For a long time, online retailers have focused more heavily on technology, logistics and merchandising than the design of their web sites. That’s not to say that retailers haven’t placed any emphasis on design, but the number of retailer redesigns is trending upward, and the focus of these redesigns is on better product organization and improved navigation according to Internet Retailer.
Some interesting points from the Internet Retailer study:
- 60.3% of merchants have redesigned their e-commerce sites in the past year
- Besides better product organization and improved navigation, site search and product reviews and ratings are top design goals
- Survey respondents say a typical e-commerce redesign takes from 3-18 months
- Only 56% of retailers get customer feedback before or after their redesign
Though many retailers are redesigning their web sites, I’ve found that many are failing to incorporate basic e-commerce usability best practices.
Food company Kashi recently overhauled its web site to include more social and community functions. The new site looks great from an aesthetic standpoint, and the site sports different ways for health-minded customers to communicate with the company and among themselves. But Kashi’s site falls short on selling its product online by ignoring many e-commerce usability best practices.
For example, if you browse into their Country Cheddar crackers page, you’ll see an “order now” button next to the photo of the Country Cheddar crackers. There’s no price or availability/shipping information shown next to the “order now” button. Click “order now” and the resulting page doesn’t let me order Country Cheddar crackers, but instead offers three options — a 4-Pack TLC Sampler, a TLC Crackers Mixed Case and a Custom Cracker Case (which has no explanation of what a “custom case” is). Rather than getting more granular, they have presented more options than I expected and made my choice to buy that much harder.
PetSmart.com also re-launched their web site, but at the most common screen resolution on some browsers I tested, the dropdown menu for “Dog” continues down past the bottom of the browser window, rendering the hidden options completely inaccessible.
It’s good that online retailers are paying more attention to site design, but many of them still fail to concentrate on the basics — effective communication of their value proposition and e-commerce usability best practices.
August 30th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Ryan says:
That is a super insane number. I don’t see how anything other than a 100% would be acceptable with the amount of money spent on e-commerce sites. Although that stat probably just takes into account formal testing and not informal. But really this blows my mind even more:
The Kashi example is also amplified by the discontinuity in their “store site” versus their “main site.” Why separate the two when it is so much easier to find what you want on their main site?
September 3rd, 2007 at 11:09 am
Adam Howitt says:
Hi Rick,
You mentioned e-commerce usability best practices in the article but didn’t link it – is there a list online or a good book on the topic? I would have thought that reducing the complexity of each stage for the consumer is a good thing – offering a product listing of every SKU of Kashi bars would make it harder for consumers to find what they want. If I want Kashi Peanut butter bars I like the idea of seeing just one line item per product line and then selecting the quantity / packaging I prefer.
Thanks,
Adam