making my wallet itch. Their
website, I bet, has but one click-path designed for teens and
their parents must be blindfolded so as not to read the content
before handing over their credit card.
Finally in a store where I feel welcome, my daughter is admiring
the merchandise and starting to find what she likes in her size.
I'm avoiding the mirrors and marveling at the sales personnel
with their size 3 bodies, smudged eyeliner and 35 bracelets on
each wrist. For my daughter, who looks just like them, this is
confirmation she's in the right store. I, on the other hand,
will stop holding in my stomach when we get back out to the
parking lot, or when we grab our lattés in Starbucks on the
first floor.
While other mothers and myself are holding piles of clothes in
our arms, or running back and forth to get something in
different sizes, my mind drifts to all the ecommerce websites I
find in search engines, but don't purchase from. For starters,
most of them think I'm going to read 35 links in their
navigation, plus their ads, before deciding which is the right
path to follow. Some of them will tell me about one sale, but if
I want to know more, I have to figure out where they stuck that
stuff. There's nothing I can physically touch and the images are
usually tiny. Sure, I can click to enlarge but how many times
have I done that only to find a bigger view of the same boring,
unattractive picture?
Most shopping carts don't give me shipping dates or availability
information as I make my selections. (Just recently I ordered
something, only to hear from the merchant via email that their
software wasn't working and the color and size wasn't recorded,
so they had to contact me for that information.)
We assume ecommerce have functional websites. We assume
incorrectly. We assume they built them for many types of
customers, but again, we've assumed wrong. We assume that the
top 20 sites in search engine results are the best of the best
based on our search keywords. That, I'm afraid, is the saddest
shock of all. Top rank doesn't equal the best online experience
once you click into that website.
That part of usability wasn't tested for you by the search
engine or directory. That's not their job.
My daughter looks good in everything. So did I when I was a
teenager. If I still had that body I could order from any
lingerie site on the Internet and feel quite sure I'd look as
fantastic and sexy as their starving models do. But, I never buy
sexy lingerie on the Internet because quite frankly, they're not
selling it to me. One look at their models, their poses, their
ages and their airbrushed faces tells me their target market is
men who dream of making their women look like that too, if they
just buy that lacey thing for them.
Fortunately I have a levelheaded daughter who loves to hunt for
bargains. The last time we shopped at the Mall together was
because I wanted to get her a gift for making the Distinguished
Honor Roll that marking period in school. She found something at
her favorite teen store for under $20. We splurged at Starbucks
on our favorite chocolate coffee fixes, which was the logical
choice after doing so well at the clothing store.
Online, after a sale, I'd be alone staring at my monitor at a
"Thank you screen" and likely not directed to go anywhere
interesting next. This is another common ecommerce practice;
dumping the customer off after the last screen of a shopping
cart. Instead, they should try suggesting a related site (via
paid sponsored link?) or a reminder to bookmark the site for
later shopping or better yet, how about a quick "Did you find
what you were looking for?" survey. One quick question, one
button click is all it takes to say "We hoped you like your
shopping experience but if not, please tell us how to make it
better."
This is what the cute pierced nose sales clerk said to us when I
handed her the $20 for my daughter's new shirt. I gratefully
accepted the receipt from the nail polished hand attached to the
18 year old face with a pimple on the forehead, multi-colored
hair and glittered eye shadow. You just can't get mimic that
kind of user experience on the Internet yet.
About the author:
Usability Consultant, Kimberly Krause Berg, is the owner of
UsabilityEffect.com, Cre8pc.com, Cre8asiteForums.com and
co-founder of Cre8asite.net. Her background in organic search
engine optimization, combined with web site usability
consulting, offers unique insight into web site development.
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