"did you ever give up trying to place an order on a website?" Topic

Have you ever gotten so annoyed trying to place an order on a website that you just left it in frustration? Walked away from filling out the online forms for billing and address or trying to get the right items in your "shopping basket" or whatever?

Yes, but not often

Yes.

Once in a rare while.

This is related to the "three clicks" myth. In the late 90's some researchers did some experimentation with online behavior and came up with the website design "rule" that after three mouse clicks trying to do something, users persistence dropped off sharply and you "loose" them.

The problem with this "rule" is not the research itself, but the generalization of it. You have to take into account (and design into the experiment, if you want to draw a conclusion about) the users' intent.

If I am casually browsing through material (online or not), I generally have a low threshold of frustration. If I am not very vested in the outcome, I am not particularly vested in the process. I value the perception of beneficial activity, so multiple activities to get somewhere is less appealing.

If I have high interest in the outcome (say, paying my credit card bill online today so I don't get hit with interest charges tomorrow), then my threshold for the amount of activity it takes to get that outcome rises.

The threshold is also affected by confidence in the possibility of the outcome. If I'm somewhere new and I don't have a lot of information about the processes, I may not even have a strong belief in the possibility of a good outcome for me. This belief can be personal, taught, or social (such as I know all my friends got Squidgee brand paints at a good price on nozama.com, so I know it can be done).

These two big factors (along with a lot of others) can compliment each other or work against each other. High desire can drive me to do things that are new and unfamiliar. Familiarity can drive me to do things with a lower expected payoff.

Yes, on several occasions.

I don't even start when they don't list the cost for shipping conspicuously on their website(s), and there's no info about that even when you hunt for it. Usually affects international retailers more than local ones.

Yes

Yes.

Not often, but yes.

Yes – if they have those Captcha things to place an order, forget it.

Yes

Yes.

Yes – especially ones that make me jump through hoops.

John T

About to with AandA Miniatures, placed email order 3 days ago no confirmation its been even read, was looking to finish an army with a special they're running but… Maybe the don't want my £s ??

Yes

Yes. I buy online often, but these two issues stop me every time:

1) If I can't calculate shipping without entering my credit card info.
2) If I can't make an order without creating a website login.

Indeed, it is amazing how hard it can be to give some business (MONEY) to people. I am a 50 year old man with disposable income, credit cards and a paypal account and who has serious impulse control issues!! (please don't anyone trot out the old trope about how some of these businesses are small, single person operations. I am not talking about them.) Also, don't even get me started on sites without pictures of their products!!!

HAVING to register is a huge annoyance and may make me just 'walk away'. If I have to create an account and wait for a confirmation email I'll just go somewhere else to buy it. Why in gods name would you give me that sort imof time to reconsider my purchase? Let me 'log in' as a guest and give you my money!

Yes. And sometimes it is not the website.

Once I put an order in for about $350 USD to a UK company for some popular figures and it got fumbled three times before I gave up.

Yes, while ordering checks.

Yes

Yes, back when they used to force you to log in to order. Almost every time.

Yes. You want my money, make it easy to order.

Oh, yes. And always for the same reason. The company wasn't content with taking my money, but wanted tons of personal information and presumably a long-term relationship.
But I have not only walked away from websites, I have one dealer I won't buy from in person at conventions. Two cons running he took my credit card, went back to chatting with friends and forgot what he was supposed to charge--twice. Then he proudly announced "I don't know how these things are supposed to work." There will not be a third purchase

Oddly enough, that particular dealer is fine for web and phone orders. Some people just are not cut out for retail.

The ones which frustrate me are when I try to log in and it won't accept my password. When I try to re-register, won't allow it because "that email address is already in use'. Then when I try to get them to send me the password, ANYTHING goes wrong, and I then go order from someone else.

Yes – 10 minutes ago when I tried to order a PDF from Osprey and they expected me to register and supply all sorts of info (address, phone number etc) which is surely totally unnecessary for a PDF.

I found an alternative.

Doug

Yeah, for sure.

Yes, but it wasn't related to gaming.

Re: the three clicks rule. Turns out that the "researchers" had already decided this was the case and designed "experiments" to "prove" it.

Many times. Almost always involving having to register and/or use captcha, or some other bonkers web design choice.

Get a bit of UX feedback guys.

Yes including an order >$1k because the website was a pain to deal with. Tried dealing directly with the owner and that was even worse. Within five minutes I placed the order somewhere else and got it in about a week, no hassles.

Unfortunately often . When the only method of payment is Paypal or a credit card through Paypal .
I live in a country which has a remittance tax on money sent out of the country and this is collected for the taxman by the credit cards in your monthly statement with no problem . It doesn't work with PayPal however .

I often give up, sometimes it is because sites want my life history before they deign to accept an order.

yes, all of those for wich I can not pay with Paypal

Yes – 10 minutes ago when I tried to order a PDF from Osprey and they expected me to register and supply all sorts of info (address, phone number etc) which is surely totally unnecessary for a PDF.

All part and parcel of complying with EU rules on VAT on e-books and other digital products: the burden of proof of where the customer is located is placed on the retailer.

I am far more patient with 'issues' on websites for smaller businesses like those in this hobby than I am with large businesses. Even so, I have given up from time to time with a feeling of 'they REALLY don't want my money'.

Eh, I only shop on KS, Amazon.com, and Walmart.com these days. :D

Still, for the Big Boxes, you'd think, since they track everything you do (you have my "Buy Later" list!), they'd do a better job when browsing sales for targeting you based on your previous purchases. I'm guessing the suppliers pay big bucks to have their stuff displayed on the first page, even though I won't be buying any deformed Funko toys soon.

Yes for all of the above reasons plus P&P/S&H; I was going to buy two small rule books price together about $12 USD then p&p/S&H was added and it shoot the total price up to $36 USD?! so no sale and I later found them for a lot less as pdf downloads.

Yes. To many to remember

If I have to create an account and keep up with another password, I tend to leave the website.

Yes. Just did it this morning with Hydra Miniatures.

Certainly. Often websites are not fully compatible with my browser or Mac OS or have some other glitch that traps me in a circle of futility.

I want to browse around and put items in the shopping cart, and find out what the shipping is going to be without having to put in my personal life history. I figure adding my nation and state is important to get an idea of the shipping cost, but not my CC or Paypal information.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

as a Coda to this poll, I went back to the offending site that inspired this poll and succeeded in slogging through and getting an order placed.

Retailers should read this thread…

Retailers should read this thread…

What, and base their retail approach on a narrow cross-section of internet opinion?

No, as exposure to free, outsourced opinion and de-bugging. I think too many retailers defer to their web designers and are unaware of problems until and unless customers bring the problems to their attention. And God knows web designers and programmers frequently break or fail to adequately "playtest" their designs and mechanisms.

More important that that, web designers generally are not subject matter experts in your business. What is "convenient" or "makes sense" is different depending on the culture of your customer base. The retailer should be involved in the design and development and playtesting.

Getting feedback from the users is useful to the retailer to understand their business better.

Yes, including once trying to buy a PDF from Osprey, just like Moonraker Miniatures. Other reasons include absurd delivery charges, demands for irrelevant information (like a mandatory field for mobile phone no.), and generally poor website design.

Once recently, Timecast, hit some sort of bug in their online order process. So I phoned them, and thus got a very friendly helpful service!

Yes, where the website is a disaster to use or where the postage charges are absurd or where I am expected to pay VAT.

Never.

I've just moaned about rules that don't have an obvious way to buy them.