Two's a Queue

Online Copywriting

2013-12-02T14:29:00.001+00:00

Honestly who needs ideas on what to blog about when you can just read other people's writing and get so annoyed that only some furious finger banging on the keyboard will help?

I may be being an incredibly lazy blogger of late but in my defence this started as a comment on the eConsultancy website and got too long and ended up here. I'm not starting an anti-eConsultancy blog I promise. For a start I don't have the copy writing skills ;-)

Here's the original blog post: http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/63907-how-product-descriptions-vary-among-nine-fashion-retailers

Yes once again I disagree with many of the points in this article - and while I'm on the subject the first comment made. I feel like I've just gone back 5 years in the evolution of online customer experience when we all read articles from people who pretended to know what they were talking about about where the search box should be and how customers only like CTA's in green and you must offer a guest checkout. Anyone out there who actually works in eCommerce knows all this is a total pile of rubbish and that check listing your website like some kind of identikit copy of Amazon gets you precisely no where.

Copy in your product descriptions is something which can only be judged by proper testing and analysis. We know that some customers find information difficult to find online and miss that experience of touching and investigating in store, but we also know that customers tell us they don't actually like to read text and that large amounts of copy can put them off buying rather than encourage them. It is a very individual and ultimately strategic decision depending on your brand, the type of product you sell, how you attract traffic and how your customers choose to interact with your site.

Customers in different sectors need different information, online fashion - especially of the high street variety - is often one where they don't need that much - our customers are visual, impulsive, competitive, trend driven - if they like it and it's at the right price, they'll often just buy it. Whereas a customer purchasing say a washing machine, might need just a little more technical, dimensional and functional information. Emotionally driven purchases like gifts, or organic food can often find the story and provenance of the item can add to it's value and the customer's ultimate decision in purchasing. This is a few examples but it might be that you work in one of those sectors and have found the complete opposite. Similarly customers in different countries can have different needs around copy. My point is everyone is different.

A lack of copy - or functional bullet points - doesn't necessarily mean copy writing is of a poor quality or that a retailer hasn't put the effort in. It may simply mean that they have worked out that their particular set of customers, shopping on their site don't need that type of information to convert. Also copy writing each and every product in a fashion retailers catalog can in fact be a huge job, and often even if conversion improves - the ROI of having a skilled professional (or two!) writing that much text each week just doesn't stack up. It also costs a damn site more to localise than your average 3 bullet points - again the benefit has to outweigh the costs. Process wise you don't always have the product in front of you to be able to write that information either - this is a challenge many multichannel retailers are finding as the web becomes key to their operations.

OK OK I give you a bit of a break - so some times it might be laziness, or lack of knowledge in the above examples, but let's not assume there is a one-size fits all answer because there isn't. Criticism is always welcome, as product owners we should welcome feedback and change, however this article comes out far too one dimensional as to be practically pointless. Calling retailers out for not putting enough effort in? Pot kettle black Mr Moth, pot kettle black.

Why I disagree with econsultancy this week: Attributing New Look's 79% Online Increase

2013-08-21T18:03:00.004+01:00

Browsing for my usual catch up of what's going on in the ecom world this morning I came across this blog post on econsultancy about the impressive results released by New Look last week in relation to the growth of their online business. This article attempts to attribute this increase in sales to certain functionalities on the website and mobile channels.

This is fantastic news for the ecommerce industry and great to have some good positive stories about retail growth in the UK.

I'll be honest (do you expect much else?) - I disagree with an awful lot of it, and I'm feeling more and more lately that econsultancy are clinging to a world where best practice UX actually exists - in my view this is a vastly old fashioned opinion. What exists in the eCommerce world is an unprecedented ability to see what is happening on your own website, with your own customers, buying your own product.

I don't disagree with some of the comments on buggy and not optimised mobile and app functionality - it's clear there's some work to do here (haven't we all?) but the general premise of the article bothers me and I expected better from someone who is as close to the industry as the usually quite smart econsultancy team.

Here's a few reasons I disagree with David Moth this morning:

1. SEO - So let's start with one I do agree with, you can't argue with the decent Google rankings that New Look has for it's core products. This has to be a contributor to sales increases though I'd be surprised if there wasn't cannibalisation of in store sales lurking around in that 79% increase. That's not to say it's not impressive but it's certainly not clear whether the 79% is above and beyond like for like bricks and mortar increases. I'd suggest in this climate many customers are simply moving to online from store.
2. Stock info - this has been there since the current New Look website launched, admittedly originally there was a mildly confusing key of different shades of green to indicate stock depth which might actually have been the barrier to customers shopping which has since been removed. Clear and concise if uninspired dropdown replaces the former 'boxes'
3. Product filtering - yet again, this has always been there since the current website launched. What it is doing it allowing a more detailed guided navigation selection - it looks as if some effort has been put into offering customers options they really want outside of just process and colour - the jeans lengths for example, sleeve types etc are all more granular types of filter that have appeared as the site has matured.
4. Click and Collect - yes it's got to have contributed to the growth, we're all seeing customers dissatisfied with carrier time-slots and reliability and opting instead ot pick up items at their convenience. How many of these customers just didn't fancy taking a chance on going to a store if their chosen item wasn't there/wasn't out on the floor? This is likely to be some swallowing up of store sales.
5. Consistent Navigation - Oh my word are we in the dark ages? You're making this into a thing? Fairly sure this has been there since the non transactional site and exists on pretty much every website....no brainer David, no brainer.
6. Free returns - again there's nothing new here, this has been in place well before the past 3 months
7. Free delivery over £45 - delivery promotions are always winners for customers so I'll give you this one, but I'd also have hoped that New Look have spent some time optimising this value and working out which level of promotion most gets customers thinking they should spend that extra £5 or so just to not have to spend £3.95 without them spending a lot of revenue on funding delivery. It's not just having the promo, it';s having the RIGHT promo for your customer
8. Security message - Again this has been there since the year dot and possibly before, customers are said to react well to security messages in checkout but in this day and age with an established high street brand? Nah
9. Upselling at the Shopping Bag -I'll give you this one too, this is a good piece of functionality - essentially Amazon stylee, I'd hope they've tested it though
10. Use of Live Chat - Really? REALLY? This is a prime example of a big fat bell and whistle. Someone show me a case study outside of telecomms or insurance where this actually helps conversion without costing you more in customer services.
11.Guest checkout - I'm fairly sure everyone knows my views by now on Guest Checkout. It can cause quite a lot more problems than it solves- with us not really providing an infrasture for guest custoemrs to communicate, track their order or in fact convert their guest purchases into an account as they might want to continue shopping on a site. This is a prime example of the quite old fashioned view that UX is a check list of items you must provide, rather than an optimisation of YOUR customer journey on YOUR website.
12. Alternative payments -What alternative payments? The site doesn't cater for any specific international customer payment methods like Ideal, Sofort, Giropay, China Union Pay...I could go on.

OK I'm bored now, you get the picture. I feel like this article is lazy, unresearched writing. There's no disputing New Look's impressive results but without being within the business you can't really attribute them to a load of factors like this, frankly you could debate it forever, which is a slightly pointless exercise. And if you've woken up to this today and thought 'I must do all these things on my site RIGHT NOW' just stop, take a breath and look at your own customer feedback, your own site, your own data and stop considering the magical silver bulleted tick list of user experience will solve all your problems. It won't.

Though come on - I had to put my oar in a bit didn't I? if I absolutely had to make some suggestions on their impressive growth online I'd say some of the following may have contributed:

1. New image styles - NL used to use model shots, albeit headless, whereas now they use cut outs of the product by itself. Assuming they tested this in with customers this can contirbute heavuily to conversion.
2. New search functionality - conversion through search boxes is traditionally higher than via a browse journey. New Look search used to be a cross site search - which was a nice feature but not necessarily accurate and meant customers had an extra step to drill down. This has now changed with increased functionality
3. MVT - New Look are clearly using a multi variant testing tool (right click peeps right click) - from what I can see this is focused on the cross sell section of the product page but may well be on all sorts of places on the site, they're optimizing the experience, learning from what customers do and not what they say, and developing their own idea of what suits their site and their customer. And that people...is the point.

Surely we're all winners?

2013-06-17T10:24:00.001+01:00

Those following me on twitter and who enjoy a running commentary of my hangovers may be aware that I once again attended the Drapers/Paypal/Retail Week Etail Awards last week.

Now I've been a tad critical of industry awards of late - the political/who wants to sell to who/often uninspired winners do still leave me a bit cold- although last night some real up and coming etailers were shining through as stars of the industry - which was lovely to see.

What struck me as a bit of a shame was the lack of people there- I don't mean numbers, it was clearly a sell out again, but the faces were very similar to those from last year...and the year before. Sponsors Paypal had 3 tables. 3!

