Etailers Don't: No filter

If I have to name the number one e-store feature lacking in Australian based website, it is the lack of filter. Similar to not offering a "show all items" option, no filter means it take longer for the shopper to get to what they want.

Here's a simple experiment. Let's say I'm going to wedding and I'm in the market for a new dress. I hopped on to The Outnet to see what's available.

I went to the Dress section and there are 2043 different styles available. It will take me ages to go through them all.

Well, I can't buy a dress if it's not available in my size so I filter the selection by size. The number of dresses more than halved (to 964).

I'm looking for a cocktail dress so I filter the list again by picking "cocktail and party". It's now down to 368.

I fancy getting a purple dress so I filter again. 24 choices? That's more like it.

For the record, my favourite dress out of the 24 is this lilac Zac Posen number. I wish I really have a wedding to go to so I can justify buying it :-D

With three clicks I narrowed down the list to around 1% of the dresses available, which fit my requirements and are available in my size. So logical, right? Surprisingly many etailers get it wrong.

To me, the most important filter is size. It is so frustrating to find an item that I like, only to discover that it is not available in my size. Repeat this scenario multiple times and I'll leave your e-store and go elsewhere.

Category, occasion, colour and brand are also useful filters that should really be compulsory for all e-stores.

One filter in my e-store wish list is by fabric. I'm not a big fan of clothes made with polyester, so I'd like the ability to exclude them from my search. I've yet to come across an e-store that offers this option.

So listen up Myer, DJs (its online store is pretty awful), Witchery, Country Road and co, lift your game or you'd find prospective shoppers clicking away from your e-store to a better equipped competitor.

How often do you use the filter function, and which category is your favourite?

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Etailers Don't: Too many pages

One of the ideas I came up with during the planning of The Etail Queen is to talk about good and bad features on online stores. This is the first of the Etailers Don'ts series, and there will be a series on Etailers Do's as well.

I mentioned in the first post that the #1 Etailers Don't is displaying items that are sold out, e.g.

Unfortunately there are other bad website designs.

You would've thought that etailers will do anything to minimise the distance between prospective customers and the item(s) of their desire. In the online world, clicks equal distance. The more clicks required, the more likely for the shopper to browse elsewhere.

That's why I don't understand why some etailers make us click, click and click again just to see their products. For instance, I have to click 6 times to see the following collection.

Unless you're ASOS or similar brands with thousands of items, 7 pages plus scrolling up and down is too much of a hassle. I would have given up.

And I found a worse example.

Not only is the number of items per page restricted:

But there are actually more than 5 pages of items to go through:

There may be more. Even for the purpose of research I couldn't be bothered finding out if there is a page 11.

This is the equivalent of walking into a store with multiple levels and each level only displaying 15 products. Do I really want to walk up all those stairs?

You may think that people like me are just lazy. But you know what? Etailers have to cater for their target audience, and if they have short attention span and don't like clicking a lot? You have to factor that into your website design.

Many online stores allow you to change the number of items on display each page. That caters for people like me who wants to see everything on the same page, as well as people who have slow internet connection speed so they may not want to load everything at once.

Country Road's e-store has another approach to item display - there are only 18 items on display per page, but you can see all of them without scrolling down. Hovering your mouse over an item magnifies the image.

I wish there is a horizontal scroll bar similar to the one on Shopstyle so you can move between pages easily but that is more of a nitpick.

Is this an Etailers Don't in your book? What drives you bananas when you're shopping online?

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Lululemon: A great all round experience

Yesterday I went to Lululemon at The Ivy with the intent to buy a gift card. Then I saw the sales racks.

I exercised earlier in the day and even though the weather wasn't too hot, the black crop pants that I wore were a bit too warm, so I decided to buy some exercise shorts. I left the store with:

The first pair is All Sport short* and it is discounted from $65 to $29 (more than 50% off, score!). Here are the shorts modelled by someone with much hotter legs than mine.

The second pair is called Run: Your Heart Out (RRP $65, on sale for $39).

I haven't exercised in them yet but both pairs are well designed and fit me well. I like that both have zipped pockets so you can store your keys securely if you're out for a run.

What I was even more impressed with was the service I received at the store. One of the girls came around and kindly told me that Lululemon uses US/Canadian sizing so I need to look 2 sizes down. The staff at the change room was lovely and bubbly. She asked for my name when I entered into the change room then wrote it on the whiteboard, so she can address me by name. And the girl at the checkout said she'd look out for me at their Wednesday morning yoga class at the store. All 3 of them carried such positive energy! In my opinion they were great brand ambassadors, and I left the store very satisfied.

