Techno-Fashionista Strikes Again: E-Tailing Fox Paws
posted by Eleanor Wynn on August 30, 2007
No, not cruelty to animals: fough pahs. Faux pas. False steps. The literal translation from the French works well here. In online shopping, if you don’t have a good transaction processing system, that is what you are leading your customer to do: take a lot of false steps and get nowhere, ending up with you not getting their cash, which they went online specifically to give you.
I am choosing a fashion retailer for this diatribe because after I wrote them my recommendations about their website and cc’d myself, I realized there could be some value here for other e-tailers. We don’t endorse or criticize anybody here as we are speaking on Intel’s behalf.
To start on a positive note, I do have to send kudos to one e-tailer that both men and women can relate to, whose name befits their service: Zap! Order placed. Oh! It’s here already! Overnight, even though I placed the order on a Sunday. Need to try a different size? No prob! They will send it and charge you once you decide which size fits. No shipping charge either way. Are they easy to do business with, or what? Do they ever misplace your order? No way!
Here is the advice I sent to a not-to-be-named medium high end women’s clothing brand that apparently only recently opened up online. I had looked at the brochure that arrived in the mail, set it aside to allow my desires to sort themselves out, and then popped of bed at midnight a few days later, knowing what it was I wanted.
OK, first item—oh, out of stock already. “We didn’t know people would like it”, even though the advertising has only been out for a week! OK, I will live with that. No actually, I will see if anyone else has it. Nobody but you-know-who, a fantastic e-tailer/online auction. Not the identical item, but one that serves the same purpose in the envisioned outfit in your brand. OK, fine, half the price, “buy it now”. Guess what, that thing is here already four days later and I haven’t even gotten a ship notification from the high end place.
Next item, same night (up at midnight, doing the bidding of my fashion goddess) place the order, you do have it….but…no confirmation e-mail. Wait…wait…wait. Call next day. “Sorry, we do not see your order in our system!” Yes, I gave them my credit card info complete and with the 3 digit code and nothing wrong with any of that. Yes, I clicked “purchase this item”. They just didn’t “take” the order!
E-tailer! Whattthh??? You spent how much to choose that line of fall fashion, take pictures of models wearing it, design the lovely brochure in heavy glossy paper? And you even showed the individual wardrobe pieces off the models in their own little paper-doll clothing line-up, for mix-and-match options; you enticed me to your website, allowed me to choose and presumably pay for the item, but YOU DID NOT COMPLETE THE TRANSACTION?! I had to call back, again, to ask about it? During which time I could have thought better of it.
Earlier in the summer I placed an order with a women’s athletic-type gear e-tailer. The catalog had me picturing myself surfing, rock climbing, etc. Even though I am probably not going to do either, I can buy the clothes that suggest the lifestyle, which is what that catalog is designed to inspire. I ordered a beach-y skirt, some expensive flip flops, a hat, two bikinis, a travel purse. None of this order got transacted. By the time I realized, weeks later, that none of it was actually ordered, I was out of the mood. I did not go back and reorder ANY of the items.
My advice: don’t even bother to set up a retail website if you are not going to a) take money, b) stock the items for a reasonable period of time, like a month, c) have adequate phone support in case the website doesn’t work. Because, you see with the primary e-tailer here, it was lucky I waited until the next day to call, as this East Coast company only works from “nine to five” ET weekdays. That’s right, just when all those working girls/women who might want those outfits are not supposed to be making personal phone calls or shopping online. I could see if these were, say one-thousand dollars blouses to go with $3000 dollar skirts. OK, I might have time during the day, or someone else to do it for me. But not at this price range.
Here is my advice, as a customer and in my role as techno-architect.
Do not set up a retail website until you can actually take money and confirm orders. People think they have ordered and it turns out they have not. This loses you both the money and the credibility of the customer.
Do not advertise things that you are going to run out of within a week. Order enough supplies to meet the possible demand.
Do not set up a retail website without having adequate telephone coverage—9am- 5pm ET does not work for the West Coast. If you can’t handle it yourself, outsource it.
Do not have a “personal shopper service” if you cannot staff it. I made a call on Saturday, left a voice mail because that’s where the queue sent me, and received a return voice mail on Tuesday afternoon. The fact that your personal shopper sounds like she might be a baroness does not help me. I did not return her call, nor did she ever call me back. I am not going to wait three or four days for your personal shopper to finish her spa treatments just so I can pay retail directly from you.
Do put a search box on your website so that people can find things they saw in a catalog without having to guess how YOU classify these items. Your collection names may mean something to you but mean nothing, zero, to the customer. If the customer can search by catalog or item number, she/he can go straight to the desired items. (You can add suggestions in a sidebar as to what combines well with this item.)
Do realize that wasting customers’ time is a bad thing, especially when what they are trying to do is buy something from you and either can’t do it online or can’t call customer service. Money is going down the drain all the while, OR going to another retailer, or better from the customer side, staying in their own pocket. As well, this is hazardous to the customer, who may be getting back pain or eye strain, or unhealthy aggravation.
Do give customers accounts and order histories they can access, so if anything goes wrong down the road, like they waited a month before trying on the item and threw out the invoice, they can verify where they got the item from and what they paid for it.
Do have or invest in instant credit card verification. This is one that even otherwise competent sites may overlook. Once the order is “placed”, I would like to assume it is now on its way. I do not want to receive an e-mail or voicemail three days later, or even worse, a paper letter a week later, telling me that there was a problem with my card. Hello! I probably have other cards! One particular site that has a unique set of offerings just cancels your order for you! Does not tell you, does not keep it while waiting for corrections or maybe a different card, just deletes it. Instant verification settles the matter: either you made a mistake in your entry, or you have nothing available on that card. You can fix the entry or you can use another card. Or, you can resign yourself to not getting the stuff at this particular time. Saving a shopping cart for a while is very helpful in these cases. The e-tailer doesn’t have to hold the items, but can avoid the customer repeating the whole process when their ship comes in two days later.
And remember, people know of familiar online retailers who carry a wide range of products for less whose transaction systems do work—all the time. Online auctions may have your brand and items similar to those in your new line, in the original packaging, for half the price. You got me interested in the product. Having decided, I am ready to act. So why redirect me elsewhere once you have me? In a few days I could change my mind or in the same half-hour, find something elsewhere online.
This is from the fashionista’s view, read: mostly female—but not all females as some are not shoppers, really! And some men are, but I don’t know how they shop. Most/many men may be different. Probably they plan well ahead what gadgets they are going to order after reading the specs, comparing prices, choosing the configuration, and you KNOW those websites work. I have used them, too, for a computer, a wireless router, cell phones and accessories, an HDTV display, printer, printer ink. I have bought men’s clothing from small retailers staffed only by maybe one skater dude somewhere on the California coast. Not to mention thousands of dollars in books, auction art, gemstones, you name it.
Just because a website is directed primarily at women does not mean it should have a ding-dong transaction processing system! We ding-dongs know where to go to get stuff!
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tagged: customer service, e-tailing, fashion, lost business, transaction processing, websites
