We are currently in the midst of online (and app only) shopping wars with Amazon India, Flipkart, Myntra and Shopclues going all out to promote their Big Shopping festival starting tomorrow. Snapdeal had its preview sales on Mondays and PayTm too is gearing up for the fight.
Although that sounds like a big treat for shoppers like me, while frequenting these sites or apps for that matter, one is often left wanting. And no, I am not talking about website crashes due to traffic. The basic site features itself are inadequate.
Now that most of these retailers have opened the doors to the entire selling community - they have much less time to track what actually goes into an ad posted on the retail portal. Although there are standard product description tags for each site, many of the retailers do not actually update information here, including photographs. And I do not really know that once an order is placed, if the shopping portal people actually cross verify the product being shipped against the ad posted.
Second thing is the website or app design - I have a Windows phone and I know that many of these online shopping site apps actually throw users out of the app at about a 10 minute interval. I guess, the creator did not want us to spend too much time shopping. Some have apps only for Android or Apple marketplace. Even in the website, the filters and sorting sometimes do not work. Some sites have a truly pathetic search feature.
But most important of all, verified user experiences are not adequately encouraged. Of course you get a mail asking for a feedback or review - but one should also focus on getting meaningful reviews. Give users a simplified review format - shipping, quality, fit, vendor interaction - and ensure that the reviews people read make sense to them.
Overall, I believe shopping portals have a long way to go before they make the jump into - "app-only". Personally, I enjoy online shopping on the big screen of my desktop/ laptop.
Related links:
Amazon cracks down on fake reviewers
Although that sounds like a big treat for shoppers like me, while frequenting these sites or apps for that matter, one is often left wanting. And no, I am not talking about website crashes due to traffic. The basic site features itself are inadequate.
Now that most of these retailers have opened the doors to the entire selling community - they have much less time to track what actually goes into an ad posted on the retail portal. Although there are standard product description tags for each site, many of the retailers do not actually update information here, including photographs. And I do not really know that once an order is placed, if the shopping portal people actually cross verify the product being shipped against the ad posted.
Second thing is the website or app design - I have a Windows phone and I know that many of these online shopping site apps actually throw users out of the app at about a 10 minute interval. I guess, the creator did not want us to spend too much time shopping. Some have apps only for Android or Apple marketplace. Even in the website, the filters and sorting sometimes do not work. Some sites have a truly pathetic search feature.
But most important of all, verified user experiences are not adequately encouraged. Of course you get a mail asking for a feedback or review - but one should also focus on getting meaningful reviews. Give users a simplified review format - shipping, quality, fit, vendor interaction - and ensure that the reviews people read make sense to them.
Overall, I believe shopping portals have a long way to go before they make the jump into - "app-only". Personally, I enjoy online shopping on the big screen of my desktop/ laptop.
Related links:
Amazon cracks down on fake reviewers
Completely agree. Well written.
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