Costly Online Mistakes

My wife likes a particular clothing store.

I mean she really likes it.

When a significant enough sale comes out from them, it is an event for her.

She enjoys their clothes so much that we also bought stock in the company. Having this particular company have this problem with their web site is pretty annoying...

Frustration Factor

This the beginning of a hugely profitable season for this clothing retailer. They are sure to have millions of dollars in sales from their web site.

Unfortunately from them, I am absolutely convinced they are losing sales as well.

Please don't think that this article only has to do with an online retailer. There are lessons to be learned for any site making sales on line.

Here's the problem...

Why Don't They Want The Order?

Kathleen had spent the better part of half an hour picking out various outfits for her family for Christmas. Between her three sisters, mother and herself, she was clicking away pretty hard for a while there.

As she was finishing up her order, I kept hearing from her:

"Come on". Click, click.

"What the?" Click, click.

Heavy sigh. Click, click, click.

"This is frustrating!". Click, click.

The Problem

Kathleen's order kept getting rejected at the very last stage of the order process. You know the "Click here to submit your order" part?

The "problem" was she would forget to check a box or fill out one of the many fields required.

For example, next to her name was a box like this:

PREFIX: Mr. Mrs. Ms.

If you happen to skip over that box, your order is a "no go".

I looked at the order page and could see it is very easy to skip right past it. As a matter of fact, it looks like an optional field which many people probably go right by.

This is a needless hurdle that can and should easily be corrected.

Which makes me wonder. Do they really need to know if you are Mr., Mrs. or Ms. anyways?

Compounding Mistakes

As if this competely avoidable stumbling block wasn't bad enough, they compounded the problem even further.

After Kathleen had filled out the many fields, the error message screen held another nasty surprise.

When she hit the back button (as instructed to do), the screen brought her back to a blank order page. None of her previous information was there anymore.

She had to start all over. (Hmm.. I think I just heard you say "I hate that!").

It isn't too hard to construct a page which would keep the various values in the fields in place. Why make someone go through putting all of that information in there again?

It was evidence of Kathleen's determination to get the clothes (!) that finally let her make it through the ordering process. (I didn't think that she would give up so easily, but not everyone clicks with her level of enthusiasm when clothes shopping online).

Limiting The Hurdles

Anyone with an order form on the their site would benefit from taking a second look at it.

Do you really need all of the fields to be mandatory?

Does your site wipe out the information if they hit the back button?

Removing unnecessary obstacles such as this will definitely help increase your sales.

p.s. The real problem with this mistake? Since I am a shareholder, it is even more aggravating! They are missing out on sales. I've already emailed them about my concerns. We'll see if it gets ignored or not.

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