Online Shopping Sites — What Makes a Good One?
Filed under: Design & Development on Monday, June 30th, 2008 by Koren HendersonLast night, I was online shopping for a new beach bag and bikinis for my upcoming trip to the Outer Banks. I typically prefer to shop in brick and mortar stores, because I enjoy the shopping experience - touching and feeling what I’m buying. However, I had a busy work week and hadn’t had a chance to get to the mall.
For the bag, I started with my default luggage site – eBags. I don’t say this about many ecommerce sites, but I love this site. It is user-friendly and exemplifies a near-perfect ecommerce experience. I quickly found the perfect bag and moved on to swimsuits. I started at beachbliss.com, a site InStyle magazine recommended. 
Due to poor navigability, I gave up after two clicks and went to my old standby – Victoria’s Secret - where I ordered a cute suit that I’ll be sporting next week.
What differentiates eBags and Victoria’s Secret from Beach Bliss and what defines a good ecommerce site? Quite a few things:
Searchability - When shopping online, I need to be able to easily find what I’m looking for. I don’t have the time or the patience to click through multiple pages, requiring reloading. In an offline store, I can scan over an area within seconds to see if they have what I’m looking for. I need that same efficiency with my online experience.
eBags has great navigation, search, and filtering. Users can shop by brand or type of bag. The categories/types of bags are spot on and are very descriptive — not just “messengers,” but “men’s” or “women’s.” To make searches even more precise, users can easily filter down to cost, color, material, and top rated.
On the flip side, Beach Bliss has virtually no filtering or searchability. When I clicked on Swimsuits – Bikinis on the home page, I was taken to a page with 30+ brand subcategories. Users have to go to each brand to see what kind of bikinis that particular brand offers. I don’t search by brand unless I’m looking for something specific. When browsing, the last thing I want to do is page through brand after brand. A “View All” option would have been nice, but no luck.
Product Info and Photos – Since my preference is to touch and feel something before buying it, I want to be able to virtually touch and feel it online. eBags does an excellent job of communicating a bag’s size, scale and look via multiple photo angles and techniques. They put items (running shoes, water bottle, ipod) into the bags, as well as take a shot with the bag on a mannequin.
Free Shipping and Returns – All three sites offered free shipping if you spend over a certain amount. However, eBags was the only one who offered free returns as well. This makes ordering from them virtually risk free. Victoria’s Secret also makes returns easier – providing a pre-addressed label, but users are charged $5.95 for returns. Free returns from VS would be a big plus, since swimsuit cuts and sizing vary so widely.
Customer Ratings – I love to know what other people who bought the bag thought of it. Consumers have less incentive to lie/mislead - unlike product manufacturers. So, I weigh their objective opinions much more heavily. I have often changed my product selections based on customer ratings…and have never been disappointed. ebags has customer ratings, plus a “Best of the Best” category that highlights bags customers rated highest.
Upsells/You May Also Like/Recommendations – Just like when I’m at the grocery store and I throw in a pack of gum and a magazine while in line waiting, I will usually fall for an impulse buy if presented with a targeted, easy offer. When buying a swimsuit, the odds are good that I’ll add flip flops or a cover up, especially when the site features them on a page I’m already on and makes it easy to add them to my cart.
Victoria’s Secret has definitely learned that this tactic works…Beach Bliss has not. BB is losing out on many upsell opportunities. Offering a glimpse at similar items is also a good strategy – gets users to browse more product and thus, more likely to buy something.
Nan wrote a few weeks back about Brand Whores and Brand Evangelists. I am definitely the latter, as you can see by my longer-than-recommended blog post (ignoring our own Blog Tips). But as I’ve demonstrated, when you have a great product/experience, users will become your biggest cheerleaders, just because they want to share a good things with others. No incentive necessary, although if offered, I’d be happy to accept commissions from eBags.
Do you have any favorite online shopping sites?
