Retail, in the eyes of the everyday customer

On coach.com clicking a product image on category page displays product details in a 50% size pop-up window–

It would be nice if this pop-up was optional and visitors who wanted to see a full product page could do so.  But coach.com only shows the pop-up.  Here’s the problem– if the product pop-up is compressed 50% then customer reviews are even more compressed–

Which requires a lot of scrolling to read 5 reviews.  Plus, the font color is so incredibly light.

On one of the most important shopping days of the year (today) I noticed dell.com’s chat was broken–

Ouch.  Hopefully this is a temporary glitch.

Update: Looks like chat is back online.

In the book Mind Programming author Eldon Taylor shares his experience selling sewing machines using bait-and-switch:

It started with an offer too good to be true.  In the 1960s credit depended upon a deposit– a down payment of 10% in those days.  Credit was freely available.  Getting the down payment became the most difficult part of making a sale, so the company I worked for designed a system to obtain this fee.

How was this done?  Prospects entered contests.  A drawing at the local grocery store, a “count the hidden faces” challenge in the Sunday paper, and various other media served this purpose.  Someone received a first prize.  Everyone else won second prize, a coupon worth $170 toward the purchase of a new sewing machine, nationally advertised for only $199.99.  We could show these “winners” the ad, usually in a popular home magazine.  For only $29.99 everyone in second place could enjoy the benefits of owning a new sewing machine.  Such a deal!

The machine available for purchase for $29.99 was a piece of junk.  In the trunk of my car, however, was a new, top-of-the-line machine, advertised nationally at $499.  If you were a second-place winner, by trading in the shoddy machine you’d just purchased, this superior model could be yours for an additional $299.  And you’d already paid the 10% deposit of $29.99.  Therefore, you’d only pay $10 per month until you’d paid off the additional $299.  Even though you only spent $29.99 for the first machine, you received its fully nationally advertised price as the trade-in value.  Wow- what a deal!

This means of selling worked so well that it became illegal.  You may have guessed that the national ads existed only for this purpose.  No one ever actually tried to buy one of these machines at the inflated price in the advertisement.

How is this …

… any different from saying- “Write a positive product review and we’ll buy you something valuable.”?

Here is how many potential customers babycatalog.com pisses off every day- http://siteanalytics.compete.com/babycatalog.com/

Freddie Mac, one of America’s biggest buyers of home mortgages, has a nifty tool; a Rent vs. Buy calculator that helps potential home buyers decide if they should buy or continue renting.  Here is one huge mistake:

The tool didn’t let me pick a value of -1%.  It says I must assume home values will appreciate between 0 and 100%.  Really? Does Freddie Mac realize house prices have sharply declined in the last two years? Click here to see the calculator in action.

via: Planet Money Podcast

How many thousands do you think walgreens.com loses via gillette.com every month?

Click Image to See Live Page

Searchengineguide.com probably has a damn good reason but I’m convinced this (red box in image below) …

… is a terrible idea.  Spammers 1, readers 0.

Related Articles: Discouraging WOM and Making The Most Of “Out Of Stock”.

This is how Cole Haan email looks in the eyes of the marketing manager reviewing creatives-

And this is how the same email appears in the eyes of the recipient with her Images Turned Off (which is the default setting)-

Here is an example of how SideStep.com works around the problem-

http://blog.bronto.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/sidestep-goodbye-email-images-off-and-on.jpg

I’m all for testing, but to display different Founder photographs in the same visitor session is a sure-shot way to maximize abandons-