It was a nice atmosphere this year - representatives from some of the most successful online companies were cheering each time their site or app was shown on the big screen but quite often a shortlisted nomination would be read out and there would silence. Given we put ourselves forward for these awards I don't understand why that would happen? Because people don't believe in them any more? Don't see them as an achievement? Are people too 'busy' and full of the size of their own inbox to make time?

Whether you believe in the genuine achievement behind an industry award or not - being able to celebrate a hard year's work with your wider industry colleagues is surely worth doing? Treating your team to a night out and an opportunity to dance the night away with some of their ecom heroes? The chance to chat and catch up with people? A night of letting your hair down and celebrating the success of this industry in tough economic times? No?

Sad times.

Weekly musings: Why I'm bored of industry awards

2013-04-16T11:48:00.000+01:00

Judging what success looks like from within a given project is a difficult enough challenge for some online businesses, how you then determine success and achievement within the industry is an absolutely impossible task. And yet we have a multitude of awards to tell us different....there's Retail Week Awards, The BT Retail Week Technology Awards, the Internet Retailing Awards..........I have to admit they leave me a bit cold these days.

I once worked with an eCommerce Director (I shall keep them nameless in case they don't want to be attributed this story) whose site was nominated for a prominent industry award for Multichannel Retailer of the Year. As I sat in the office slaving away for our consultancy day rate (obviously!) the team changed into their party pants and dancing shoes and were about to leave, I said to the ecom director without even thinking about it 'good luck, I hope we win'. He turned around, paused, and said to me 'I hope we don't'. I looked understandably a bit confused, back in those days I was overwhelmed by the glamour of a black tie evening with some of my retail heroes, and the thought of having our work recognized was exciting. He followed it up by saying ' I hope we don't win Multichannel Retailer of the Year. Because we're not'

And you know what? I realised almost straight away he was absolutely bloody right. We really weren't. That business still had a way to go - being a late comer to a transactional website, with a variety of challenges that meant right then, at that moment, we had absolutely no right to consider ourselves even slightly Multichannel - let alone the best in the industry. (That's not the case now I might add, much good work has been done since and should the site be nominated again it would at least be reflective of the fact it can hold it's own the industry)

Now if we always judged ourselves on having a way to go we'd never celebrate anything, but that's missing the point. I'm presuming that the reason we were in that category as a nominee was because our PR team had written a submission, and potentially was likely to pay for a table for the business attendees. No one had actually considered if we were worthy of the prize,probably just whether we'd look good on the marketing material.

And you may say that it's the fault of a business for entering themselves into a category they don't really belong in. But put it this way - if your business has released an app this year, you're going to think it's great, and you're going to nominate yourself for it's greatness. You PR department are going to think 'what a great opportunity to get some credentials in the industry' and happily dash off a submission....the fact that your app is probably just about passable and the only person who thinks it's any good is your CEO who enjoys flashing it about at dinner parties becomes by the by....

It's tough because no one knows what happens within a business unless they work in it, the success or failure or challenges faced in a project can only be judged by what you as an entrant tell the judges/body sponsoring the awards. I could probably write myself a glowing report for any number of projects that I've worked on, and despite the fact that they were rubbish or brilliant I'd win or lose based on the profile of my company, how safe a bet we are for the next 12 months (no publication wants to bet on a losing horse- though no doubt some great work has been done at many a failing retailer in the last year), whether the sponsors think we might want to buy from them in the future, whether our third party providers put up the money to sponsor and whether we're high profile enough to make a pretty picture on the front of the magazine/website/company brochure.

And that isn't to say that some of the winners of these awards aren't rightly proud of their achievement, and deserve wholeheartedly to celebrate what their work has brought to their business and the wider industry, but for me, these accolades are devalued by the process and politics that support them, for which we're all to blame.

Internet Retailing is at least trying to buck the trend a little by asking attendees and retailers to vote for their perceived value adding projects or initiatives, but this can only go so far as only the most popular, talked about, press -worthy or customer facing will get to be seen by those external to an industry and therefore voted for. It's a shame there isn't a better way forward.

Devalued industry awards that aren't really reflective of excellence, can often be political and are regularly predictable seems to be just accepted as a standard these days (and it's not just our industry - many have the same issues), and for the sake of basking in some glory, enjoying a night out and adding something to your CV maybe that's enough but what if there was something different?

What if award submissions were entered with some real detail, viewed by everyone who's interested and voted on by those in the industry? What if there were no sponsorships or votes from third parties. What if there were no weak, bland categories to squeeze your submission into? And what if for once you could celebrate being the best in your industry and really know it was worth something?

Suits, spam and stalkers: How not to sell

2013-04-10T11:28:00.004+01:00

For anyone who follows my twitter feed this post has been coming for a while. Over the last two years or so of being on the client side of ecommerce (as opposed to consultancy) I've seen some frankly horrendous examples of selling in the industry; from being targeted at shows by people literally rugby tackling you into conversation, to receiving spam emails with the blanks NOT filled in, to being called EVERY day for six weeks (and hung up on when they got through) by a single company so much so that Customer Services called them my stalkers....I feel lately like I've seen it all. And it ain't pretty.

Coming from a store retail background people assume you know how to sell, yet I never consider this to be one of my core skills, though frankly I think I'd do a better job than some of the people I've been forced to be in contact with over the last couple of years. At least when working in stores I was honest, genuine, sensitive and knew when to get lost.

None of this is fancy theory, or tactics, it's just common sense, though apparently, when it comes to selling to ecommerce companies - that's in short supply. Thefore I present to you:

The 2AQ Guide to Selling to eCommerce Companies

- Research, research, research

Don't assume every retailer/company is the same. Look at their website and work out what it is that they think makes them different. Trying to sell a value proposition to a company who works on quality rather than quantity for example if probably a non starter off the blocks. Ditto the type of company. I recently had a freight company repeatedly emailing me, since we're a marketplace and we hold no stock this not only fell on deaf ears but eventually resulted in a passive-aggressive email back from me when they just didn't give up. "We have no stock to move. Please go away. Kind regards. "

In the same vein - LinkedIn exists, use it. Check you're meeting the right person. Check what the person you're meeting did before they worked for the company you're meeting them in. I once had a sales person sell me a solution one of their existing clients uses, except I knew they didn't. Because their existing client was my former client and I understood that system like the back of my hand. I mean first and foremost don't lie, but if you're going to, at least pick one that can't be debunked by someone in the room.

- Dress appropriately

Comes down to the first one again but the number of sales people who come into our offices in really formal business wear. Nothing wrong with a cool suit and tie combo if you're a cool suit and tie combo type of person, but no one is a sweaty shirt and cheap suit person, so don't do it. Use your head and think about where is is you're presenting, there's no need to show up in jeans and trainers but at least attempt to suggest you understand the online space by chilling out on the dress code a bit. If your company is dull and corporate then you're going to come across as dull and corporate, which is the exact opposite of what most online companies consider themselves to be.

- Target the right person for the right thing. And be honest.

This happened to me recently and it was CRINGEWORTHY watching the person grasp at filling the time, when if they'd simply been upfront about what they wanted they would have got to see the right set of people instead of trying to sneak in via another means

- Don't add pointless charges

Online companies know the value of 'setup' of a Saas product i.e zero. If it costs nothing to do then don't try to charge me. Don't add additional charges just so they can be negotiated and I feel I'm getting a bargain. I had a proposal recently that charged me for users. Seriously users. If I have to tell you what's wrong with this then there's no hope for you....

- Know what you're talking about - don't go and get the 'tech guy' be the person who understands your product

Constantly back and forth between process, tech, business analysis and sales is the worst type of sales process. No one expects you to know the ins and outs of the code but whether you can store billing address and send it back to us might be a key requirement, and it's best if you know the answer. It's not techie to know your product and what it can do. It's good practice.

- Know how you can help

This comes down a bit to number one - if you know what a company does, how they work, what their challenges might be, then you can begin to start to form a solution with them. Selling something which you have no idea how it will apply to the business you're targeting is like shooting in the dark. Don't just list your features and functionality - give me something I need, sell it to me in a way that solves my problem without me having to think too much - now we're talking.

- Be consistent, and work with us, but don't hack

Offering too many options for use of your product/system can seem like a good idea when you're trying to gain a client for the first time, but actually being too flexible can just make you seem like you don't have a clear idea of what the client needs, and make you seem untrustworthy Changing your mind from white labeling to working with a third party, and back to white labeling again doesn't really fill anyone with confidence that you know what you're talking about.

Sometimes a business just wants a third party who will say 'whatever you need, we'll help, we might not be able to get to a solution, but we'll help as much as we can'. It's so frustrating when you're trying to be shoehorned into the way a system or vendor does things. Sometimes you just want a collaborative approach, you never know, it might open doors for your business too.

