Salon Money | E-commerce: Don't believe the hype

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Help! I have portfolio deficit disorder!
By Daren Fonda
My life fell apart after I discovered I could my check my stock's earnings and losses online -- whenever I wanted
(01/15/99)
Consumer retorts
By Heather Chaplin
The motto of the consumer warrior must be: Never surrender, never apologize and never forget there is no rational justification for $28 bank charges
(01/08/99)
Money talks
By Heather Chaplin
If you want to know if a woman is wealthy, check her pores, not her pearls
(12/18/98)
God rest ye merry, shoppers
By Fiona Morgan
Author Bill McKibben preaches a "Hundred Dollar Holiday"
(12/11/98)
Exxon-Mobil: Bigger than Monica?
By Heather Chaplin
While the media and Congress blather about the Clinton sex scandal, these former competitors just created the biggest corporation in the world
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[ T H E_.R E L U C T A N T_.C A P I T A L I S T ]________
_____E-commerce: Don't believe the hype
ONLINE SHOPPING LEAVES ME FRUSTRATED,
BORED AND FEELING LIKE A SCHMO.

Money image

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BY HEATHER CHAPLIN
I'm looking at a picture of a gray J. Crew sweater on my computer screen -- wool, V-neck and on sale in a two-for-one deal. Underneath the image are two little bars that say size and color. I would like to take advantage of the sale and buy the sweaters, but I am completely stumped as to how I should relate this fact to the computer. As far as I can understand, there's no way to tell whoever, or whatever, that I want two sweaters but in two different colors.
I have a low tolerance for this sort of grief, and before very long, I am thumping on my desk and shouting at my computer screen that J. Crew sucks.
This was my first foray into the world of online shopping. And while it's true I'm not a technical genius, neither am I a complete idiot. If J. Crew can't make it clear to me how to make the purchase, there's a problem. In fact, there are two problems, one for me and one for J. Crew.
I was on the J. Crew site after having read what I think was the zillionth article on the exciting world of e-commerce. I'd heard about the increases in dollars spent, the rise in retailers on the Web and marketers' predictions that online shopping was going to become an integral part of the shopping life. I'd held out against the rising tide of Internet retail mania, but curiosity, some encouragement from friends and a very intense after-hours shopping bug got the better of me. I made a list of all the sites I'd heard about and visited them one by one. Several hours later, my scientific study completed, I came to one simple conclusion: Online shopping is incredibly annoying.
Had my troubles been solely with J. Crew -- which is actually considered one of the more successful operations by people who study the field -- I would have chalked up my failure to a lack of technological smarts. But it wasn't. Earnestly trying to buy something, anything, from J. Crew, the Gap, Macy's, Clinique, Ikea, Amazon.com, Bobbi Brown or Victoria's Secret, among others, I found myself alternately frustrated, confused and bored. If I found something I liked, it wasn't in stock. If it was in stock, it took too long to figure out how to buy it. If I figured out how to buy it, the shipping charges made me reconsider.
Eventually, I ordered two CDs from Amazon.com, and my boyfriend, for whom I was ordering the sweaters, showed me how to navigate J. Crew. Had I not been conducting a scientific experiment, however, I would have switched to another mode of shopping faster than it takes to shut down a PC.
Nicole Vanderbilt, a senior analyst at Jupiter Communications, a new-media research firm in New York, said my reaction was typical of new online shoppers, who haven't "become accustomed to the [medium's] failures" yet. While retailers have spent buckets of money luring customers to their sites, the fact is those sites are far from perfect and can take some getting used to, she said.
A study released this week by Jupiter found that 74 percent of people surveyed who shopped online said they were satisfied with the experience. Sounds good, except for the fact that that number is 14 percent lower than it was in an identical study done six months ago. Why the increase in dissatisfaction? Part of the problem is simply that there were too many shoppers during the holidays for retailers to handle, Vanderbilt said. The other problem, ironically, stems from the very success of the medium. As Internet shopping becomes an accepted part of the consumer canon, the people doing it become more mainstream and less technologically savvy. As such, they're less forgiving of technological glitches and more expectant of a familiar shopping experience. They're online because they're short of time or they're curious, and they expect the experience to be akin to going to the mall or picking up a catalog, which it simply is not.
I think about it like this: Online shopping was once something of an exotic experience, like a journey through an uncharted forest for which the brave were willing to face disease, unpaved roads and mosquito bites. Now, daily bus tours are available for any old schmo who wants to see the trees, but the trouble is the road isn't quite paved yet and the schmoes are a little miffed at being led onto rocky terrain. As one of the schmoes, I can vouch for this.
