Chef Emeril Lagasse joined the ranks of celebrity eTailers in 2001 and in the five years since hasn’t learned much. On first glance, the site looks very nice, organized, and therefore efficient, but it’s not. I wanted to buy some knives so I clicked the cutlery link. It took 4 more subcategories just for me to get to normal knife sets. I believe this site caters to hobby chefs, not professionals who know every intricate detail about the art of carving so I shouldn’t have to wait for four more image heavy pages to load just to get to the category I want.

The product pages are average, kinda boring, but they get the job done. They do include a good description of the item and offer a “You might also like…” section. At first I thought the upselling was relevant, buying knives I was offered a sharpener and cooking apron.

When I returned to the page I was offered clogs, mustard, and a jelly roll pan… I guess you need closed toed shoes for protection while chopping…you can spread mustard with a knife….and… never mind they have absolutely nothing to do with it.

The shopping cart contained a small ray of light which I thought might redeem the site from what I had already observed. Before checkout, a customer can click a link to a pop-up to calculate shipping. Shipping costs and options early in the process are great for customers.

Then I was returned to bad usability land by having to register separately and then go back to checkout with zero error recognition. The checkout process was an excessive 7 pages if you include registration and to top it all off, my order was actually placed even though I used a fake credit card number. I was hoping at least that field would be error tested, but sadly no. Moments later I received an order confirmation email. I am sure they will verify the credit card and realize that 4111111111111111 is not a valid Visa number, but this should occur at the time of checkout. If a customer accidentally mis-enters their real card number they would not be notified.

This site is like make-up. I looks pretty, but doesn’t do anything to help your actual complexion. Poor usability is like placing bouncers outside your store and only letting expert shoppers in. As I have stated many times before, a website should be designed so that the most novice computer user, in my mind my mother, can use it without any problems. I entered an invalid address and a fake credit card and have yet to hear anything about it. By placing my test order with a fake credit card, they have made negative dollars off of me. I don’t intend to buy the product, but they completed my order and are now spending man hours to complete it. eCommerce can be an extraordinary asset to your company, allowing you to tap a much larger market even if you only have one store or warehouse, but this is a two-way street and can cost you money if your site doesn’t function correctly. Any chef who tells you it’s all about the presentation forgot to add the sugar.