Lululemon also has a US-based online store with international shipping at a flat rate of $US30. The price differences between the US and Aussie stores are not too bad - the RRP of the pants are $US54-58 vs $A65. The fact that Lululemon entered the Australian market when the Australian dollar was already close to parity with the US dollar may have something to do the lower than usual price differentials.

The merchandise photos on the website get a thumbs up from me. With shots taken in multiple angles and in close ups, so you get a good idea on what an item looks like and its key features. I'm not sure if I'll buy shorts without trying them on; I tried on four pairs at the store and only chose two. However if I know the brand and the fit of their clothings better I won't hesitate to buy online.

I also like the layout of the mobile site a lot. Minimal clutter and easy to navigate. I rate it higher than The Outnet's mobile site.

Along with the free yoga classes (I made it this morning!) and their yoga.run.life.blog, the Lululemon brand is well linked to fitness and wellbeing.

Overall I highly the Lululemon experience both online and offline. Other Aussie retailers take notes!

* One thing about Lululemon that I find weird is that they call shorts "short" and pants "pant". I actually believe that pants, short, sunglasses etc should be in singular rather than plural, however I don't set the grammar rules, and seeing those terms are a bit odd.

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Two dresses

I came across these two dresses with very similar prints.

One is from a UK based retailer, and the other is from an Aussie chain. Both are "click-and-mortar" retailers. i.e. they sell online and in stores.

The Aussie brand dress is $89.95 (50% off RRP) and the UK brand dress is heavily discounted from £50 to £17 (around $A25).

Can you guess which one is which? Bonus brownie points if you can name the brands.

And more importantly, which one should I buy?

---

OK it's reveal time! The dress at the top is from Dorothy Perkins, a UK retailer with a wide range of products online. The dress on the bottom is from Events.

To me, this "dress-off" highlights the challenges for Australian brands. We can now access similar products overseas at a substantially lower price. Note that the Events dress at 50% is still more expensive than the Dorothy Perkins dress at full price (£50 = ~$A75).

That being said, both Sydney Shop Girl and The Duke prefer the Events dress, so maybe I should drop by tomorrow lunchtime to have a look-see?

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Boxing day sales haul from Shopbop

I only had the public holidays off work this year. The silver lining is that I could take long lunch breaks and check out the Boxing Day sales. So on the 28th last month I headed off to Pitt St mall in Sydney to see if I can nab any bargains.

By the title of this post you may come to the conclusion that I left the shops empty handed. Well almost. All I bought were some heavily discounted toiletries at DJs. I had something specific in mind, but I didn't think it was going to be hard to find - a pair of simple, beige flats.

But I was wrong. I went to DJs, Myer, Nine West Witchery etc*, looked through all the stock (as you can imagine it was chaotic at times). There weren't that many options, and the ones I tried on didn't fit well. After almost 2 hours I gave up and went back to the office.

In frustration I went online that night. My first stop was Endless but I had no luck there either. Then I went to Shopbop, one of my favourite online stores. And these little puppies were waiting for me.

A pair of KORS Michael Kors embossed flats, 50% off (to $US97.50). And they have a pair left with my size. How can I say no?

Those of you familiar with Shopbop will know that they offer free express international postage for purchases over $US100 (otherwise it's $US10 so it's still reasonable). I don't know if you think the same way but I'd rather buy something else to push the total over $US100 than paying postage, so I added these cute Marc by Marc Jacobs stud earrings to the shopping cart ($US26.60 after 30% off).

Since I placed the order over the holiday period, I knew it would take longer than usual for the parcel to arrive. It ended up arriving at my office on 3 January, just under 1 week. Interestingly it stopped over in Hong Kong before arriving in Sydney, whereas previous parcels always travel directly from the US to Sydney. I wonder if it was because of reduced number of flights during that time of year.

So these are the shoes.

 

They match my criteria and the embossed leather gave them a bit of an edge.

This was the first time I bought a pair of closed-toe shoes online without trying them on IRL. It was a risk that I usually won't take, but the lack of options locally plus the big discount pushed me over the line. It was such a relief when I tried them on and they fit. Not a perfect fit, but good enough.

And the studs are just adorable.

Usually I'd take a photo with the earrings on but I may give them to my 8 year old niece instead.

As usual, the order was easy and hassle free. If someone is new to online shopping Shopbop is definitely one store I recommend.

