Incredibly bad online shopping experience

mubs

mubs

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Nov 22, 2002
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Tried to buy something off eCost.com for the first time. What an absolutely, incredibly bad site design and user experience! I had to close the browser, delete cookies and retry. It took 4 such attempts before I got to the final checkout screen. I deleted my item here and closed the browser again and abandoned the idea of buying.

Jeez! This is 2003, not 1996! These guys are a blight on the ecommerce landscape.
 
I'm starting to feel that way about Jump Domain. I'm just hoping they're slow. (Weren't slow about charging my credit card though.)

If only Dotster hadn't been behaving strangely this morning.
 
I'm amazed at how bad some e-commerce sites are. Last I used mwave, they didn't seem to be that great. Things may have changed by now. I'd say buy.com is one of the better user interfaces for buying items. I hate finding products on their site, but once you find them, buying is a breeze. However, I haven't purchased from buy.com in a long time.

(slightly off-topic) I've heard good things about www.godaddy.com if you need an alternative... All my domains are through dotster, but I might try godaddy the next time I buy a domain.
 
Thanks Handruin. 7 hours after ordering (and being charged), I got an email from Jump Domain saying they'd noticed my order and registered the domain.

I guess I've just been spoiled by Dotster ... they have always been pretty fast.

Something else I've just learned: there's apparently a dramatic difference between ".com" and ".org" domains when it comes to the personal information "whois" displays. I just created my first ".org" and I'm surprised by the difference. ALL my contact information is displayed. :-? Maybe I should've given some bogus information after all ... or at least set up a disposable email account. Eeek! :(
 
Handruin said:
I'm amazed at how bad some e-commerce sites are. Last I used mwave, they didn't seem to be that great. Things may have changed by now.
Click to expand...

Hmm ... I placed 4 or 5 orders (all <=$200) with them over the past year and a half and never had a problem. Lots of email confirmation about what they were doing at each stage which was reassuring.

I've haven't tried buy.com before. I'll have to take a look sometime. How are their prices?

I'll definitely be avoiding eCost.com though. Thanks for the warning, mubs.
 
I remember mwave having a weird login system, I didn't feel like my information was secure. The look and feel of their site was a bit basic and crude and they didn't have a user section that tracked their orders. I haven't bought from mwave in well over a year, maybe two, so it's possible they have changed (or maybe I missed those features).

buy.com has reasonable prices, not always the best. Like I said in my other post, I haven't purchased from them in a while either so it's hard to judge. I just logged into buy.com and it seems my last order was in January this year. Their interface is changed a little, but I like how it is.
 
i said:
I've haven't tried buy.com before. I'll have to take a look sometime. How are their prices?
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Buy.com used to have very good prices a few years ago, but now I think they're just average. I haven't bought from them in a couple of years.
 
I try to buy everything I can from Newegg. Any problems that I have ever experienced have been sorted out immediately. Plus they are always very fast when it comes to shipping and have some of the best prices on the net. I have had good experiences with Amazon.com and Hypermicro too.
 
I was just looking at my order history with Newegg and I found that I have ordered some $7000 worth of computer parts in the last year and a half. I find myself somewhat baffled by this amount of money. I bet a lot of you order that much stuff every month.

*not all of this is personal purchasing, actually most of it is computers that I built for other people.
 
Buy.com is an ebates participant so you can get an extra 2% back on any purchases made there. Free shipping on many, not all, items. I buy DVDs and misc. stuff there on occasion. They have the Indy Jones DVD box preorder for something like 40% off w/free shipping. Their checkout system is nice. Once something is in the cart, log in, it remembers your info, confirm, done.

Computer parts I mostly get through Newegg nowadays. Buy can be competitive, esp. if the product qualifies for the free shipping, but the selection at Newegg is more to my taste.

Book I generally get locally or through Barnes & Noble (bn.com; 4% back through ebates).

Dell, OfficeMax, OfficeDepot, etc. are all ebates participants as well so there's still more ways to get a little change back from your purchases. For disclosure, my link to ebates above does include a referrer credit. Refer people and you get $5 when they place their 1st purchase through ebates. The referral credit used to be better (it was a percentage of the referree's purchases), but I'll take what I can get. :)
 
Googlegear pissed me off supremely.

