e-Commerce Websites and How to Lose Customers

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e-Commerce Websites and How to Lose Customers

Question: If you have an e-commerce website what is the main purpose of it?

Answer: To sell things.

To me, that sounds like the mother of all truisms. Why, then, do companies make it so difficult to buy things on their websites? You can spend as much money as you like and advertise it in all the right places, but if you don't get the site right you can easily lose a significant percentage of your custom.

Here's the example that has inspired me to write this item...

Wondering what to buy a family member for Xmas, I was lead to a small soft furnishings website to buy a cushion. Here's a transcript of my thought proces:

That cushion looks nice, I think I'll get that one.*click* Oh, that's a javascript pop-up enlargement of the cushion - that's pretty - seen it - close it *click*.
So where's the "add to basket" button? I'll try clicking the name and not the image *click* Oh, that's the pop-up again. Close *click*.
Maybe it's not an e-comm website? It looks like an e-comm website... oh, there's a "view basket" link *click* Nope, it hasn't put my cushion in the basket.
So how do I buy this thing? *click* *click* *click* Grrr!

I think most sane people would have given up by this stage. However, as I was buying for my 18 year old neice who changes her taste about as frequently as her clothes, choosing the correct present was very important and this particular cushion was recommended by her mother. I persisted...

Well, let's try clicking the image again *click* No, it is just a pop-up. Wait a minute... what's that? Oh, it's an add to cart button!

So you can see how this company could very easily have lost a sure-thing sale simply by having a poorly thought out position for their "add to cart" button. What's more, if I had javascript turned off I would never have found the button in a month of Sundays! And this is only example of a perfect custom-losing technique I have experienced.

My point is this; why try and reinvent the wheel? e-commerce websites have been around long enough now for people to have grown quite used to them. They know how they work, they know where to look, they are in their comfort zone. Why change that? The only thing you will succeed in doing is alienating customers and losing business, and I'm pretty safe in saying that after that sort of investment that's not something the average business owner will want happening.

Steve Krug wrote an excellent book on web usability - the name of the book alone sums up the entire point behind this musing... "Don't make me think" (You can find it at any good book shop). Web users are a fickle bunch - the more you make them think, the more likely they are to just turn around and leave... after all, within two or three seconds they can be at another website buying their products instead.

There are many arenas for a web design and development company to flex their creative muscles and, in my opinion, e-Commerce is not one of those arenas. Stick to the beaten path: