The Worst Practice Used in an eCommerce Site…
Recently, the eCommerce Blog posted a stunning usability sin that occurred when the blogger visited the Macy’s website earlier this week to buy a belt. Consider this - the customer was in the mindset to buy and went directly to the site ready to shop… but instead, was met with the following message:
The author calls it the “worst practice I have ever seen an eCommerce website use,” and I have to agree. Getting customers to your site is one of the biggest hurdles in gaining conversions - once they’re there, your site should do all it can to make shopping a smooth, quick experience. Adding an unnecessary barrier like this just so that customers already shopping can get a slightly faster experience?! Ludicrous. If speed is an issue, Macy’s should start rethinking its site’s functionality, not blocking customers from shopping at all.
In this case, they lost the sale and the customer. What other practices have you seen lately that seem utterly anti-usability? Share these usability sins in the comments.
Image from the eCommerce Blog… check them out!
Posted by Chris | October 19, 2007
pwb October 19th, 2007
There should be other ways to regulate usage that don’t communicate to the customer “we suck”. Flash an ad or something.
Dan Shields October 20th, 2007
or maybe try some better methods of caching or something!!
T-shirts Teesforyou October 20th, 2007
May be they thought the customers would find it fun…
Dave October 21st, 2007
What if it was a 404 error?
sadegazoz October 22nd, 2007
probably it is a 404 error with some lie edit
http://www.hitbol.com
http://www.kozmikgevezelik.com
Shannon October 22nd, 2007
Dave,
Seems a little odd to get a 404 error when going to the homepage. Still, if it is a 404 error, it’s still bad usability (see this post for more details)