In Search of E-Commerce | Introduction
In Search of E-Commerce | Introduction: Report investigates the experience of "shopping on the sites of seven e-commerce leaders:Apple, at http://store.apple.com
Dell, at http://www.dell.com
Amazon.com, at http://www.amazon.com
Barnes & Noble, at http://www.barnesandnoble.com
America Online, at keyword Shopping on AOL
Microsoft Expedia, at http://www.expedia.com
CDnow, at http://www.cdnow.com
They found that: "Each of the seven sites, as we expected, had strengths in its design. But what surprised us was that each one had glaring weaknesses that undoubtedly cost the company a great deal of money and customers, every hour of every day. Despite the millions and millions of dollars spent in creating them, all of these e-commerce sites had major flaws. Each site placed obstacles directly in the customer's path, in some cases making it impossible for us to complete a sale without a Herculean effort on our part.
To identify the strengths and weaknesses of each site, we simply took the position of a customer. We went through the buying process on each site and asked the simple question: What on this site makes us want to do something other than buy?"
The Expedia test was to buy a round-trip plane ticket from New York to Seattle.
They initially failed Expedia’s home page on four points:
"1) Nearly the entire page is implemented in graphics, guaranteeing that the first experience customers have with Expedia will be a slow one.
2) A frame at the bottom of the page advertises a separate Microsoft site. The frame substantially slows the loading of the home page, and the advertisement distracts from the focus of Expedia.
3) The page is wider than our display (a standard 640 x 480 monitor), which forced us to scroll to the right to see some parts of the page. There’s no excuse for this.
4) The most prominent element on the page is a graphic about trains. Is this really the most important thing Expedia can say about its brand to first-time visitors?
Conclude: It’s impossible to overstate the importance of a fast and focused home page....
Post registration comments include:
"Travel Agent mainly lets customers do three things:
buy a plane ticket
make a hotel reservation
rent a car
Then why doesn’t Travel Agent just come out and say it? Instead of offering customers a link such as “Buy a plane ticket,” Expedia displays a link labeled “Flight Wizard.” Flight Wizard. What customer in her right mind knows what a “flight wizard” is? Or a “hotel wizard”? Or a “car wizard”: Is that a magician who fixes broken-down rental cars?
Yes, Expedia has instructions that explain the meaning of the terms. But if you need instructions to explain your jargon, there’s something seriously wrong....
What to Learn From Microsoft Expedia
The home page is your only chance to make the critical first impression on the customer, so make sure it’s fast and focused.
Advertising, especially in separate frames, does not speed the buying process.
Don’t use jargon. To serve the customer, don’t use words the customer doesn’t know.
Don’t name a button “Cancel” unless you mean it.
Always copy-edit your content, especially if there’s only one sentence on the page.
Make it easy for the customer to buy.
Expedia, Eight Months Later
Of all seven sites, Expedia underwent the greatest change since the report was first released. The home page is now radically faster and easier to use: booking paths are presented front and center, and text is used heavily instead of large print-style graphics
posted by Jen @ 5:48 am
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