Seth Godin think search engines still have a lot to room to grow when it comes to comparison type searches:
But they’re terrible at connections, at rankings, at horizontal results. They can’t help me find the 25 most important up and coming artists in the United States. They can’t help me find six products that are viable alternatives to something that was just discontinued. They can’t help me rank the service of four accounting firms.
He raises a good point. I get the impression that he expects Google to understand that a product-specific search for a product that’s discontinued should generate links to alternative products.
This is something Amazon does today. I’m sure comparison shopping sites handle it as well.
One area where it’s poorly done today is real estate, where most real estate sites today remove listings once sold rather than pointing people to related properties that are still on the market.
Using search engines, a person could run queries that generate relevant results as well. Try coming up with comparative phrases that may be mentioned on product review sites or blogs to generate appropriate search results. Here are a few suggestions to get you started:
“better than”
“replaces the”
“great alternative”
Terms like that - especially when used in quotes - do a great job filtering search results down to sites with opinions on products. Give it a try.
Marketing Pilgrim has been on a user reviews kick lately as it pertains to
online retail and has come up with some really interesting nuggets. The crux of
the posts have been about whether user generated content on retail sites helps
or hurts business. Are people more likely to buy from a site that has reviews?
It looks like the answer is a rather easy to believe, “Yes.” But what about
negative reviews? Sure, they may hurt sales of some products, but providing
alternatives to the bashed product provides both a service, conversion, and
happier customer, so it’s a relatively simple issue to address.
Another concern that’s often raised is, “Aren’t people more likely to give
negative reviews?” Well, according to a JupiterResearch presentation by Patti Evans reported on for Marketing Pilgrim by Greg Howlett, that’s not the case:
Five
More Important Facts About User Reviews in E-tail
Customers are about twice as
likely to write user reviews about good shopping experiences than bad
ones. Likewise they are twice as likely to write user reviews about
products they like than products they do not like. This is good news for
retailers and should help alleviate fears about user reviewers hurting
sales.
Huh? But doesn’t conventional wisdom say that people are
twice as likely to tell their friends about bad customer service experiences
that good ones? Doesn’t that apply to online retail as well?
Here’s my theory on this: People are more likely to TALK about bad experiences
they’ve had, but they’re more likely to WRITE about their good experiences. It’s
easy to bash a product or service to a trusted friend where you won’t be
challenged in a conversation between friends, but who’s really willing to
publicly bash a company, service, or product in public on the web? That’s a much
higher bar for negativity. Especially if you can’t do it anonymously (or in a
way that only your trusted friends could see).
Going negative - even when justified - has consequences.
Keep that in mind the next time you’re reading reviews for products online.
I recently sold something on Ebay for $100 that could be purchased for $106.99 on
Amazon. I was surprised by how much it went for. The product I sold was new in
the box, so there was nothing wrong with it, but I expected it to close for
considerably less than $7 less than what someone could buy it for on Amazon. In
fact, if they qualified for free shipping on Amazon, the cost differential would
have been only $2.00.
This made me wonder: how much cheaper would something have to be on Ebay to
justify buying it from a private seller vs. buying directly from a well known
reputable online retailer like Amazon? This isn’t to say that Ebay sellers
aren’t reputable. The site wouldn’t be as successful as it is if they weren’t.
But there is certainly more risk tied into buying something from a relatively
unknown retailer than buying from the biggest retailer on the web.
Put another way, what’s the premium you’d be willing to pay to buy directly from
Amazon over the discount you may be able to find on Amazon.
Another example: The Canon SD800 IS digital camera current costs
$306.48
directly from Amazon. The same camera in new in box condition has been
selling in the
$240
range on Ebay over the past few days. Does the $66 difference justify buying
from a private seller?
In my case, I would have gone with Amazon over myself for a $7 difference on a
$100 purchase, and would have gone with the Ebay seller to save $66.
What is your break point, and how do you justify it?
If you’re shopping on
Amazon.com and find a
product you’re interested in buying that’s sold through a 3rd party, you have
two choices:
1. Buy the product directly from Amazon.
2. Head over to the 3rd party’s own ecommerce site to buy the product directly
from them.
Which choice is the right choice? As far as I can tell, #1 is the
better way to go. Here is one example of why that is.
