October 19, 2009 | Marketing | Andrew Kamphuis

Customers want simple.

If you are launching your new web site and wonder what customers want - customers want simple!

Customers don't want to give you their birthdate before they enter your website.
Customers don't want to read about your wine in one part of your site and jump to another part of your website to purchase the wine.
Customers don't want to create an account, give you a username and double confirm a password just to buy wine from you.
Customers don't want a long drawn out checkout process.
Customers don't want to be tricked into signing up for a newsletter.
Customers don't want to be spammed.
Customers don't want to be forced to buy minimum quantities.
Customers don't want flash.

Everything we force a customer to do before they get what they want carries consequence. Choose and weight those things carefully.

Comments

Tyson Caly

@ Oct 23, 2009 at 6:44 PM

Well said Andrew.

Mike Duffy

@ Oct 29, 2009 at 2:20 PM

http://blog.winerywebsitereport.com/

An excellent, simple post!

Kristen

@ Nov 13, 2009 at 1:48 PM

Great insight! I agree with all 8 points!

Larry Chandler

@ Mar 17, 2010 at 10:10 AM

http://www.overabarrel.net

It's good to be reminded of best practices, even if some of them, like reading blog posts in a timely fashion, are not practiced.

1. Some wineries insist on asking for birth dates immediately. Most of those seem to be the big national companies that want to cover their asses from some of the states that are picky about it. It is very annoying, though I suppose those sites aren't really focused on direct sales anyway.

2. This is what makes me totally nuts. Finding a link that says "our wines" and then discovering I can't order them from that page is when I will click the "goodbye and never coming back here" button. Why have to look for another button that says "wine store" or "purchase" or "products" or "We dare you to buy our wine"? If you have to have two locations (or think you do) for your wines, why not a link from the first page to the cart or even to the product page?

3. This is especially bad if they ask for credit card info before they even tell you the total cost of your purchase. I won't buy from these sites either.

4. This is a no-brainer. The more complicated the checkout process is, the more opportunities the customer has to abandon his cart.

5. Not sure I've ever seen this. Maybe I'm too smart to be tricked this way. On the other hand, what are all these newsletters doing in my email box?

6. Yeah, who does?

7. Why would a site refuse a sale because it isn't big enough? Some think they are taking the customer's side because they say shipping a single bottle is so expensive. But let the customer decide if it's worth it or not.

8. Flash is frequently misused. If you do use it, allow the customer to bypass it or turn it off without losing functionality. I like to watch movies on Netflix. Not your dumb site.

9. (I'm adding to your list). Never ever have sound turned on as a default. Never ever. Maybe I'm browsing your site at work, or late at night. Or maybe I don't like your choice of raucous music. Goodbye time. Same with videos. Don't start up automatically. I know how to click the arrow to start it.

10. Never follow me as I browse. I know some sites think this is cool, and if I appear confused, a pop up window offering help appears. Go the f**k away. And if you have my email address, do not send me an email asking why I didn't make a purchase. It's because I hate snoops, that's why.

11. Perhaps we can create a Hall of Shame. I know quite a few sites that would qualify. Do you?

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