Amazon is (still) undoubtedly the best -or one of the best- online stores. People buy (lots), and their conversion rate is really high. They don’t let you go, and have almost perfect the “impulse online buy”. Their buying process is good, easy. Their service great.
And yet, after years of being a cliente, I am pissed. Whenever I got to www.amazon.com, I know that they know it’s me. They tell me so right away- but they ignore it.
I go to www.amazon.com because it’s a store that has almost everything book there is, a store that knows what I bought from them, what I saw, what I chose in my Wish List, things I owned but not bought from them because I commented on them.
And yet, I get there and see nothing of that. In fact, they have the misfortune of offering me stuff like jewelry, more jewelry, clothes (for women, so at least they know I am one), etc which I would never buy online (of offline, in the case of jewelry). “Stuff for women”, I guess. Ahem. Pitty I am not you “average woman” (if such thing exists). (see image on the left, click to make bigger)
Anyway. The only personal thing in the home page is the “Hello, Gaby Prado”. It seems to be there so I don’t forget they know who I am. (and that they are ignoring me).
So I’m in the home page, not looking for anything specific, but rather wanting to exploit their recommendation engine and see what new stuff they’ve got that might interest me. Here the trouble begins. I know it’s there but have to carefully read the whole page until I found a small (tiny) text right there on top, next to the logo, that says “Gaby’s Amazon.com”. It’s not underlined (unlike other links on the page), but it’s blue. So I go for it, hoping.
Bingo. There’s my recommendations, and all other stuff they offer. (see image on the left, click to make bigger)
Can you spot the difference? Right. No jewelry. No clothes. No-nothing to do my grocery shopping. Only books – and from pretty specific categories.
It wouldn’t be so bad if I they weren’t so huge on “intelligent recommendation”, on crossing and keep interliking stuff until you buy at least one of the items you saw.
I understand that it is not easy, but hey, if detecting who I am with a couple cookies is not enough to serve me a personalised page (that is, take me directly to the “My Amazon” page), at least let me choose what I want to see (like we do in Netvibes, Google, Yahoo, etc). I don’t expect Asgard technology, just a few widely-used tools and a little power over what I see.
Most importantly, I would welcome some good cross-selling. If I buy a science fiction book, it would be great to see what offers they have on the latest DVD release of sci-fi series. If I’m shopping for books on graphic design, it wouldn’t be so creazy to see Apple hardware or even video-editing software (hanging from a limb here)
But no. I get jewelry, dresses and the teen Seventeen magazine. Or nothing, once I ignore the front page and get to “My Amazon” where I only get to see more books – and unfortunately, I’m often offered books I have already bought from… Amazon.
Once I’m in, persuability kicks in, and I’ll make a purchase, or at least, save it to my Wish List. And if I buy, I’ll be so happy with the service that I’ll come back. And I do – although I get annoyed enough the welcome to rant about it here – breaking a few months dry-spell in blog writing.
The first impression is frankly far from pleasant. And if I want cross-selling (cross-media, that is), I have to go browse the entire monster-store. Not good.
I wonder how much stuff I bought online elsewhere I could have bought from Amazon… Must confess though, I’m an “old-timer” who witnessed Amazon’s birth and got to know it as The Book Store, and have it difficult to think of it as another Target, so I go elsewhere for my electronics, for instance.
Still, I don’t stop learning from Amazon. Mostly from their hits, but in this case, from this MISS.
