Some designers were particularly disturbed by the fact that the women kept touching the fabric of clothes they wanted to buy. In fact, many of the women felt the fabric and looked at the workmanship on the seams before they looked at the price tag. Bell took three basic lessons away from this trip. There are different ways of shopping. Others are more playful, such as the first 2 hours the women spent at a clothing boutique.
Shopping is a social activity.
But there are ways to make e-commerce more appealing. It takes a long time and it's really intrusive. She has also studied eBay and believes part of the auction site's success is that it encourages social interaction. Bell found a group of lightbulb collectors, for example, who never realized before eBay how many others were out there with a similar interest. Eve Epstein is the executive editor at InfoWorld's CTO FirstMover.