I got obnoxious error messages when trying to place an order. I decided their web site was broken.

I called their customer service number. Got a bored-sounding woman who really made it seem like she resented the intrusion on her day.

Her first response: Clear your cookies.
(I'd done that)
Second response: Use the web site to report that message.
(I would, if it were up and working running)
Third: Are you using IE version 6?
(On Red Hat version 8?)
Fourth: You should be using IE 6. Pretty sure.
(To fix an error message that seems to be coming from a MySQL database on your web server I should be running IE6 on my Linux box. Is that it?)
Fifth: Yes. I think that will do it.
(Do you handle orders? Can I order by phone?)
Sixth: No, you have to use the web to make an order.
(The web site that you say works just fine, but doesn't?)
Seventh: Ye... (long pause, then dial tone).

I ordered from mwave instead.
 
LOL... Yeah, that sounds about right. There are a surprising number of customer service reps have the same "damn you stupid customer for intruding on my peace and quiet... everything works fine; it's your fault just like I told all the other idiots" attitude.
 
Either that, or you get somebody with a thick French Canadian accent working in a bilingual (French/English) call centre in Hull or New Brunswick, or increasingly, somebody with a thick Indian accent working in a call center in India.
 
My experience was similat to Merc's. If that dolt Jason who was angry because I woke him up (I called the Sales #, mind you) would take my order on the phone (which the web site says they will), they would have had some business from me. All he wanted to do was point out how stupid I was and hang up on me.

I have to believe eCost is some sort of secret site created by the coutry's top CS schools to show their students how important usability is. They've It's not a real ecommerce site! I think if I tried very, very hard, I couldn't do as lousy a job as this site is.
 
ecost.com didn't seem too bad at first glance, but their site doesn't seem to work too well once you actually start using it. One example of that can be seen here:

ecost.gif


Note that I selected Loudspeakers as the category. Those are some pretty famous speakers, eh?
 
First off: once you're at the item's page, there's no option to "buy now" or "add to cart". Instead, there's a "click to find" button. Huh? Helooo, I'm already at the product page. What am I supposed to find now? When you click on the "find" button, you get a looooong page with a zillion items, and your item is buried in the page somewhere, not at the top. This scheme of things was extremely counter-intuitive for me. Playing hide-n-seek with the buyer!

Now on the long page with your item, there are several links for your item; item name, a "buy" button, etc. Many will take you back to step one. Deja Vu all over again! One will take you to another page where you can add the item to your cart. Try changing the quantity. This is where I had to clear cookies multiple times and retry.

For my item, the item rebate page said there was a limit of two. When adding to my cart, it said the limit was one. But it let me change the quantity to two. Then wouldn't let me change it back to one. Go figure.

In one link on the main page (customer service or whatever, can't remember), they said tax would be charged only for some Canadian provinces. I'm in California. Then in the main page for the site, they said shipping would be free if the order was over $25. Mine was around $29. On the final checkout page, they charged me tax, and $4 S&H, wich together was nearly 20% of my order total. There was no mention anywhere (easily found) that there would be a S&H charge.

That's when I gave up.

Way, way FUBAR.
 
A friend and I may be working on a site rating project for usablility and design. It's his project, so who knows what might happen. If we get this going, this could be some valuable data. Much like resellerrating.com, this site would rate design and usability.
 
Handruin said:
A friend and I may be working on a site rating project for usablility and design. It's his project, so who knows what might happen. If we get this going, this could be some valuable data. Much like resellerrating.com, this site would rate design and usability.
Click to expand...

So, you're saying that it could happen as slowly as HLM Company becoming an online reseller? :)
 
Are you still contemplating the idea of online reselling? I remember discussion from long ago regarding this. If you do, this is the thread on what NOT to do to your site. :)
 
Handruin said:
Are you still contemplating the idea of online reselling? I remember discussion from long ago regarding this. If you do, this is the thread on what NOT to do to your site. :)
Click to expand...

