Usually, I have some questions about the product I want to buy. I need to be educated and I want to do a bit of comparison shopping. The Web is perfectly suited for this behavior. I can visit several of the most appropriate-looking sites returned in the Google search results and browse around them all. I definitely will not be purchasing wood screws from all of them, however. I’m learning along the way – not only about the product, but about the usability of each site. If I’m not pleased with what I see, I’ll dip back into the search results and try again.

Performing the same amount of research over the phone or by driving around would be a much bigger investment of my time and energy.

I don’t think my habits are unique. Based on this education process of hitting multiple vendors of the same item, it’s easy to see why many visits don’t result in a sale.

Short version: e-commerce and brick-and-mortar commerce are very different animals which makes applying a brick-and-mortar example like a 7-11 milk purchase to an e-commerce experience a very difficult challenge.

I often find websites for brick and mortar businesses forget one of the main reasons I might visit – to find them. I’m not interested in flashy big graphics, I want an easy to use mostly text based store/business locator that I can get to quickly and easily from the home page. This is true for Home Depot or Olive Garden or Days Inn.

When I’m on the road speed is often dailup and screen size is often PDA. So once again proper clean HTML/CSS that degrades gracefully = good, huge image maps = bad.

Next, when I am using a modern browser PLEASE realize I will be browsing with tabs. I open almost all links in a new tab. So I’ll probably open new tabs for lots of stuff when browsing a “store”, pay attention to how your cookies work and don’t put the wrong stuffin my “basket”.

And, if your form processing is too retarded to handle the spaces/dashes in my credit card number/phone number/SSN/… that allow me not to go crosseyed when proof-reading it then I’m pretty sure that ringing you hear is the clue phone.

As a special note to Ticketmaster – I might just get a phone call or have to go find a credit card… while filling out your form so why don’t we make the timeout something more reasonable.

So it comes down to service. The meat space equivalent is asking a shop assistant and hoping they know what they’re talking about. On the Web most shopping experiences are passive and very few people actually call or contact as it’s often seen as a fail on the part of the client, or the interface. We have a service called Live Help though. It’s a text-chat that’s running on some busy client sites. To even my surprise it’s much used and very effective. However, like all customer service, it’s only as good as the knowledge of the person delivering it and like you say, there has to be someone there and available. I think that is more valuable in the long run in combination with better interfaces, and it”s certainly more achievable.

Checkpoints would be useful though. Best practice would be useful. I don’t think the failure rate would change radically though. It’s not so much an expression of frustration as an expression of a behaviour change. Window shopping has become a Web pastime for some. A 70% failure rate isn’t so much a failure as a success – at least for the customer who got the entertainment they came for even if they bought nothing. Part of the enjoyment seems to be the browsing. Part seems also to be adding products to their basket even if they don’t purchase in the end. Purchases seem to be down a long path of customer capture and retention through entertainment. Shopping has become a leisure activity and many stores provide a shopping experience rather than an order interface. Although that’s not to say that a Web store shouldn’t provide a quick service counter as well as a bouncy castle. Personally, I often just want milk. Good practice, agreed consensually would go a long way to helping everyone buy on the Web with ease. Add responsive customer service to a possible set of standards and I think it would be a winner. Even window shoppers might find it more entertaining.