That said no one wants to be a guinea pig; being the first person to test a new feature or functionality is risky and hard to justify a business case for. Provide solutions or workarounds but if you can't do it, be clear you can't - don't try to hack something which will cause the client more pain down the line.

- Don't spam

Unsolicited email has to be the single most annoying thing in anyone's working day and the most unsuccessful method of sales. Unsolicited emails with the name as a blank or wrong (yes this happened too) and the bit about how we can help you not filled in because it's a template and I'm a moron....you get my point.

- Attention to detail

Often decisions on providers or vendors can be made on the smallest of things, the ability to support some random quirk of a client's processes or system. If you haven't dug into the detail in any pre-sales format then you need to. Entire deals can fall apart, projects can take years longer than they should, and relationships can be soured based on the simplest of mismatches which could have been caught in a process workshop. Do it.

I should mention some companies do manage the sales process incredibly well, more often than not I've seen some great pitches, some bright sales people who know their product and understand when to call and when to leave you alone. However there are some seriously poor practices going on out there, and it's not helpful, it's not going to improve the reputation of your compnay and it's not going to get you a sale.

To finish here's a little cut-out-and-keep list of the basics, just in case anyone is reading this who is planning on phoning/emailing/annoying me anytime soon:

(I can't believe I'm having to re-iterate the following but seriously, people still do these things)

- Be on time

- Don't be a moron

- Be prepared

- Don't just read your slides

- Adjust your approach

Just keep swimming...offline selling in the digital age

2013-03-01T09:39:00.004+00:00

Retail commentator Leon Bailey-Green wrote a few weeks ago about the influx of opinions since the demise of HMV on what should have/could have/was stupid not to do with the business in the face of a period of significant change within it's vertical. Everyone all of a sudden had an opinion on why HMV failed, what they should have done and how slow they were to do it. That's kind of fair enough - events in our industry stimulate conversation and I wouldn't want it any other way. Yet Leon was right in saying that it's rare that before the demise anyone has any helpful suggestions, is this because we feel more confident criticising after the fact? Or are we all bandwagon jumpers who just like the HMV management team equally didn't see the real stinng of digital coming? Leon suggested those who criticised HMV for being slow to change should make some suggestions about Waterstones (widely considered another dead-int-the-water thanks to Amazon retailer). I thought about this a bit, and here's mine.

I'm caveat-ing this with the fact that I genuinely know nothing about the internal workings of their business, and that no doubt there are 'ooh but that's not profitable', 'that's too much cash', 'that's not possible with their debt/organisational/store structure' grumblings out there even as I'm writing this, and I'm fully aware this is likely not going to save anyone from going under but hell.,...I'm having a go at being creative instead of (just) critical...maybe more of us retailers should give THAT a try.

Not sure where the fishing references sprung from ...potentially my four week holiday in NZ with a fisherman was SLIGHTLY too long :-)

H x

Constant press around the inability of retailers to complete with online shopping suggests that Waterstones is teetering on the edge of being the next victim. Like an innocent lemming following it's friends along with no idea where it's going, it's almost inevitable that it's about to fall off the cliff, and we're all going to watch and nod our heads when that happens, and say to each other that "there goes another casualty...oops. who cares about buying books anyway...they're just like CD's, part of the past...." But I can't help thinking Waterstones has a number of strengths against the likes of Amazon, and that there is something there worth saving. If I was in charge of the business I'd be focusing on these three differentiating factors:

Hands on experience of the product - as any book lover will tell you, books have a smell, a feel, an emotion and buying them online doesn't always compensate for the joy of wandering around a bookstore touching and dipping in and out of books you might buy (get out of the big fish's pond)
It's reputation as a retailer which knows and is passionate about reading (build your own pond)
It's proximity to where people actually are, meaning ease, no delivery charge (get them in the pond (door) )

Get out of the big fish's pond (kinda)

Stop de-valuing books by trying to compete on price. Stop stacking them high and selling them cheap- at least in store environments. Create spaces where people want to linger, and stock things they want to linger over. If you must give them ipads to linger on then FINE tick your omni-channel QR code box but for goodness sake do it soon. Shut down shed-like retail park stores if you have them, Focus on stores that are on the high street, in great locations, in University towns etc. Get everyone else online (that's the kinda bit). Make your store a brand space (NOT a showroom- I hate that word), let people collect online orders there, let them order to their home their, use your stores as the foundations of your brand. If it isn't, get rid of it,

Pioneer the beautiful book - Mass produced, get it for 3 for £7 in Tesco, shiny paperbacks are never going to be the draw for someone to come to a book store (unless they're in the airport, or me... because I read so fast that those 3 for 2 deals are basically my life). What happened to the beauty of books? When was the last time you purchased a lovely hardback of your favourite novel? Or a signed copy of an author you admire? or gifted a hard backed copy of the Very Hungry Caterpillar to a newborn? Not for agea? Exactly. And where would you even get such a thing from? I resent the purchase of hardbacks - they take the same amount of time to read for me and then they take up room on my shelf, and you took £15 away from me for the pirvelege. but a lovely hardback of a Harry Potter book? Or The Shadow of the Wind? A limited edition? I'm there.....Books are a part of a person's home, their personality, their life....no one stacks Kindle books on their coffee table.....(well that's physically impossible but you get my sentiment)

Support the industry - Partner with some small independent publishers, who don't partake in the neon-tinted 800 pager. Find them, Start one. Get them on your shelves. Create difference. yes still sell the neon bricks (I for one love them) but start editing, curating, bringing wonderful words to your customer.

Build your own pond

Remember your strengths - I'm not sure if they still do it now but at one point Waterstones had handwritten reviews of books taped to the front copy of a new release or hidden classic, written by the staff themselves. This is a great opportunity to utilise thoseb ook club people or their own staff and really sell their knowledge and insight. Customers love to discover something new, but to feel confident about their purchase - this is the perfect way to help them do that in a store environment.

Offer something more

Invest in staff - I am a true believer that as much as we love Amazon, we love the reviews, we love the speed etc - what amazon can NEVER do is give the type of one to one personal service that you get in a shop. And you might be thinking 'really? who would want that?'; but it's true - we have devalued shop work to a minimum wage, poor benefits 24/7 occupation which is absolutely in no way shape or form giving Amazon a run for their money on the one thing they cannot compete on. and maybe customers have stopped caring about that - but that's because we have let them stop caring. The French lady in Whistles in Blackheath was the only reason I ever used to shop there - she made me feel welcome in a store I'd never really been in before, helped me with styling and made me feel good about my purchasing. As someone who works in an online industry- I'm telling you, that shit is pure retail gold, and almost impossible to replicate online. Invest in staff. Employ experts. Let them sell their passion to your customers.

Get them into the pond

Products like books lend themselves beautifully to being an impulse buy. People who read are generally quite emotionally attached to the whole experience of reading, and discovering a hidden gem is a real part of the literary culture. Those who aren't so passionate or not just in that mood today may find that actually once they're tempted inside price isn't a considerable difference when you factor in the wait and cost of delivery. Reasons to make your store a hub of literary activity are for me the key to being a genuine multi channel retailer instead of a website with some stores attached.

I think sometimes we forget - most people are on (or on the brink of) the internet all day every day for work - essentially they're there anyway, they're not always on the high street. If they were, things might be slightly different.

Focus on Local - Even if every local area doesn't have a famous author or part in literary history then there are significant ways the stores could 'personalise' their stock much more than they do now. The Richmond store for example if not only right over the road from our office but also near ebay, Paypal and Gumtree - there is a strong online community here and books which reflect the needs and tastes of the area would be perfect. Our town is also the home of the original William Curley store - being able to get exclusive signed copies of the William Curley book would entice me into the door, ditto Petersham Nurseries is down the road and Lucy Boyd-Gray's book is just out...you're getting my point. Play on those strengths. Stock those collections, expand those themes,., get those authors in - not just for a single signing but for presentations, readings, speaking gigs...make your website a hub for events, readings, exclusive content on new releases, authors etc....

Better coffee shops. - Some stores I understand have Costa concessions inside them - which I can absolutely see makes sense when you're considering investing in something like this which isn't your core strength - and thinking that a concession situation means your store gets the benefit of the coffee shop without you needing to do any real graft or invest any cash. But in reality I find this type of approach a bit poor from a real brand point of view - who after all is going to bother to go into Waterstones (and upstairs in some cases) to get a coffee from Costa when there is probably one about 5 doors away on street level. I wouldn't bother. Also - and I know Costa has literary associations with their own book awards but as a somewhere I'd want to dwell and read it doesn't really work for me - I find those coffee shops are there for quick, speedy pickups of a Christmas coffee, with a bookshop I want to while away the hours, not grab a dry mass produced cake in five minutes flat. Seriously, why bother? What I would do is go to a cafe which is unique to my area and that space - related to books, with books there to borrow and read while I'm browsing, or chatting with friends. In fact - why not make it a bar, bring in evening trade, have evening events, get an alcohol licence. now I would definitely go to that. And KEY point is I'd probably buy things while I was there (especially if there was wine...just a thought).

