This is the first in a new feature we’re going to start on the blog. A transition from our Monday feature, CelebriteCommerce, to a more businesslike it’s-Wednesday-you-have-two-more-days-until-you-can-sleep-in-article about the effect design, functionality and their implementation have on customer satisfaction. Two companies, Foresee Results and FGI Research, conducted a customer satisfaction survey on the top 40 revenue grossing Internet retailers. We are going to take a look at the 10 sites with the highest customer satisfaction scores and analyze them using the following criteria:

1. Design of Pages: Is the site clear enough that the customer knows what is required at every step of the checkout process?
2. Upselling: Does the upselling hinder the checkout process, or is it tastefully done, and in the best cases, does it actually help the customer by providing necessary products (such as a flash card for a digital camera)?
3. Error Recognition: Does the site catch user errors and help the customer correct them in an intuitive and simple way?
4. Process Efficiency: Does the customer get bored/frustrated with the process before completing the purchase? This is determined both by the amount of pages that must be loaded as well as the amount of information a customer must provide.
5. Shipping Options: Are different options presented clearly and with enough information for the customer to decide which is best?

We will evaluate each site as a first time customer, with no existing account. We will select a featured product from the homepage, add it to the shopping cart and proceed through the checkout process up to the final click. It should be noted that no products will actually be bought. We will then rank the five specific qualities of the sites on a scale from 1 to 10. We start, very randomly, at the site with the 4th best customer satisfaction rating, Newegg.com.

User Satisfaction Ranking: 4
Overall Usability Score: 6.6/10

1. Design: 4/10 Newegg’s product pages are cluttered and include loads of information that an average buyer doesn’t care about. This page and a half of the specifications of the product is good to offer customers, but don’t force it and add to the load time of the page. There are pictures of the product from several angles and customer reviews that are very helpful, but not so much as to redeem the page.

2. Upselling: 7/10 At least Newegg provides relevant and even necessary accessories in its upsell page. For the LCD monitor I selected, Newegg recommended various wall and desk mounts.

3. Error Recognition: 9/10 Error recognition for this site was clear and made corrections easy. If you enter in the wrong information, a window pops up prompting you to correct it. This prevents you from having the reload the page and reenter the information that was correct in the first place.

4. Process Efficiency: 4/10 I counted six pages; with the shipping costs reload counting as one. The process takes an incredibly long time, with a lot of text to enter and an all around confusing process.

5. Shipping Options: 9/10 Incredibly fast arrival of shipping options, coming on the second page of checkout. Enter your zip code, press go and the page is reloaded with shipping costs included.

Done Right
Perhaps this review made me bitter, but Newegg doesn’t do much right. The only bright side is the ability to see shipping costs early in the process and the variety of product images. What does it mean to usability that Newegg clears a billion dollars a year in sales? It points to the fact that for mass-market retailers the most important factors are still consumer trust and price. Customers will put up with a frustrating shopping experience if the price is cheap enough and your store seems trustworthy. However, this only applies to mass-produced products that are available from multiple retailers. For retailers not selling mass-produced goods, the store’s design and branding has a much larger impact on the likelihood of completing a sale, not to mention their perception of the brand as a whole.

Done Wrong
The amount of text on Newegg’s site is mind-boggling, and the layout of the pages suggests that Newegg didn’t consult a designer at all. There are rebates, credit card offers, warranty offers and product upsells cluttering almost every step of the process. It takes a few pages to get into the actual entering of information, and once there the eye gets lost among all the text. For continued growth Newegg will need to expand its customer base and to do this they must address their usability problems.