The
other day, I purchased some bike pedals on Amazon for $49.99. They were
listed on Amazon by Bike
Nashbar, so after my order was submitted, Amazon kicked the order over to
Bike Nashbar for fulfillment. Amazon makes a commission on this sale and Bike
Nashbar gains a sale by leveraging the power of Amazon’s brand and audience.
Everybody’s happy.
But wouldn’t it be cheaper if I jumped over to Bike Nashbar’s site? No. Here is
what I found:
The pedals on Amazon were $49.99 with $6.75 shipping:
The same pedals on Bike Nashbar were the exact same price, but the shipping was
higher ($7.25 vs. $6.75 when ordered on Amazon):
I’m pretty sure that Amazon’s contractual relationships with companies like Bike
Nashbar forbid the 3rd party sites from undercutting the pricing they submit to
Amazon’s store. While the shipping was higher buying direct, that won’t always
be the case. But that’s not the real cost difference.
The true cost is time, measured three ways.
1. Amazon already has my shipping and billing information on file,
so I save time by not having to register with yet another ecommerce site in
order to make my purchase.
2. With every new site I register with, I can expect another set of marketing
emails to start hitting my inbox.
3. Consolidating my purchase history allows one site to provide better
recommendations to me down the line, speeding up my shopping and improving my
satisfaction.
Amazon is really in the driver’s seat here. They’re taking a fairly
significant cut on every purchase made through one of their 3rd party vendors
and they don’t have to ship anything. And for every purchase made on their site,
the odds of additional purchased by the same customer goes up. That’s one heck
of a strong business model.
Why does Amazon make it so hard to figure out which products in your shopping
cart are running up your shipping costs? Is it just me? Let me explain:
Last night, I added a few things to my shopping cart on Amazon. I knew that one
of the items shipping directly from Amazon and qualified for Amazon Prime, so
that would ship for free (shown in the middle of the first screen shot below).
In this case, that item was The Dip by Seth Godin.
The other items were going to ship from 3rd parties so would incur some shipping
charges that added up to $17.74 as the upper-right column shows.
Free shipping for one product. $17.74 for the other two in the order.
One of the two 3rd party shipped items was a pair of bike pedals from Bike
Nashbar, pictured below:
They were listed for $49.99 on Amazon, and it was clearly states that this
product, “Ships from and sold by Bike Nashbar” so I could assume there would be
shipping charges associated with this product.
However, nowhere on the product page does it mention how much the shipping
charges will be. And, as the first screenshot above shows, shipping charged are
not broken out in Amazon’s shopping cart.
Since I had more than one item in my cart from a 3rd party vendor, the only way
I could determine the shipping costs of individual items would be to remove all
but one of the items from the cart. There has to be a better way to do this.
What really irks me about this is the order confirmation email I received only
minutes after placing my order:
the 3rd party shipped items? Why doesn’t Amazon do this in the BEFORE the
order is placed? It would have been nice to know that the product I ordered
from Northern Tool & Equipment generated $11.32 of the $17.74 I paid in
shipping.
Amazon can do better. They should give their customers the information they
need to quickly make informed purchasing decisions.
Why does Amazon make it so hard to figure out which products in your shopping
cart are running up your shipping costs? Is it just me? Let me explain:
Last night, I added a few things to my shopping cart on Amazon. I knew that one
of the items shipping directly from Amazon and qualified for Amazon Prime, so
that would ship for free (shown in the middle of the first screen shot below).
In this case, that item was The Dip by Seth Godin.
The other items were going to ship from 3rd parties so would incur some shipping
charges that added up to $17.74 as the upper-right column shows.
Free shipping for one product. $17.74 for the other two in the order.
One of the two 3rd party shipped items was a pair of bike pedals from Bike
Nashbar, pictured below:
They were listed for $49.99 on Amazon, and it was clearly states that this
product, “Ships from and sold by Bike Nashbar” so I could assume there would be
shipping charges associated with this product.
However, nowhere on the product page does it mention how much the shipping
charges will be. And, as the first screenshot above shows, shipping charged are
not broken out in Amazon’s shopping cart.