If retailers don't "alleviate technology issues and improve customer service in the coming months," Vanderbilt said, "they risk losing the customers they spent so much to acquire."
On one hand, I hope they never do figure it out, because it'll be one less black hole of temptation down which my money can disappear. On the other hand, I get mighty restless some long afternoons, and I can't say I wouldn't secretly appreciate an entertaining way to whittle away some time. (Procrastinating while still sitting at your computer is like eating food off other people's plates: It doesn't count.)
According to Jupiter's study, most complaints about Web shopping focused on merchandise availability, followed by cost of shipping and slow site performance. How true -- my scientific findings mimic theirs exactly. My computer and modem are probably average in terms of speed, but there was a point when I actually thought rigor mortis was going to set in if I had to wait while another page loaded.
Perhaps, though, I'm thinking about the whole thing in the wrong way. It's hard for me not to think about shopping as an activity in itself, or more specifically as a fun activity -- surrounded by people, colors, textures and sounds. (I only made my first catalog purchase this year, and that was purely because the pictures were so lovely they sent my heart pitter-pattering.) For me, shopping is as much the experience as the purchase. You just can't have that mind-set when you're staring at your computer screen.
Of the friends I talked to who shop online, not one mentioned it being fun, per se -- except those wackos who get misty-eyed whenever something technological is involved. Mostly, they buy CDs, books and computer equipment via the Web. Nothing too glamorous and nothing that requires being swept away by wonderful marketing or impulsiveness. One friend said he loved that his purchases -- made while at work under the unknowing eye of his boss -- would arrive, as if by magic, at his door in two days. Another told me she'd forgotten a friend's birthday and that Amazon.com saved her by getting a gift-wrapped book to him the next day.
Market researchers agree that online shopping, at least at this point, works best for things like books and CDs, and that the primary reason people do it is for convenience rather than a good time. That's fine, although the words of Mike Shirer, spokesman for the market research firm Forrester Research, keep coming back to me. "Uh yea," he said "you don't want the experience to actually suck. That's not good."
I think I'll wait until it doesn't.
SALON | Jan. 22, 1999

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T A B L E__T A L K Is it time to kill the penny? Make sense of small change in Table Talk's Business and Personal Finance area ___________________ Search barnesandnoble.com for books about personal finance ___________________ R E C E N T L Y Help! I have portfolio deficit disorder! By Daren Fonda My life fell apart after I discovered I could my check my stock's earnings and losses online -- whenever I wanted (01/15/99) Consumer retorts By Heather Chaplin The motto of the consumer warrior must be: Never surrender, never apologize and never forget there is no rational justification for $28 bank charges (01/08/99) Money talks By Heather Chaplin If you want to know if a woman is wealthy, check her pores, not her pearls (12/18/98) God rest ye merry, shoppers By Fiona Morgan Author Bill McKibben preaches a "Hundred Dollar Holiday" (12/11/98) Exxon-Mobil: Bigger than Monica? By Heather Chaplin While the media and Congress blather about the Clinton sex scandal, these former competitors just created the biggest corporation in the world (12/04/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Reluctant Capitalist archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Salon Columnists		[ T H E_.R E L U C T A N T_.C A P I T A L I S T ]________ _____E-commerce: Don't believe the hype ONLINE SHOPPING LEAVES ME FRUSTRATED, BORED AND FEELING LIKE A SCHMO. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - BY HEATHER CHAPLIN I'm looking at a picture of a gray J. Crew sweater on my computer screen -- wool, V-neck and on sale in a two-for-one deal. Underneath the image are two little bars that say size and color. I would like to take advantage of the sale and buy the sweaters, but I am completely stumped as to how I should relate this fact to the computer. As far as I can understand, there's no way to tell whoever, or whatever, that I want two sweaters but in two different colors. I have a low tolerance for this sort of grief, and before very long, I am thumping on my desk and shouting at my computer screen that J. Crew sucks. This was my first foray into the world of online shopping. And while it's true I'm not a technical genius, neither am I a complete idiot. If J. Crew can't make it clear to me how to make the purchase, there's a problem. In fact, there are two problems, one for me and one for J. Crew. I was on the J. Crew site after having read what I think was the zillionth article on the exciting world of e-commerce. I'd heard about the increases in dollars spent, the rise in retailers on the Web and marketers' predictions that online shopping was going to become an integral part of the shopping life. I'd held out against the rising tide of Internet retail mania, but curiosity, some encouragement from friends and a very intense after-hours shopping bug got the better of me. I made a list of all the sites I'd heard about and visited