All posts with the tag of e-commerce

3rd December 2010 by Jon Fisher | User Experience

To many online retailers, the holy grail of behavioural change would be engaging more customers in deciding to purchase! In a UCD ecommerce process what persuasive elements do we include and at what time? How do we “persuade and not force”? Exactly how hard do we push potential customers? This article proposes a potential framework for designing persuasive techniques into the design of an ecommerce website in order to maximise revenue and create great user experiences!

2nd July 2010 by Juliet Richardson | Nomensa thinks

Why are big-name pure play sites like Amazon, Very and ASOS losing up to £420 million a month in lost sales?

According to a recent report by Moneybookers, some popular online stores have painfully slow checkouts. Reportedly, some of the worst offenders were “pure play” sites such as Very.co.uk (with a checkout time of 6 minutes 45 seconds), Amazon (5 minutes, 38 seconds) and ASOS (4 minutes, 36 seconds). By Moneybookers’ calculation, this potentially translates into £420 million a month in lost sales.

30th January 2009 by nomensa | User Experience

The current economic climate is a difficult time for any business, and for any individual. So why is it that while one time high rolling retailers such as Zavvi and Woolworths have both gone into administration, web-based retailers such as Play.com and Amazon have both just seen some of their best figures to date. Although it is certain that there are many reasons for this, this article will delve into the e-commerce world to look at website usability as a factor in the success or failure of a business.

Against the background of poor sales and failing retailers you might wonder whether companies can afford to focus on the usability of e-commerce. After all if large retailers with an established web presence can go to the wall, shouldn’t companies be merely focusing their efforts on staying in business?

23rd July 2008 by nomensa | User Experience

Metaphors are used in human-computer interaction to describe unfamiliar concepts or systems, like a computer, in terms of familiar elements, like files and folders.

In the realm of e-commerce, many retailers employ aspects of physical stores to describe the user’s interaction. One popular metaphor is the “shopping cart” – a space for users to store items for later purchase. “Shopping cart” is only one of many terms used to describe this feature, along with bags, baskets, selections, orders and lists… even the top online retailers have not come near to a universal standard.

How does the terminology we use reflect the metaphor we’ve chosen? How appropriate is the metaphor to the user’s task? And is it appropriate to use a metaphor at all?

28th February 2007 by nomensa | User Experience

Everyone has had a frustrating experience online. Having a website that is easy to use is more important than ever. Consumers are demanding an intuitive and rewarding online experience and voting with their feet when it’s poor. Offline Brands that have taken decades to build loyalty and trust can be dismissed online in an instant by a failing to provide an in increasingly improving standard of user experience.

Price and availability may still be high on the consumer agenda must as the gap between pureplay and clicks and mortar business closes the battle for customers is switching to the science of usability and consumer behaviour.

30th June 2006 by nomensa | User Experience

Waiting in a queue was the last bastion of the seasoned shopper trying to get that elusive product or the must have clothing of the season. Online shopping promises salvation for many of us who don’t have time to wander aimlessly around the shops touching and feeling the clothes and trying before we buy. The ideal solution to no time and no patience was online shopping. Or so you would think. Although many retailers have got online shopping right, many still are forcing customers to wait and struggle while shopping online?