Support the community - Book clubs are a huge trend in recent years - but other than with your close friends, where do you find a good place to go to one? This is a prime opportunity for Waterstones to be a hub of book clubs in the local area - in the same way that Sweaty Betty run Yoga classes in the evenings- this is a great way to get people comfortable and familiar with the space, buying books (in bulk groups!) and producing content for your web site or digital media instore.

Just keep swimming

None of this is rocket science, not is it terribly high tech - despite what my LinkedIn profile may say I'm not capable of fixing some of the wider issues in retail via the power of a magic wand, but I am a customer and I do know what I'd like to see from a store environment trying to stay afloat in the sea of digital successes. Perhaps if Waterstones turned to their customer, instead of their critics they would do too.

An Idiot's Guide to eCommerce Payments

2012-05-30T14:11:00.001+01:00

It never fails to surprise me that despite it being the most critical part of any ecommerce transaction so few people within the industry really understand ecommerce payments. Yes it's true that the payment industry is extremely fragmented and notoriously disconnected - every bank has it's own way of doing things, every contract a loophole and every card scheme a set of different rules - but this is slowly beginning to change and to be quite honest in most cases ecommerce payment is the same and relatively unchanged across models. Even if you don't understand the concepts as a whole you should understand them in relation to your own business, if you don't then start, because this is in my opinion the key part of being a retailer online. If people can't pay you don't get profit- need I spell it out for you any more? (Plus card schemes fines are preeeeeettttttyyyyyyy large so you'll want to make sure all those profits aren't eaten up).

Hugest apologies if this is teaching anyone to suck eggs, but I still hear scary terminology banded around like 'ghosting' (on the list of least favourite words of all time), incorrect information being told to customers and a general lack of understanding about what things mean. I'm not a payment expert by any means and I've learned many of these things by trial and error so don't take my definitions and comments as gospel - these are merely the things I think I've managed to pick up along the way and have worked for me. The idiot in the title (as always) is me by the way....

Let's start at the beginning of the customer payment. Seems as good a place as any to start.

Card details - probably one of the most sensitive pieces of data in your business, and the one customers least like to part with. As an online business you should be aware that you cannot under any circumstances store full customer card details - your PSP must do this on your behalf (they're like Level Ninja PCI Compliant, they have 6 ft thick walls and 24 hr security in their data centres, needless to say your average retailer - not so much) . That means both in your database, on spreadsheets, in your customer service ticketing system or in fact on a post it note on your desk. That way goes pain and destruction my friend.

CVV/CV2 - People call it by both terms, for customers on the front end I prefer "Card Security Code" as it's easiest to understand but they're all the same thing. It's the three digits on the back of your card (or four on the front just to be confusing thanks Amex). It was introduced to add additional security - in theory to prove you had the card in your possession at the time of the transaction - in reality by and large these digits are utterly worthless once you've entered them once as they're now no longer secret. However this is a mandatory check you must do when authorising with the major card schemes (I'm mainly refering to Visa, Mastercards, Maestro and Amex when I talk about card schemes here, there's various others..Diners etc who may be different). Failure to do so can result in investigation and ultimate dismissal from the scheme (though only if you had a whole pile of chargebacks to be honest but if you did, and you didn't check CV2 - well I'd think you were the idiot). Now where this gets confusing is that some types of payment don't require CV2 checking.....ah told you this was fun. So mandatory - but also not :-)

PCI compliance - oh the joys of my world. As the resident PCI person in our business I get the fun job of trying to understand PCI compliance. If I was to give you any advice it would be this 1) Don't leave it all for tech - it's business process as well 2) Keep on eye on the standards and not just the self cert questionnaire - it's a bit 'don't ask don't tell' on that questionnaire so I'd always go over the top and implement as much of the standards as you can 3) Watch your transaction levels - Amex have a much lower jump between levels of compliance than Visa and Mastercard, it's easy to hit Level 2 with not much effort for Amex. Remember also that PCI compliant refers to the certification part - just doing things right doesn't make you PCI compliant you have to be checked (by a trained PCI auditor in Level 1 or by self cert at other levels - this has just recently changed so that you must have someone who is trained in your organisation or hire a consultant to do it for you for some of the levels - check which one you are). Normally it takes a yearly full check and quarterly scans to stay compliant.

AVS - Address verification is a simple form of security online, and it merely checks a customer billing address that they're trying to check out with, matches the one on their statement. Format tends to matter here so if on your statement you mention a house name and on your online transaction you don't use it but use number instead the AVS can fail. It's important for a site product owner to understand this as it helps customers if you design your payment form with that in mind. I'd always check AVS first but it depends on your technical setup and your PSP.

3D Secure (The 3D stands for 3 domain for those who wish to know)- if this isn't the bane of your checkout life then I don't know what is. Users hate it, Product owners hate it...banks love it, and it has reduced online fraud significantly since it was introduced. It's important because it represents a liability shift - the bank authenticates the transaction so the liability for a chargeback (fraud ones anyway) lies with them and not the retailer. It's an optional check (notably John Lewis don't have it on their site) but again if you get a load of chargebacks and you don't have it the schemes are going to start getting pissy with you. Remember you can only use it on your online site - if you take transactions over the phone you have to skip 3DS as you can't ask a customer for their passwords. Like your PIN number it's just not done to share it. 3DS also isn't yet officially compatible with mobiles (the pesky iFrame sometimes loads but not much else). The simplest way to describe it as online chip and PIN - the liability shift works in the same way. When you complete a transaction online your payment services provider (psp) sends out a message to your bank to ask if you're enrolled in a 3DS scheme (Verified by Visa or Mastercard Secure Code - Amex have their own and I forget what it's called...SafeKey that's it) - most cards now are so if you're not enrolled you'll be asked to do so there and then. If you are you'll have to enter your password or PIN (depending on the scheme) in the little box. The box is ALWAYS produced and hosted by your bank -hence the multiple domains bit - however it often looks what we call in the North " a right clip" (banks not being online usability/design gurus in general) and it's not the most reliable of things. This weekend we had a customer who actually thought it was a phishing scam, that's how shit it looked....Anyway, sometimes the 3DS box will flash in front of your eyes and then go away without asking for your password...that's a new shade of fun called.....

Adaptive authentication - which was introduced a while ago (with a fairly massive failure to communicate) by some of the card schemes who realised that 3DS was causing a usability and dropout issue (you'd hope they did anyway......maybe they just fancied a change?). Essentially what it means is that it's no longer the case that a 3DS enrolled card will ALWAYS request 3DS authentication. The bank can decide - based on a number of things like whether you've shopped at that site before, the value of your transaction etc - that you're a safe bet, so it doesn't ask. In these cases liability is with the banks still and not with the retailer so happy days. Annoyingly it's a tad inconsistent and customers have zero clue what is going on when the screen starts zipping from you to the bank and back to you in the blink of an eye.

Pre-auth/Auth. Oh here it is, the rant about the word 'ghosting' -which people sometimes use to describe authorisation. I always try to stick to the real words for these things - partly because you'll just find life easier when talking to third parties and I also find it adds huge confusion when people start assuming things are what they aren't. Most online transactions are made up of three major parts; auth (or pre-auth depending on your view), settlement and capture. In massively simplified terms auth is when you check the money is there, settlement is when you ask for it from the bank and capture is when it lands in your bank account. Settlement and capture and pretty close buddies. Auth tends to happen a larger time before the other two. As far as I'm aware it's rare than you would do a settlement and capture straight away - you have things like fraud checking that get in the way - though I'm sure that there are people who do, and it's called an automatic settlement when that happens, though like I say I wouldn't recommend it when you have fraud to be checking. What normally happens is that you check that the customer has the required amount of funds on their card and you auth for that amount - so the checkout is £200 - you let the customer's bank know that you'll be needing £200 thankyou very much. A couple of days later you may request settlement and capture from the bank once the order is dispatched, or confirmed or fraud has been checked (different companies do it differently), and then you take your £200. Now in order to make sure you get your £200 most banks will 'reserve' those funds in the customer's account. Now they don't go anywhere, it never shows as a transaction and the only time your customer will know it is when they look at their 'available balance' on internet banking (or more often when they run out of available balance :-) ). This is what can be called 'ghosting'. Auth tokens tend to expire - all banks are of course different (you know it!) so this an be anything from 48, or 72 hours to 10 days, to 28 days. You can try to reverse an auth but it's not massively relaible for the same reason. In exceptional circumstances where the auth lasts too long then the customer can notice and get annoyed, other times the auth could expire and you can't then take the funds based on that auth - and you can end up with a failed settlement. There is no real way around either of these, it's the nature of the beast.

