[thelist] how design affects ecommerce

Keith cache at dowebs.com
Fri Jan 11 16:15:40 CST 2002


Nicole

> if I have to
> give my shipping info before I choose which item I want to buy, I'm
> just outta there, and shopping on another website. I am only willing
> to give info about me when I'm ready to pay, not before that, 

We're not talking about filling out all of the shipping address etc, just 
the basic destination like selecting a state or entering the zip code. 
I agree totally that asking for too much info at this point is a definite 
sale killer. This step should be one click if possible.  I too bailout on 
sites that require me to give *any* unnecessary info while I'm still 
shopping.

Asking for anything during the *gathering* phase is indeed contrary 
to the brick-n-mortal buying habits people have. My earlier 
description (that Mia was referring to) was a bit misleading. Mindful 
that asking for anything is disruptive of normal buying habits our 
carts actually do not *require* the destination. When the buyer adds 
an item to the cart they get a subtotal and nothing in the shipping, 
tax, and grandtotal areas. If they want to display shipping, tax, and 
grandtotal as they add items they have to provide only one piece of 
information. It's entirely up to them when they want to provide that 
information, first item, fifth item, during checkout, it's their call to 
make. On carts where we've logged activity, most people do this on 
the first item and we've never logged a multiple item sale where the 
buyer waited to do it during the checkout. 

Gathering/buying/bartering is as old as humanity, so old most of the 
impulse is genetic. From the tone of your post Nicole I get the 
impression that your objection is somewhat a "gut" reaction that 
may be common and should not be ignored. Though I have a *gut* 
reaction that tells me that the opposite, Jon's solution of telling the 
customer to got to hell with his annoying questions, doesn't work 
better.

keith 




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