them one by one. Several hours later, my scientific study completed, I came to one simple conclusion: Online shopping is incredibly annoying. Had my troubles been solely with J. Crew -- which is actually considered one of the more successful operations by people who study the field -- I would have chalked up my failure to a lack of technological smarts. But it wasn't. Earnestly trying to buy something, anything, from J. Crew, the Gap, Macy's, Clinique, Ikea, Amazon.com, Bobbi Brown or Victoria's Secret, among others, I found myself alternately frustrated, confused and bored. If I found something I liked, it wasn't in stock. If it was in stock, it took too long to figure out how to buy it. If I figured out how to buy it, the shipping charges made me reconsider. Eventually, I ordered two CDs from Amazon.com, and my boyfriend, for whom I was ordering the sweaters, showed me how to navigate J. Crew. Had I not been conducting a scientific experiment, however, I would have switched to another mode of shopping faster than it takes to shut down a PC. Nicole Vanderbilt, a senior analyst at Jupiter Communications, a new-media research firm in New York, said my reaction was typical of new online shoppers, who haven't "become accustomed to the [medium's] failures" yet. While retailers have spent buckets of money luring customers to their sites, the fact is those sites are far from perfect and can take some getting used to, she said. A study released this week by Jupiter found that 74 percent of people surveyed who shopped online said they were satisfied with the experience. Sounds good, except for the fact that that number is 14 percent lower than it was in an identical study done six months ago. Why the increase in dissatisfaction? Part of the problem is simply that there were too many shoppers during the holidays for retailers to handle, Vanderbilt said. The other problem, ironically, stems from the very success of the medium. As Internet shopping becomes an accepted part of the consumer canon, the people doing it become more mainstream and less technologically savvy. As such, they're less forgiving of technological glitches and more expectant of a familiar shopping experience. They're online because they're short of time or they're curious, and they expect the experience to be akin to going to the mall or picking up a catalog, which it simply is not. I think about it like this: Online shopping was once something of an exotic experience, like a journey through an uncharted forest for which the brave were willing to face disease, unpaved roads and mosquito bites. Now, daily bus tours are available for any old schmo who wants to see the trees, but the trouble is the road isn't quite paved yet and the schmoes are a little miffed at being led onto rocky terrain. As one of the schmoes, I can vouch for this. If retailers don't "alleviate technology issues and improve customer service in the coming months," Vanderbilt said, "they risk losing the customers they spent so much to acquire." On one hand, I hope they never do figure it out, because it'll be one less black hole of temptation down which my money can disappear. On the other hand, I get mighty restless some long afternoons, and I can't say I wouldn't secretly appreciate an entertaining way to whittle away some time. (Procrastinating while still sitting at your computer is like eating food off other people's plates: It doesn't count.) According to Jupiter's study, most complaints about Web shopping focused on merchandise availability, followed by cost of shipping and slow site performance. How true -- my scientific findings mimic theirs exactly. My computer and modem are probably average in terms of speed, but there was a point when I actually thought rigor mortis was going to set in if I had to wait while another page loaded. Perhaps, though, I'm thinking about the whole thing in the wrong way. It's hard for me not to think about shopping as an activity in itself, or more specifically as a fun activity -- surrounded by people, colors, textures and sounds. (I only made my first catalog purchase this year, and that was purely because the pictures were so lovely they sent my heart pitter-pattering.) For me, shopping is as much the experience as the purchase. You just can't have that mind-set when you're staring at your computer screen. Of the friends I talked to who shop online, not one mentioned it being fun, per se -- except those wackos who get misty-eyed whenever something technological is involved. Mostly, they buy CDs, books and computer equipment via the Web. Nothing too glamorous and nothing that requires being swept away by wonderful marketing or impulsiveness. One friend said he loved that his purchases -- made while at work under the unknowing eye of his boss -- would arrive, as if by magic, at his door in two days. Another told me she'd forgotten a friend's birthday and that Amazon.com saved her by getting a gift-wrapped book to him the next day. Market researchers agree that online shopping, at least at this point, works best for things like books and CDs, and that the primary reason people do it is for convenience rather than a good time. That's fine, although the words of Mike Shirer, spokesman for the market research firm Forrester Research, keep coming back to me. "Uh yea," he said "you don't want the experience to actually suck. That's not good." I think I'll wait until it doesn't. SALON \| Jan. 22, 1999 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Become a Salon member. Click here.