1- Click Checkout - For a start this drives me insane because every C level exec I've ever worked for has asked me to do this. I shall repeat here for posterity what I say to them 1) It's proprietary Amazon terminology and functionality so no you can't and 2) it's a per item basis and not per basket so only really works if your site sells things people buy in 1's.

Express checkout on the other hand, or quick checkout, or whatever shade of grey you want to call it - that is OK. You can't store CV2 remember or any card details yourself so this is a bit of an invisible trickery whereby you auth the card the first time, store a token which links to that auth detail and then subqequently you say to yourself 'ah they were fine that last time, let's let them through again'. Typically for the payment industry this is technically a different type of transaction and therefore has a different rate structure. Sometimes your PSP will charge you for the storage of the card details so it sometimes adds a bit of cost there too. However it is one of the best ways to reduce dropoff and add convenience for customers.

Note that if you're "storing" card details for customers in their accounts you're not actually storing them - you're storing the last four digits, an expiry date and probably the name of the card. For this reason there is no such thing as 'Edit card details' - you have to delete them and re-add them. Drives me nuts when people say 'Edit' - what am I editing? Thin air?

Amazon - note this when dealing with payments, do not go and look and what they do and then copy it. Amazon are their own acquirer - basically they created their own bank, they're massive and probably own a fairly sizeable chunk of Visa and Mastercard's business - so they can get away with anything. You can't. Go elsewhere for your ideas.

Chargebacks - oooh nasty nasty, these are not your friend. A chargeback is what happens when a customer gets in touch with their bank and has any number of issues - it can range from their card has a fraudulent payment on it to the fact their item never arrived. Usually if it's fraud and you can prove you did the 3DS check and that you have a fraud checking process in place you can usually have the money re-credited (so the bank pays). There are however multiple reasons for chargebacks including products not being fit for purpose (Quality), refunds not being issued correctly (Clerical), or an incorrect amount being taken (Technical) so it's important to check the code when assembling your case. You can see them all here and in various lists all over the internet. Some retailers choose to pay all chargebacks, some dispute them all- it depends on various factors how your business deals with them. Most acquirers will penalise you for having a chargeback raised so in the main it's about doing all the checks up front to minimise them. As mentioned before - a large number of chargebacks will give you some unwanted attention from a number of payment organisations who are involved with your business so it's hugely in your interest to avoid them.

OK well that's my brain dumped out into a blog post. I really hope that's been helpful to someone, somewhere. Let me know in the comments if so (or if not indeed and I'll go back to writing fluff about how people are idiots :-) ), and of course feel free to correct me.

Useful Links

PCI DSS Standards
Visa Chargeback Codes
Wikipedia on AVS checks
Fraud Practice - some useful white papers etc

To outsource or not to outsource?

2012-05-03T15:52:00.002+01:00

Coming from a background at one of the biggest consulting, technology and outsourcing firms in the world people are often surprised when I pipe up in meetings concerned about outsourcing a piece of work (and I pipe a lot!). I suspect people just think I'm a massive grump and I hate agencies.

It's not that I am anti-outsourcing, anti-agency, or anti-recruiter it's just that I genuinely think that there are times when a decision to outsource makes sense, and there are times when it just doesn't. Making the wrong decision (especially when it's in favour of outsourcing) can be painful, costly and lengthy, however for some unknown reason 'marketing people' are always incredibly keen to 'just throw it at an agency'. I have no idea why - maybe their massive budgets are burning a whole in their pockets? Or maybe they've just not read twosaqueue's guide to outsourcing.

I'm assuming here by the way that you have an element of choice some companies have no internal tech, or more commonly for retailers who started off in physical stores - no internal web tech. You might find some of the points below interesting if that's the situation you're in but this is very much the list I check against when trying to resource our own internal projects.

Reasons you shouldn't outsource...

Because you can.

Some of the worst words I hear in my day to day life are 'I have budget'. Outsourcing isn't really ever about the money. Do it for the wrong thing and you could be stuck spending that same money over and over again. The question I sometimes ask is "Does it really matter?" I guess what I mean by that is once this project is over will the decision to outsource it cause any issues. A year down the line what difference will who did it make? In consultant speak - architecturally does it make sense to outsource this project? This is probably the most common reason I disagree with things being outsourced. I have absolutely no problem outsourcing the build of emails for example - who built them makes absolutely zero difference to our architecture whatsoever. I don't mind outsourcing the build and installation of our wordpress blog (though we didn't in the end) - again it makes zero difference who set it up. Anything core though - anything which makes us who we are as a business, is unique to our product, or touches our application - well that's a different question

For an easy life

Outsourcing isn't really any easier than doing something yourself. It's just a different type of hard. The management of third parties, 'being' the client, answering questions - all bring with them their own types of pain. It's rarely an easy way out so if your motivation is that it's less painful then question yourself.

Because it's too hard

One of the things I really resent on behalf of my team is when people suggest outsourcing interesting work because it looks scary or hard. Challenging work is the lifeblood of teams - people can't really step up or stretch themselves when they get day to day work while an agency gets to work on the really exciting projects. Give your team some credit and give them the chance to do it.

Because we're scared of doing it ourselves

One of the things which happened to me when I left consulting is I had to adjust to the fact that people didn't listen to me as much anymore. (I know hard to believe right?). But it's true, when a consultant speaks a client is looking at them thinking 'wow that's £1,000 a day worth of words, they know so much, they're so clever', when that same person becomes a permanent resource people just don't think like that anymore. You could even be saying the same things, but for some reason people attach a value and a level of confidence to external parties. My advice would always be to trust yourself, trust your own staff, let them loose. You may be surprised.

Because 'X are the experts

This is so unlikely. There are very few agencies/consultancies/third parties who know their stuff really well. Most of it is sales-y bullshit. That's not to say they won't do a great job, or they won't become experts in the process but I can honestly say I have never been on a project where I have known exactly what I am doing. Certainly in consultancy it's part of the business model: big consultancies employ super smart people who learn fast that's all - if they did it any other way it would be unworkable. Technology, web, marketing all move so fast I can guarantee what you're hiring most of the time is a smart person who knows how to use google. I have about 80 of those in my office so why would I need any more? There are exceptions - payment, legal, fraud - areas of deep expertise without a doubt but if someone thinks they're the expert in mobile, or f-commerce or some similar word they just made up. It's likely rubbish.

When it could negatively affect your system

It's not really outsourcing - more third party tools but I have never in my life seen a javascript/tag driven MVT tool which does not slow down performance. Never. Whatever sales people say in their meetings I have had so much pain implementing these things that I have truly started to hate them. Oh this one could become a rant.

When you already have it

Oh I have seen this one too. Having a capability within your system which you end up paying for twice because no one knows how to use it/didn't know it was there -oh lord. I've left companies where this has happened because I think it is so stupid as to be almost ridiculous. An architecture driven system design is absolutely key in multichannel retail - and wasting money is just plain stupid. Buy a manual, send someone on a course, Google it - for gods sake don't buy it again because an agency make it look easier/faster.

It's sometimes (not always) a good idea to outsource for any of the following reasons - I'll give you these. I'll allow it.

You just don't have the skills in house
You'd be reinventing the wheel
It isn't going to matter in a year who did it
It isn't something which needs maintenance
It's seperate from your main app/business model

In summary outsourcing is sometimes a necessary evil and often a great idea. There are many many great consultants, agencies, tools out there in the sweet shop of opportunity, but just because it's there doesn't mean you need to buy everything in it - it will likely give you a temporary high, cost a load of money and then make you sick, rot your teeth in the future and make you so lazy you can't leave the shop and you spend your entire life not being able to function without sugar..........OK metaphor gone too far, you get my point - think before you outsource!

5 geeky retail things I do (and so do you..I hope...because that would make me feel less sad....)

2012-04-19T12:43:00.001+01:00

It's Thursday, it's miserable weather, I was out last night.....

I could dissect Tesco's retail strategy but I frankly can't be bothered and Retail Week pretty much has that covered. Instead, retail fluff for your lunchtime perusal. All hail fluff

Get mistaken for members of staff

Once upon a time when we were all wearing polyester midi skirts and actual 'blouses' this never happened. But now that store staff are wearing their own company's product and looking all casual it's impossible to know who works there and who doesn't. If I'm waiting for a friend in a shop I will undoubtably be asked for something in another size. Today a customer in M&S asked me where the milk was... I had my coat on!

