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Posted by Sherman Pendley on 11/25/07 22:13
"Mika" <anon@anon.com> writes:
> "Sherman Pendley" <spamtrap@dot-app.org> wrote in message
> news:m1prxzmrjq.fsf@dot-app.org...
>>
>> Speaking as a customer, I'm not looking for "unique and inventive" web
>> design when I'm doing my online shopping. I'm a web geek, and I'm not
>> against such things in general. I enjoy many entertainment, music, comics
>> and "concept" sites that are loaded with stuff like that - indeed, being
>> entertained by a unique and inventive design is sometimes the point of an
>> entire site.
>>
>> But the point of a shopping site is different. A shopping site should be
>> concerned with making it as easy as possible for the customer to find what
>> they want and spend their money. The goal of *your* shopping site appears
>> to be just the opposite, to make it as difficult as possible.
>>
>> So tell me - as a customer, what motivation do I have to enable
>> VirusScript,
>> wait for minutes for each of your pages to load, and turn off my preferred
>> music, just for the privilege of shopping at your site? Why shouldn't I
>> just
>> go to Amazon.com instead, which loads quickly, works without VirusScript,
>> and remains blissfully silent?
>
> To answer your question:
>
> Don't you find search engines rather clinical? All that text doesn't
> exactly stimulate the senses.
I don't expect a search engine to "stimulate the senses" - I expect it to
quickly return accessible and relevant results. IMHO, Google is a success
because of its clean interface, not in spite of it.
> We believe Internet shopping should be a rich
> user experience, and that is what we deliver -- the sights & sounds of real
> world shopping, minus the hassle.
But I don't *want* the sights and sounds of real-world shopping. That's why
I'm shopping on the internet to begin with.
Besides which, your site may not have the same hassle as real-world shopping
(no crowds, for one thing) but it's definitely not hassle-free. I have to
enable VirusScript, I have to wait for far too long, I have to figure out how
to turn off the noise it makes, etc.
Your stores may well have goods and services that make it a worthwhile trade-
off. The problem is, I have to make that trade blindly; I have to fulfill all
of your requirements before I can even look at the stores to see if what they
have is worth doing so.
> Many people prefer that real street experience. There are streets we know
> and love, and we know where their favourite shops are and how they look.
> With us you can still go there, without the heavy bags & traffic jams of
> course.
>
> Better still, there are millions of people who may never get the chance to
> stroll down the famous streets we feature. Now they can scroll down them
> almost instantly, travelling 100s of miles in seconds.
That reads like an "information superhighway" marketing spiel from the mid
90s, back when web developers still thought that online shoppers were as
enamored with bells and whistles as the developers themselves were.
The bottom line for me is this: I've seen many friends and relatives hit
the "back" button because a shopping site was too slow to load, it made
noise, it didn't work with their preferred browser settings, etc. I've yet
to see *anyone* leave such a site because it loaded too quickly, was too
easy to use, or didn't play any background music.
sherm--
--
WV News, Blogging, and Discussion: http://wv-www.com
Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net
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