Shopbop is so good (especially when on sale) that I have already placed another order (they were offering extra 20% off some sales items last week). When that parcel arrive I'll write a detailed review of the site.

Did you brave the shops at the sales or did you snap up bargains in the comfort of your own home?

* One logical place to go to for flats is Sambag but I am boycotting them because a pair of flats I bought there fell apart after I spent one day in the rain. Colour me unimpressed.

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Santa has been good to us shoppers

The last month has been a great one for shoppers. With sales struggling, retailers have pulled out all the stops to increase traffic to the stores. I cannot remember a year with such aggressive pre-Christmas offers. For instance, Myer has hampers and Christmas trims on sale (30% and 40% respectively) the week before Christmas, and brought forward its “Boxing Day” sale to Christmas Eve. And “50% off” and “future reductions” signs are hanging on a huge number of shopfronts in the Boxing Day sales.

Unfortunately for brick and mortar stores, the march of etailers continues unabated over the holiday season. In the US, online sales from 1 November - 26 December 2011 grew 15% from the same time last year, compared to overall retail sales growth of 3.8%.

And the picture is similar in Australia. One research showed offline retail spend was down 2% for the first 15 days of December 2011 compared to the year before, but online retail spend went up by 16%. On some days, 10% of spending on credit and debit cards are with online stores.

Statistics are good and all (and I'm a numbers nerd) but what do they mean in real life? Let’s have a look at The Royal Household's Christmas gift purchases and see if they match with current trends.

I bought The Duke a diving with shark experience at Manly Oceanworld via their website after researching for online (the search was "last minute gift ideas" - I left it a bit late).

Photo: Manly Oceanworld

I also bought him a trilby hat from the Strand Hatter in Sydney which I found via Google. If I came up with the idea earlier I may have purchased it online*. Will The Duke look as hot as Matt Bomer in the trilby?

 Photo: @WhiteCollarUSA

The Little Prince (TLP) is obsessed with fire trucks, and The Duke had wanted to get him a Duplo fire station set for a long time. However the product is not available anywhere in Australia, so he ordered one from Amazon.com. Even with the exorbitant postage cost ($US50!!!), it was only $A20 more expensive than the RRP of comparable Duplo sets available in Australia.

I also bought a personalised messenger bag from Mooo for my niece.

The Duke bought me lessons for riding a bike** along with an offer to buy me a bike afterwards. He didn't buy the lesson from an online store but he found the company by online research and he booked it via e-mail and paid for it by bank transfer, so it's an online purchase in my book.

Overall, more than half of our Christmas gift dollars were spent online.

And even with the big sales going on at the malls, the majority of my post-Christmas discretionary purchases were online too. Some may say I'm researching for The Etail Queen***. If only they were tax deductible!

Did you contribute to the growth of online Christmas shopping at the expense of visiting the stores? Did you want to avoid the crowd or were you attracted by the variety of gifts available online?

* The hat I bought The Duke was a tad too big, and I'm grateful that I can take him to the store to exchange for one in the right size. If I bought it online there'll be more hassles.

** Yes I don't know how to ride a bike :-( My parents didn't let us learn when we were young. I'm looking forward to the lesson so we can go for family bike rides (TLP has a royal seat at the back of The Duke's bike).

*** Of course you'll get to read about my purchases!

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C’mon in

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 Hello everyone and thanks for dropping by. Welcome to The Etail Queen*.

This blog is a marriage of three of my favourite activities – shopping, surfing the net, and asking questions. I have a nice collection of courier boxes courtesy of online stores, and my wardrobe is running out of room. As I hop from ASOS to Shopbop to The Outnet, I wonder:

• What makes a great online shopping experience? How do etailers generate loyalty from shoppers, sometimes even advocacy? 
• What are the turn-offs for shoppers online? (#1 - don't display items if they're sold out!!!) 
• Standalone music retailers have all but disappeared, and book stores are heading down a similar path. What’s next? 
• How will the internet and social networks transform the way we shop in the 1, 2 and 5 years? 
• Can brick and mortar stores win back our affection? 

These questions, and more, will be explored in this blog.

So what can you expect from The Etail Queen? A mix of reviews, polls, interviews, research, opinion pieces, and of course my shopping hauls :-D

I hope you enjoy your stay here and I’d love to hear from you in the comments, on Twitter or Facebook :-D

Now ... should I checkout my ASOS shopping cart?

* Etail = E + (re)tail. Technically it should be e-tail but the hyphen irks me for some reason - forgive me grammar police!

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