Unconsciously 'floor walk' every shop you go into

You know you've gone too far when you come out of a shop having a conversation with a friend which goes like this 'wonderful store - immaculate recovery, really nice staff, few low lines, good density' you have to start wondering about your sanity.

Get all my friends refunds

My friend had a battle with Oasis over a refund. Over dinner at Ping Pong I bored her with the details of the DSR's and three days later........voila....It's when you find yourself on the phone to a customer service agent starting the sentence 'I work in online retail and....' you have to stop and consider how much of an idiot you sound. Answer: massive.

Accidentally sign off refund slips

OK I'm a geek, all credibility lost. I accept it.

Talk in codes...and don't realise it

I can't help myself, for 8 years of my life a casual short was a KL - I cannot call it a three quarter combat short, it is a KL. My boyfriend luckily (or not so luckily?) also used to work in the same retail chain so knows what I mean but I do still know this is weird. Conversations with friends that go.."Oooh did you see that AB with a ED? WRONG!"...oh lord. Me and my mother regularly converse in M&S department codes...it's not big, it's not clever but it's a habit I..... just...cannot...break..

There must be more? Anyone think of any?

Excellent Errors #5

2012-04-19T12:23:00.000+01:00

It's shallow but really I just like the bobbing up and down puffer fish

from bit.ly

Subtle much?

2012-04-16T08:59:00.001+01:00

Crikey, now that is a call to action (massive button on email provided by asos)

Has online really grown up?

2012-04-11T12:24:00.004+01:00

5 (serious) things you shouldn't be doing as a grown up ecommerce site
There's been a bit of chat of late about ecommerce 'coming of age' - hitting 18 years since the first online transaction is certainly a milestone, but many retailers have a multichannel strategy that's still in it's infancy. If you're doing any of these things then make sure you (quickly) start to grow up.

Non persistent baskets

Oh god. If I have to explain this then you've got bigger problems. Let's go back to basics. Picture the scene, you're in a shop, you have been picking things up, holding them up the the light, finding your size, checking the price for about half an hour. You have five or six things in your hand, you haven't totally decided you'll buy them all but you're thinking about it, you might try some on, you might leave some on hold, you might leave some behind. Then all of a sudden a sales person comes and takes them all off you, with no explaination. You're left standing, bewildered and empty handed. What's the chances you'll go back and look for all those items again. Yes. See?

In old-school retail we knew that getting something into a customer's hand was half the battle (it's why some shops keep the temperature cold- so you don't take off your coat and then have something in your hand distracting you from picking up merchandise), why have we forgotten that because it's online?

Old School Customer Service

If there is any part of online retail which is neglected (other than reporting), it has to be customer service. We expect our customer service reps to act as a low-paid, low-engaged barrier to a barrage of customer complaints. We wait, dreading an issue, dealing with it in the most minimal, low reaction fashion as we've always done. It's not a manufacturing fault. It was the delivery carrier. There is nothing we can do. I'll have to ask our tech department. We have the moral highground, we cannot change. Well newsflash, the world has changed, technology has changed.

Customer service should understand multichannel retail - this means understanding how your payment process works so that they can tell the customer the right thing, they need to be educated that delivery is a product as much as the actual product is, and the retailer is responsible for it - if you've paid for next day delivery and you don't get it, then that is an issue which the retailer needs to deal with. You need to understand that accusing a customer of 'sweat stains' in an automated email is not what's going to bring them back to you the next time they want to spend £60 on a dress.

You need to get all of this and then you need to make sure your CS team get it. And live it.

Stop paying your team minimum wage to trot out the same platitudes. What if we stopped thinking 'Customer Service' and started thinking 'Multichannel Ambassadors' - what if your service team was up for solving problems, for chasing third parties, for really engaging with how things actually work in your systems. What if your customer services team understood that thay customer is worth £x lifetime value, that they were empowered to ensure that customer comes back to your site or your store? What if their challenge is to give the best possible experience?. What if their sole purpose was to delight customers with the fabulous tools that technology has put into their hands in the age of multichannel retail? What if that happened?

Blaming it on tech

Payment, fraud, data architecture, interactions with third parties, the fact that the batch run goes at 3am and not 3:17am. None of this is tech - all of this is business, get a handle on it and stop handing it over. These things are business issues and I guarantee your tech team won't understand your business like you do. Where your data is, who gets it, what time, how your customers pay....understand it and own it. I've lost count of the number of times that clients have made mistakes purely because they're left tech to do it and not engaged with how things work. Here's an example- we all know that in UK shoe sizing a size 3 appears twice - once as a child's size and once as an adult (OK- so mainly me, most people don't have midget feet). One is bigger than the other. Similarly a 32A bra size and a 32B bra size do not really go together, most people shop in cup sizes, 32A, 34A, 34C etc. A tech person will put sizes in numerical order. Only a retailer - a business person- knows how this works in the real world. Tech might facilitate the solution but they're not the solution. In the multichannel world you have to be multichannel, not let your tech department (or provider) do it for you.

Doing what you've always done

I stood in Next in Kingston yesterday waiting for my friend to try on about a million items (her success rate is about 15% - yes I was very bored) , and overheard a conversation between a sales consultant and a customer which went something like this: "Well no, you can order from here to home, or here. But if you want to order for delivery to another store then you have to go home and do it from there". Eh? Now I worked at Next for 9 years so I know why this is-because of the difference between a store order and a Directory order. But as a customer this sounds loony. If I can order a product in store I want to be able to order it to anywhere.

Happy holidays

2012-03-28T11:59:00.000+01:00

I’d start this post with massive apologies for the radio silence over the last month but the fact is that no one wants to hear any more about my illness than has already been shared on twitter. Multiple times. Be glad you don’t sit next to me.

Post illness I decided on a whim to book a holiday with my friend. We only wanted three nights so in the end opted to book on Expedia. Dear lord…you know when you are browsing on the web, or even out shopping somewhere and you look at something and just want to get your hands on it? Expedia - you might not be ‘proper’ retail but crikey I’d love to get my hands on you. Usability? At all? Heard of it?...thought not.

Now that’s a bit mean I know – we all suffer from the odd inability to see what’s in front of our noses. Plus we also have a habit of believing those marketing-brand people when they say ‘oh people come back to us because we’re cheap/convenient/the only place that sells the product so we don’t need to be pretty’ (or easy to use apparently) – that’s true in its way, but seriously I’ve been working in the industry for five years and I almost lost it with this site. The checkout process nearly broke me – and Expedia at some point we need to have a conversation about page titles – seeing a tab which says ‘itinerary confirmed’ when you’re still booking is SCARY. My mum would have panicked the first time something weird flashed on the screen and headed to the last remaining high street branch of Thomas Cook (and she’s pretty web savvy).

Anyway that conversation is not now – or I’d be writing forever and I need to pace myself. I’m talking about the post purchase journey only today – with a travel site you’d think this is a pretty popular secondary journey and a fairly good driver for return visits, let alone a necessity for actually travelling. *sigh*

Let’s be honest as conversion focused as we are, and in the pressure to drive revenue we sometimes forget about journeys which sit outside of checkout. We think in straight lines – customer browses, looks at product page, signs in, buys, leaves….and yet we all know this isn’t how it works at all. There is so much up for grabs to delight customers with decent experiences outside of checkout, and yet we continue to make the same groud-hog day mistakes. Just stop it. Do it now. Write a business case. Focus on someone’s interaction with your site in the real world. Go on, it won’t hurt….

OK let’s start with the header. My primary reason for visiting is to see if my reservation has been confirmed (yes the promised 24 hours turned into 36 – again I’m trying to FOCUS). OK so presumably as I created an account during checkout I need to find a way to sign in. My assumption would always be that the sign in link is in the top right of the header – a little area we used to call the Utility Nav on a previous site. Whatever you call it it’s pretty much in the same place. Well yep it is but what the hell if going on with it? There is 8 different links on it – all of which look like slightly similar versions of the same darn thing. Where the heck do I click?

Now I suspect Expedia have made a minor rod for their own backs here because you can checkout as a guest – without creating an account that it – but then you still do need to do all the functional things which go along with having an account, like checking in online, looking at your booking details, adding in your passport number – so they’ve kept numerous links which presumably apply to temporary users. Well one of the things I learned in systems design was that if it looks like the same thing – it normally IS the same thing, if you need to have an account to do all this stuff then make people create a damn account, it’s only one additional field (password) for goodness sake. I’d also imagine that like me users are thinking ‘shit I’m paying like £X for a holiday – I want to make sure I have a history of that’ – a holiday isn’t a £20 top, no one wants a throwaway relationship with their holiday provider- they want to feel safe, loved, secure, best friends for life. Sometimes a password is just for their own good. This is one of those times.

