Poll: What do you find buying online really hard or annoying?
I'm building a shopping site because I find online shopping for some products really frustrating. The idea is to have one site where you can search for all options for a given product category and quickly filter down to the one you want to buy.
I have some product categories in mind that I would like to work on, but I want to know what you would find useful.
Please vote for one or more of the following and comment below to say what you find most frustrating about buying that online. What would you like to be fixed?
Thanks!
60 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 130 ms ] threadI'd like something where there is literally a giant essay justifying the reasons for buying X. (i.e. even though this one has less megapixels, it's the better choice since you won't really need all those mega pixels in the real world, and this way you can save 25% of the cost).
Most of the stores don't have items categorized more than one level deep nor by the properties of the item. There are all sorts of options for something as simple as an anvil or a pair of tongs.
God help you if you need handle hardware. You have to go through 40 pages of little, crappy pictures of items to find what you're looking for.
When you go to checkout, you're lucky if you can complete your order without reloading your cart a half-dozen times.
Then there's the whole quality thing. There are vanishingly few reviews on these sites. If you could aggregate reviews on similar items, it would be great.
But a problem with aggregating reviews is that a certain part might be imported from China on one site and the same part might be laser cut in house on another site. There's no real way to tell the difference without having the two items in hand.
Edit to add some links to examples: http://www.knifemaking.com/Default.asp http://www.piehtoolco.com/ http://www.usaknifemaker.com/
It could be improved. It would be nice if prices and a primary characteristic or two, like weight for hammers, could be moved up a level. Or at least add search filters like New Egg does for each spec of a component.
E.g., Hammers -> Straight Pein -> 1-2kg
Once you've read some reviews, how do you choose one product to buy?
At least here in the UK, we have the following which are good:
http://nestoria.com
http://rightmove.com
http://findaproperty.com
http://www.globrix.com
or the mobile version http://itunes.apple.com/app/craigslist-housing-maps-cribq/id...
* not affiliated with this, just happen to know it was created to solve your gripe
There is an opportunity here (R2L E-Commerce system), but I'm too lazy to grab it.
Ordering one isn't the problem, but deciding for one has been surprisingly difficult. Asus alone has like 12 different models in the market (I kid you not!) and that's not even counting variants of the same product.
Review and price comparison sites have been less than helpful because none seems to carry an exhaustive list. Also their filtering and sorting capabilities tend to be a (bad) joke.
Now, if this could be coupled with some sort of user history, and some predictiveness regarding other care products (e.g. if I show preference towards unscented soap, it's likely that I will prefer unscented shampoo), that would be awesome.
Where do you buy these online now? What are the most important things for you while choosing a personal care product?
I gave up looking for good personal care products because the process, both in-store and online, is painful and confusing (confusing because there are many brands and they keep on changing labels, painful because when taking a chance with a bottle generally involves purchasing at least a month's supply, and it sucks when you hate your body soap)
Nowadays I just purchase in bulk from costco (it's a bulk-discount store). But if there were a compelling alternative, I would switch in a heartbeat.
Important things for the experience (based on my complaints about the process):
- Make it easy to try lots of brands, even if you charge a little bit to do so. I would gladly spend a very small amount of money on a week's supply or a few day's supply of a brand so I could try it.
- Have a more user-driven recommendation scheme (like netflix, but doesnt have to be so advanced) -- maybe you could even figure out most commonly used combinations ...
- Remember the last products I ordered, and allow me to indicate if they were good or bad. I dont want to accidentally buy a deodorant I hated and I definitely don't want to have to remember what products I'm using now.
- Quick-order flight-friendly bottle pack. My dream: one click to overnight my current set of products to my place here or at my destination. (Yes, I know that hotels provide most goods like this, but they are geared toward the expected behavior of the clientele -- i really really dislike the hermes soap at la bristol)
Personally, I like unscented products through and through. Except for cologne, which I use sparingly (for now it's JPG Le Male, which I won in some charity raffle a long time ago)
Of course, I would only use this service once every 5-10 years, so it may not be a big money-maker.
Even though any individual won't use such a service often, each sale is quite big in absolute terms (compared to other verticals I'm considering) and a lot of people buy cars. So, it is a big market but not one I'm currently thinking of, mainly because I'm only looking at stuff you'd actually order online.
I don't find any of the above difficult, because of the enumerated items, the only ones I buy are computers and software. Computers: Dell works; software: most easily distributed good in world.
Almost all of my furniture/etc is hand-me-down from someone or other. When I need something not in the set, I go straight to the big $WHATEVER store and ask the friendly salesman "What is the best selling $ITEM?" because there is no way that I'm going to outresearch Japan on consumer electronics.
I expect things might get slightly more complicated if/when you have a family.
Regarding software, distribution is clearly not the problem. But distribution is not a problem for most other things now. Choosing what to buy out of a hundred options is the problem. That's what I'm trying to help people with.
Thanks for taking the time to answer. Hope you didn't find the tweet rude.
yes, there are specialty sites for most of these but wow, all such sites are categorically awful.
But I think more and more people will buy clothes online. So it is a good market, but it will probably take a different approach than other products. I might consider it down the line.
Thanks.
Legal pharmaceuticals. Hard to sort the legitimate sites from the scams and counterfeits.
Anything involving PayPal. (The reasons have been discussed on HN ad infinitum, no need to repeat in this thread.)
Bitcoin. The dominant exchange is buggy, secretive and untrustworthy. The best alternative is to actually send cash in the mail to strangers.
For appliances, a lot of shopping sites also neglect to include significant information like dimensions weight, or where various pipes connect to the appliances.. which you can easily figure out in person. You really don't want to be doing a return on a washer dryer or even a vacuum cleaner, but the smallest of differences can make an item useless (such as if the outlet pipe on a dryer is on the wrong side/place or if a cooker is 2 inches too wide for the existing gap).
Can you elaborate a bit on ranges? I'm not sure what you mean.
If I want to see all the Dysons from cheapest to most expensive with a few key specs about each (why are they different?) that can prove tricky.
Hires pictures of the product from all sides. So many sites use have only small pictures. Even when Amazon has pictures, you're only allowed to see a small part of it at a time. My big display is so bored.