Since I had more than one item in my cart from a 3rd party vendor, the only way
I could determine the shipping costs of individual items would be to remove all
but one of the items from the cart. There has to be a better way to do this.
What really irks me about this is the order confirmation email I received only
minutes after placing my order:
the 3rd party shipped items? Why doesn’t Amazon do this in the BEFORE the
order is placed? It would have been nice to know that the product I ordered
from Northern Tool & Equipment generated $11.32 of the $17.74 I paid in
shipping.
Amazon can do better. They should give their customers the information they
need to quickly make informed purchasing decisions.
Why does Amazon make it so hard to figure out which products in your shopping
cart are running up your shipping costs? Is it just me? Let me explain:
Last night, I added a few things to my shopping cart on Amazon. I knew that one
of the items shipping directly from Amazon and qualified for Amazon Prime, so
that would ship for free (shown in the middle of the first screen shot below).
In this case, that item was The Dip by Seth Godin.
The other items were going to ship from 3rd parties so would incur some shipping
charges that added up to $17.74 as the upper-right column shows.
Free shipping for one product. $17.74 for the other two in the order.
One of the two 3rd party shipped items was a pair of bike pedals from Bike
Nashbar, pictured below:
They were listed for $49.99 on Amazon, and it was clearly states that this
product, “Ships from and sold by Bike Nashbar” so I could assume there would be
shipping charges associated with this product.
However, nowhere on the product page does it mention how much the shipping
charges will be. And, as the first screenshot above shows, shipping charged are
not broken out in Amazon’s shopping cart.
Since I had more than one item in my cart from a 3rd party vendor, the only way
I could determine the shipping costs of individual items would be to remove all
but one of the items from the cart. There has to be a better way to do this.
What really irks me about this is the order confirmation email I received only
minutes after placing my order:
the 3rd party shipped items? Why doesn’t Amazon do this in the BEFORE the
order is placed? It would have been nice to know that the product I ordered
from Northern Tool & Equipment generated $11.32 of the $17.74 I paid in
shipping.
Amazon can do better. They should give their customers the information they
need to quickly make informed purchasing decisions.
Are online retailers driving customers AWAY from their sites?
I’ve noticed in Technology Evangelist’s web stats that we get a fair amount of traffic for “coupon code” related searches. With a little digging, I noticed we rank second to a Minneapolis based grocery delivery service for the term [simon delivers coupon code], which made me wonder, “Why are people searching for that term?”
Here’s my theory. Simon Delivers customers (and prospective customers) are faced with a question during checkout that they don’t have an answer to: “Enter Simon Codes, separated by commas.” Customers reaching that box on the form put their checkout on hold while they go over to Google and search for a code. Why not, right? They may be able to save $10 for a minute’s worth of work if they find a coupon code. That’s certainly justifiable.
But what if they don’t return? Perhaps the phone rings and they get distracted rather than finalize their order. That’s not good. This could be particularly troublesome for customers who aren’t yet using tabbed browsing or multiple windows to surf the web. That crowd is truly abandoning their shopping cart in search of a coupon.
This is particularly interesting in Simon Delivers’ case since, unlike most retailers who have one coupon form, they have dozens:
Every single product in the shopping cart has an associated coupon field! Could this drive particularly frugal customers to seek out coupons for each and every product in their shopping cart?
Is there a better solution? I believe Amazon may have found one with the form they put on the right-hand side of the checkout screen:
Have you ever stopped to look for a coupon during checkout?
A friend of mine told me that he thinks big offline retailers like Best Buy and Target are going to cut into Amazon’s online market share this year because they’re finally getting up to speed. Somehow, I doubt that, especially from today through the end of the holiday shopping season.
If you’ve shopped Amazon before, you probably know how timely their shipping is, and you now have all of your shipping and billing info on file with them. Christmas gifts HAVE to show up on time, so the low-risk option is to stick with the company that’s worked for you in the past rather than trying other online stores - even if you happen to trust the store brands in the offline world.
As of this writing, I can’t get Amazon, BestBuy, or Target’s homepages to load, so all three could be doing more business from me if I could only access their site.
Which online retailers would you feel comfortable buying from this close to Christmas?
Being crunch time for holiday shopping, let’s discuss the hot products for 2006.
What are the must have products this year? Any fun stocking stuffers?
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