(apologies if you’ve user tested this to death Expedia but even if that’s the case and your conversion is 100% better with a guest checkout option I’d question your execution)

Anyway so after the high jump which was that header I went for ‘Sign In’ as the most likely option to tell me what I wanted to know. Oh crikey what’s this:

FOUR CHOICES?

This comes back to the guest thing I think – but if you’re going to ask guests to ‘sign in’ then why put all the links on the damn homepage as well? And how is ‘search for my itinerary’ any different from the ‘My Itineraries’ link on the Homepage? –is that a sign in action? Does it deserve to be on a page called ‘Sign In’? Noooooooo

‘Sign in or select an option’? Everyone needs to select an option – don’t confuse me.

Anyway- I’m not even going to mention those benefits down the side, clearly you give them all away ‘free’ to guests without having to register – so what’s the point of trying to sell it now?

Ok so I know I have an account as I consciously decide to add a password at checkout so I click the radio button to sign into an existing account.

Whoooooah what I do? Red scary message with exclamation mark? I didn’t do anything! Eek! It wasn’t me! Oh it’s just some stupid pointless error message. You’ve just lost Mrs H by the way. Also what does it even say? Sign into verify your identity? I am signing in. Well I’m trying to anyway, if you stopped shouting red error messages at me and left me alone to get on with it maybe I would.

Email or username – this better be a hangover from some kind of old fashioned data conversion problem because ‘user name’ died out in 1998.

Password – (6-30 characters, no spaces) – OK so this is just a littler bugbear. I either know my password or don’t, you reminding me how long it MIGHT be along with the lack of spaces (who puts spaces in a password anyway?) isn’t going to help me. Fair enough when I’m creating it but I’m just typing it in for goodness sake. Get your tiny text out of my way.

Forgot username and/or password? – OK whatever you probably do need this but ‘Forgotten’ would sound nicer

The ‘Sign me in automatically next time’ – I kind of like these checkboxes because I am a) inherently lazy online and b) I forget my passwords regularly. But come on – a tooltip, a ‘why?’ link AND a comment about not doing it on private computers? How many different ways can you clutter your page up with pointless information? Put a tooltip on it and leave it at that.

Use my passport/Windows ID – whatever but learn something from people using FB Connect and at least brand this so it’s easier to see what it is.

If I actually do something incorrect I then get a different scary error message giving me a vague idea of what I’ve done wrong. Eeek! I’m now hiding under the desk wondering if I’m a total moron.

I’m finally into My Account and I think - surely I must be home and dry. But no – this is one of the most serious cases I’ve ever seen of ‘too much information’ syndrome. We know as usability professionals that best practice dictates to us that users like to know relevant information at the correct point they’re interested in it. They like control, they like to feel they have choices – too many choices at once however if a recipe for panic.

Expedia why do I care what format my emails come in to me? Your average person doesn’t know and or care the difference between HTML and plain text. And even if they do this belongs in a sub menu somewhere that normal people don’t have to see it. As it is my eye is drawn here- and now I’m thinking I have a choice to make…

I’m also required here to update the required TSA information about my passengers. Well funnily enough this was mandatory information when I checked out, and the name, birth date and/or gender of me or my friend hasn’t changed since then. I’m sure people make mistakes and typos and need to update this kind of information but seriously - having that big piece of text in a box makes me think I should do something, something right now, something important, something I ALREADY DID!

Do I plan travel for others? Nope – if I did would this be useful? Yes probably..would I look for it BEFORE I had booked – yes. Get out of my face with your non-essential information.

To find out if my booking is confirmed I have to scroll right to the bottom of the page and choose My Itineraries (don’t get me started on the number of time this has now appeared). I also find it odd that the same term is used for something you’re planning and something you’ve booked. In my world it’s a booking. I’ll go with itinerary if needed but it seems like an awful lot of effort.

Finally! A nice simple design, minimal text - and easy to use page! Except for the fact my itinerary is (2) which is a bit annoying– this is what happens when an exploratory browse and a purchase have the same name.

Next page - *sigh* deep in a sea of pointless copy is the word ‘Confirmed’. Phew, I feel a bit like I’ve been on my journey already – except let’s hope my holiday is more simple than trying to navigate the site I booked it on.

For charity...

2012-03-20T09:06:00.002+00:00

2AQ doesn't normallly post videos but.....

....one of my former Next colleagues appeares in this video, it's for charity and it still makes me snort with laughter on the third viewing. Go on - give it a little watch.

Excellent Errors #4

2012-02-20T16:54:00.000+00:00

I'm afraid I can't claim to have spotted this one. Thanks to @markbolitho for this

You can see it here in the flesh http://www.lingscars.com/typeanyoldstuffhere

And it's grabbed from http://www.lingscars.com

Two's a Queue is 1!

2012-02-17T09:59:00.001+00:00

One year whole year of rants, insights and site reviews.

Here's some of my favourite posts from the last year:

ecommerce tricks for offline retailers

talk is cheap

ten reasons to go oooh (about the wonderful Boux Avenue)

a delicate balance

my retail apprenticeship

zen and the art of recrtuiment

a serious post about payment

the high street dead? it's suicidal

Here's to Two's a Queue being two!

The High Street dead? It's suicidal

2012-02-14T09:42:00.000+00:00

Twitter followers will know that this Retail Week article caused more than a few mini-rants last week when I read it over my count-on-us 300 calorie lunch.

Firstly the comments (I'll let you make up your own mind about what annoyed me there) and secondly the sentiment of Phil Wrigley's article and the nods of assent from those agreeing with him just made my little retail heart sink.

Now before you get all commenty on me - without a doubt there are pressures on our high streets - from bad planning to high rents to rates, parking, bad public transport and goodness knows what - but what I really disagree with is this concept that ecommerce is killing the high street. Trust me the high street is doing the death throes thing all by itself....

For a while now anecdotal evidence has suggested to me that high street stores aren't having their sales snatched away from them by the big bad online burglar - they're standing outside with a massive golf sale sign giving them away.

As mentioned in this internet retailing article last week the high street shouldn't just curl up and die - it needs to change to survive. (And not into 'showrooms for Amazon' btw - personally I think the idea of our high street's being full of 'showrooms' for online purchases is even more hideous. That's a whole other blog post.)

Newsflash - people still like going into stores! and Newsflash - multichannel isn't an alternative to the high street - it needs the high street to survive. There is a whole load about multichannel shopping that customers like:

-Socialising
-Touching the item
-Trying on clothes
- Reserving something and having it be there when they arrive
-Looking at a product in real life
-Getting a fancy paper bag
-Being able to browse in different stores without prior thought
-Grabbing a coffee and wandering around at their own pace
-Tidy, pleasant and modern interiors
-Knowledgeable staff
-Easy refunds
-Clear signage and size cubes (Topshop - seriously SIZE CUBES)
-Nice, quality, engaging products
-Competitive pricing
- EASILY picking up an online order, making an online order to have delivered, returning online orders

- The theatre of going into a store, buying something, having it wrapped and actually taking it home right then and there

What they don't like is the following:

-Not being able to get the size they want (Topshop - last time I looked you did up to a size 16 at least-feel free to stock anything in any store rather than just size 6's)
-Not being able to find what they want
-Queuing
-Bad service
-Not knowing what the price is (John Lewis - I love you but you do this all the time)
-Dirty and untidy stores
-Ditto old fashioned fixtures
-Overstocked rails
- Bad lighting (Unless you're Abercrombie and Fitch just don't)
- Empty rails (Disney Store on Saturday - no kermits really??)
- Dust bunnies under rails
- Being looked at like they're some kind of mud monster because they're not the right age/size/have interrupted a conversation (Oasis in Richmond - this is why you're shut)
- Messy rails (H and M after 10am? anyone?)
- Too much floor equipment (Topshop again)
- Hideous night-club esque music (River Island - yes I'm looking at you)
- Not being able to find anyone to ask a question of
- Fitting rooms with more rules than a prison
- Staff who are so underpaid and miserable that they can only glare from their till-point in a mid-distance stare waiting for the day to end

Honestly I could go on forever; you can talk about rents, parking and footfall - whatever you want but if you can honestly say you do all of the things in the first list and none of the ones in the second and yet you are still dying on your feet then I'll let you agree with PW. Otherwise, suck it up.

All of these are things we've traditionally had to deal with as retailers - just because there is now an alternative route that customers are taking to avoid this means we should all throw our toys out of the pram and give up? We're expecting someone to come and rescue us from this deadly disease? Are we retailers or mice?

Spotted #4 (Again!)

2012-02-09T10:53:00.002+00:00

Uniqlo you just play into my hands

What's a "leggin"?