Yes, I am keeping these tips in mind.
 
Handruin said:
If you build it, and your prices are good, I'll buy from you. :)
Click to expand...

I've been looking at the different E-Commerce solutions from my host, pair.com. This can get expensive, you will have to buy a lot from me. :) At least they have options where no programming is required on my end.
 
Have you considered something like oscommerce? (who happens to be sponsored by pair.com)

Pair.com (as good as they are) is slightly expensive and restrictive when it comes to databases.

I have no doubt that an ecommerce solution would be expensive, especially if someone else builds it. You may be able to get something like newegg. I’ve seen other sites with the same basic design.

Here is a demo.
 
Thanks for the link to osCommerce Handy. But it seems that osCommerce requires programming on my part, right? I'm also interested in how this would interact with my disti.
 
From what I remember, oscommerce doesn't require any programming. You would have to setup the application, but it's not that hard. I've installed an earlier version of oscommerce, but I never utilized it.

At most, you would need to create a database, configure a few files so that the script has the correct username/password for the database, and maybe some permision changes. I was able to get this script working, so if you wanted to try it, I would help where I can.

Once the app is installed, you customize it through the web. (no dabling into PHP required.) Your products, pricing, and user managment is done through their admin section. If you're interested, I could setup a demo if you want to play with it? I don't know exactly what your "disiti" is...is that distribution list?

I also believe you can configure oscommerce to function with 3rd party billing systems such as 2checkout and billpay. I'll have to dig around on their site to determine what capabilities this has. I know some folks that host with us use this tool for their online ecommerce site.
 
Handruin said:
From what I remember, oscommerce doesn't require any programming. You would have to setup the application, but it's not that hard. I've installed an earlier version of oscommerce, but I never utilized it.

At most, you would need to create a database, configure a few files so that the script has the correct username/password for the database, and maybe some permision changes. I was able to get this script working, so if you wanted to try it, I would help where I can.

Once the app is installed, you customize it through the web. (no dabling into PHP required.) Your products, pricing, and user managment is done through their admin section. If you're interested, I could setup a demo if you want to play with it? I don't know exactly what your "disiti" is...is that distribution list?

I also believe you can configure oscommerce to function with 3rd party billing systems such as 2checkout and billpay. I'll have to dig around on their site to determine what capabilities this has. I know some folks that host with us use this tool for their online ecommerce site.
Click to expand...

Disti is distributor, because I don't want to accumulate inventory on my end, I'd rather have things drop-shipped from them.

When you have time, a demo would be nice.
 
e_dawg said:
Either that, or you get somebody with a thick French Canadian accent working in a bilingual (French/English) call centre in Hull or New Brunswick,...
Click to expand...
I probably have a thick accent. What's your problem? Do you think all the places I phone are deprived from cs people with a strong whatever-but-French accent and answering calls for French-speaking customers?

I don't mind the accent, as long as the person on the other end of the line shows good will.
 
Buck said:
Handruin said:
From what I remember, oscommerce doesn't require any programming. You would have to setup the application, but it's not that hard. I've installed an earlier version of oscommerce, but I never utilized it.

At most, you would need to create a database, configure a few files so that the script has the correct username/password for the database, and maybe some permision changes. I was able to get this script working, so if you wanted to try it, I would help where I can.

Once the app is installed, you customize it through the web. (no dabling into PHP required.) Your products, pricing, and user managment is done through their admin section. If you're interested, I could setup a demo if you want to play with it? I don't know exactly what your "disiti" is...is that distribution list?

I also believe you can configure oscommerce to function with 3rd party billing systems such as 2checkout and billpay. I'll have to dig around on their site to determine what capabilities this has. I know some folks that host with us use this tool for their online ecommerce site.
Click to expand...

Disti is distributor, because I don't want to accumulate inventory on my end, I'd rather have things drop-shipped from them.

When you have time, a demo would be nice.
Click to expand...

I haven't forgotten about you Buck, I'm working on setting up the oscommecre for ya right now. I'll write back when I have more details.
 
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