An Idea For Redenvelope.com
Redenvelope.com is a great site but they need to refrain from posting intimate images on their homepage between 9AM-5PM (office hours).
Does this constitute bad usability?
While on swisscolony.com I noticed their Fruit Spread Sampler came in two varieties: box of 9 and box of 18. However, the product description states “Gift includes six tempting flavors—strawberry, orange marmalade, peach, raspberry, grape and blueberry”. My question is if there are six flavors and 9 jars which three flavors get added twice? Do you believe this ambiguity might …
Gloss No More
After 6 years serving the $1.7 Billion dollar online cosmetics market Gloss.com (180 on IR 500) has shut down. Gloss.com was run by the $7 Billion dollar cosmetics giant Estee Lauder. Traditional retailers are quickly finding out just how competitive the online arena is. Here is a chart comparing traffic between Gloss.com and other beauty product etailers:
An idea
Allrecipies.com is a great site and I often use it for recipes and cooking instruction. The other day I found a dish called anniversary chicken. Only problem was that I didn’t have teriyaki basting sauce. I wish the ingredients were listed in a format where I could mark a little x on an item I did not have and then …
Why We Sell
Ultimately your online storefront is just that, a storefront. Many retailers forget that good retailing is so so much more than having a slick eCommerce site. Fortunately we still have companies like L’OCCITANE en Provence. I don’t know of other retailers that do this but L’OCCITANE provides braille labeling on their products. Why? because respect is one of their core …
I Love You, But Please Slow Down
Amiestreet.com is a great music site I discovered through TechCrunch. But they send too many emails. I love them but I need them to slow down and it’s a pity their email only highlights an unsubscribe option when what I really want is an option that lets me reduce emails to once a month. Now I’m sure I could visit …
When The Weather Outside Is Frightful
It’s common knowledge not all store visitors buy, some are there to browse. But customers that visit stores despite bad weather (heavy snow, frigid cold, rain, flooding etc) tend be more serious about making a purchase. I wonder if retailers like Best Buy already know this because this morning was super cold (4 degrees F) and I still went to …
Sortability
One of the biggest benefits of online shopping is that I can organize my consideration set based on cost, popularity, organic or any other parameter. So why most retailers don’t put this front and center on their sites is unknown. Folica.com is one eTailer that does do this really well. Notice the sorting options – Featured, Top Rated, Most Popular, …
Buzz kill
The worst a retailer could do is promote a product that’s not part of the promotion. This morning I was at HickoryFarms.com and saw a very tempting 70% off sale. The image prominently displayed cheese and salami and since I was looking to buy salami I clicked on it. Here is the ad: The only problem is that none of …
The Right Message For The Right Audience At The Right Time
I got an email from Amazon this morning promoting the TomTom GPS system. This was not a blast email but a very well calculated strategy. Amazon has probably noticed I’ve looked at several GPS systems over the year but never managed to pull the trigger. They know I am not a compulsive shopper. In the context on what they know …
Top Online-Offline Performers
It’s the end of the year and time for my first Top Online-Offline performers of ’07 listing. Criteria – To be on the list companies had to: – Have ‘07 revenues more than $50 million – Revenue should have grown more than 15% in the year – Should have their own offline and online stores Here are the winners (in …
Holly Buchanan’s Kindle
Holly Buchanan over at grokdotcom.com shared a keen observation in her post today. When she went to Amazon.com the kindle being promoted on her homepage was held by a woman. On my homepage my kindle was held by a man. Fu@$king brilliant.
Which Channel Matters More…
Retailers (with offline businesses bigger than their online channel) would argue that their store shoppers fuel online sales. This argument is fair but these retailers also claim 95% of all online sales come from their offline shoppers. This I have a problem with. The percentage is large, I give them that, but it’s not 95%. I suspect around 60% of …
Email sign-ups — How To’s
Daily Candy sends image heavy emails so they need to make sure customers add them to their address books. And so Daily Candy (unlike other etailers) tells customers how to ‘add to address book’ on the sign-up page. Great great idea. Observe section in blue…… This other example comes from daleandthomaspopcorn.com who, I believe, are the smartest food eTailers in …
Poor Customer Service / Contact Options
The good folks at e-consultancy have put out a must read list of Top 10 most common e-commerce mistakes. I really liked the idea of prominently placing a telephone number at the FAQ page.