Spotted #3

2012-02-06T20:56:00.000+00:00

M&S - you recommend I enter my full card number? Is there an alternative?

Brand experience?

2012-02-01T15:01:00.002+00:00

Can't make up my mind about this from HoF today - included in my package ordered online is a Mary Portas brown paper bag...er thanks. Yes I did buy something from the Mary Portas range, I do like fancy bags and I appreciate the sentiment but...

A Serious Post About Payment

2012-01-31T13:01:00.001+00:00

When I started this blog my very good friend and ex colleague Abi said to me “It’s good but…have you plans to make it less…funny?”…I took that as a compliment at the time.

In theory this blog WAS supposed to be serious from the start but for some reason it’s veered towards the funny/critical (how did that happen? Not like me at ALL!). Anyway, near year new me and all that. Cue “A Serious Post About Payment”.

When designing a checkout flow payment page is a funny beast – sometimes you can feel like you’re leading your customer through a lovely pleasant fairy-tale of ‘just browsing’ - a heady, lighthearted experience - and then they hit the payment page and all of a sudden they’re in the wicked witches clutches devoid of power , confused and disappointed. It’s a let-down which results in one of a few outcomes – you panic and run away (drop out), carry on through the pain and end up feeling slightly scarred by the experience (convert with difficulty) or you attempt to get through and end up getting turned to stone by some repeating error message or problem you just can’t get past (drop out without wanting to). Enough with the analogies – often people get checkout design wrong – and the payment page can be the epitome of the big bad wolf in a bad checkout (ENOUGH!)

Ok so in order to design a payment page (I'm calling it a page but it could easily be a form- one page checkouts are more and more common now) where do you start?

Let's take that form as an example. Entering card details.

For me it’s first and foremost about the customer – the context of what you’re doing. What’s the driver here? Well in most cases the customer just wants to pay, - they’ll be thinking about their order and the items they’re buying and they’ll be focused on getting to the end. Some will be at work and trying to enter their card details quickly to get out of the boss’ siteline, others will be at home with phones ringing, doorbells going and kids interrupting. Some customers will want to feel reassured throughout that they’re in a secure environment, others won’t be so concerned. Woah that’s a lot of drivers. If you look at all this in isolation it looks scary- and when things look scary the way through the wicked witches woods’ is to go SIMPLE, CLEAN and ORGANISED.

OK so the first thing I do when faced with this challenge is write down everything that needs to be on the page (or if you’re that type enter everything which could be on the page and then cross a load of stuff out). For payment forms this is usually universally the following:

Card type

Cardholder name

Card number

Expiry date

Start date

CVV/CV2/Security number

Issue Number

Security logos

Payment type logos

After crossing out the things you don’t need – or adding additional things you need for your site (card nickname if you like, a save card for later checkbox if you offer it). Then the next task is to order them into some kind of hierarchy. I’d favour something like:

I always like to see the card number first – purely anecdotal evidence suggests to me that when entering a card customers find that they stumble here as they always want to enter their card number first so they end up with an error. I think it’s because you don’t know your long 16 digit number off by heart so you’re more likely to want to just get it onto the page before anything else. I could be wrong. So I’d end up with something like this:

Hmm but wait – something is wrong here. The types of information you’re asking a customer to enter are going to change depending on what that piece of information is. We also have to think about our interface requirements with a PSP – they need certain information in a certain structure. So let’s restrict the format the customer can enter that information in. Let’s also make sure it’s easy for the customer to see what that format is. For a start date or expiry date we know the boundaries of what the customer will enter for example the customer sees MM/YY on their card, we should attempt to replicate that here.

Ok so next thing that’s bothering me is that the two fields at the bottom represent very shirt pieces of information. Issue number is usually a single or double digit, and the security code is 3 digits (4 for AMEX), so let’s create that expectation for the user and shorten up those fields.

But wait – Issue number and start date? I don’t have those on my cards? That’s because these are only requirements for certain types of cards (Maestro), so let’s not show them when the customer doesn’t need them. To do this we need to know what type or card the customer is entering up front, You can do this in a number of ways, either with radio buttons and images of card types, with a dropdown – ideally I’d like it to be transparent to the user (they don’t care what the card type is) so it could detect from the number they enter into the field. Let’s for now make it a dropdown. And let’s make it clear when the information is needed.

For a non-Maestro customer here’s what I have now.

I think I could improve on the descriptive-ness of my field labels. They’re a bit techie. Let’s make sure the customer knows exactly what they should enter into the field.

Some fields may need more explanation so I’ll add some tooltips

That enter text’ is annoying isn’t it? Let’s make it useful.

I’m quite happy with that. As discussed above customers can find security a problem when paying online so a bit of reassurance of trust logos, card schemes etc. won’t go amiss here and depending on where you add your payment types accepted (basket page is useful) - it’s worth re-iterating again here, especially if you do/don’t take AMEX or any international card types.

This might seem incredibly simple - and the result is pretty simple. But it’s clear from just a few minutes browsing the web that a lot of sites aren’t following the basics when dealing with transactions online. Pret a Manger’s online top up for their Pret Card is pretty hideous- they don’t seem to know what to call things so have gone with the ‘/’ approach (FYI Pret you can just call it a ‘card’ - customers get it!). The Maestro information is shown for everyone and the expiry date is hidden to the bottom – with some badly pixelated non transparent 3D Secure scheme logos (this is how I discovered this issue – by constantly failing to fill in the expiry date and thus failing to pay)

This is from Kurt Geiger- better isn’t it?

Lovely, clean, simple and ordered. My favourite type of form.

Now I have my basic form I’d start looking at validation and error messages next..but that’s too much serious for one week so you’ll have to hang on for that one until next time.

Spotted #2

2012-01-19T12:11:00.002+00:00

Random series on pet ecom hates. Episode 2.

Oh ASOS - how sometimes I get jealous of your amazingness and then other times I think - just why.

Just why would your system KNOW I qualify for a promotion but make me add it manually. The technical effort involved in letting me know about the code surely outweighs just getting it to add automatically?

And why can I only have one promo at a time? Just because I used a 20% off means I now can't have free delivery even though the total of my order is still over the threshold of £100?

ASOS often I love you. Often you just let me down.

Excellent Errors #3

2012-01-18T10:43:00.000+00:00

Ah OK I nicked this off one of the developers at work. And yeah so it's not ecommerce. Still like it though.

It's from Blizzard at http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/

The final mile or how to choose a delivery partner - part 1

2012-01-14T10:26:00.000+00:00

This post could be my shortest ever at three words "don't chose Yodel". I nearly just left it at that because I'm still in a grump about my missing Dyson (long rant - really you don't want to hear it), but in reality it probably wouldn't be fair if I did.

I certainly wouldn't be the only one writing that. Type 'Yodel' into Google and you'll be treated to a number of frustrated bloggers (here), twitterers (here), disappointed Amazon customers (here), and forum contributors (here). What's interesting about current coverage is that for one of the first times the delivery company is seen to be failing the retailer as well as the customer. People just don't moan and complain about carriers now, they petition the retailer to stop using them.

So I'm *successful online retailer of your choice*, I'm fed up with getting customer complaints, my customer service team is drowning in queries, my retention rate is falling, I'm losing sales (did I mention the Dyson?). I know I need to do something- what do I do? Change carrier?

Well to be fair to Yodel if you type any carrier name into Google you'll find frustrated anecdotes from customers who've had items left in bins, not turn up, turn up at 3am (yes this did happen)...this isn't something which is about a single carrier - it's about an outdated industry which needs to change with the times. I won't repeat it but Tom from Shutl sums this up brilliantly when saying that the internet has changed hugely since it's inception but delivery.....still the same.

Anyone who knows me knows a) I'm a logistics geek and b) I went through a long and painful vendor selection at the start of last year for delivery partners. Having seen every possible carrier I think I now understand the signs of a bad delivery partner and help you avoid getting this petition on your doorstep. Next time - my tips on how to choose a delivery partner...

Zen and the art of recruitment #2

2012-01-13T11:44:00.001+00:00

Oh dear two more hideous examples from cold callers - I can't just blame recruiters though, I think at least one of these was a consultancy/vendor.Avoid these like the plague- I am

The yuppy recruiter

"Hi H, here's a job you probably don't want, what number can I reach you on?" - it's aggressive, it's pushy, it's not cool and BTW it's not 1985.

The sneak

STALKER: "Hi I need to speak to H please"
SWITCHBOARD: "Oh sorry no you're stalker and we don't use those here"
STALKER "Oh no we spoke earlier in the week and she said this was a better time to call" - oh you're a) a liar b) overly pushy and c) never going to get the chance to speak to me again

This could end up being a regular series.....Happy Friday!