I still don’t understand why retailers made it so hard for shoppers to find and decide what to buy online. By doing so, these retailers are losing sales online and as in-store purchases. Here’s what I’m talking about.
We ski every weekend. My son and I need new ski clothes for spring skiing and for warmer winter days. We had several near 0°C ski days so far this winter. My experience on all the ecommerce sites of specialized ski shops was unsatisfactory. None of these ski shops gave me the option to filter by the principal characteristics I was looking for.
Since the product pages and the product categories were useless, I tried to google what I was looking for. Most of the time, these searches led to reviews on blogs or to the manufacturers.
What were these “hard to find” characteristics: Breathability, Waterproofing, and Warmth level. Three elements that any hard core skiers will look for before making a purchase.
Many sites has filtering options by brand, by color, and the more advanced sites, by size. Fine. Why not organizing the products by usage, weather, shell instead of a jacket? Why not providing with a complete selection to add more items to my shopping cart?
Don’t think of your products in terms of your product categories, think of your products in terms of when and how your customers will use them.
Direct to consumer
Because I wasn’t able to find the information that I was looking for from sport retailers, I visited the websites of the manufacturers. I got what I wanted. Manufacturers, like Arc’teryx, icebreaker, Orage, provide more useful information for skiers and snowboarders to determine what they want than retailers.
As it turned out, most of my online purchases were at the website of a manufacturer. When I didn’t buy direct, it was because a retailer had a sale that day.
To know more
Kim discussed missed opportunities with poorly written product page and five ways to improve customer experience on your website on her personal blog. These old posts are still relevant today.
