Amazon is not great, but the others are worse
By: Daniel Rebhorn
Tags: Retail, E-commerce, User Experience, Commerce, Innovation

The figures are impressive: Amazon has doubled its profits compared to the previous year, despite massive investments. The pandemic is fuelling the mail-order company’s exceptional position. COVID-19 is making online shopping attractive for new target groups, especially now, during the Christmas season. Figures from the OECD show that in the EU countries, retail orders in April 2020 grew by about 30 per cent compared to April 2019.

Will it be impossible to catch up with Amazon’s retail division by the end of the coronavirus pandemic? Will there be supernatural services? Not likely. The online retailer simply combines commercial expertise with technical know-how and smart technologies. In other words, what every retailer should do as a matter of course. Instead, everyone sits hypnotised in front of the queue. A state of shock with consequences: while Amazon occupies more and more niches, others are left behind. Yet the American online retailer is far from being error-free. From a user experience point of view, even the Amazon sales platform leads to raised eyebrows.

The Amazon User Experience? Insufficient!

As soon as the Amazon page loads, the horror begins. Are you familiar with the One-Euro shops in the dirty corners of our cities? The Amazon homepage looks about as tidy as one of these, I think. Goods are presented en masse and without love, as if everything has to go today. Value? Digital visual merchandising? Clear design? Nothing. Admittedly, I don’t need all that if I know what I want. But then I have to use a search function that unfortunately does not live up to its name.

Customer Last: Amateurish Search Meets Useless Filter Options

Amazon has failed to master search? Sure, that may come as a surprise, as Amazon is now even competing with Google as a search engine — at least when it comes to products. After all, SEA for Amazon is booming!

Unfortunately, Amazon is not even designed as a search engine. The product you are looking for is often shown dozens of times (at least once per provider) — usually with ridiculous price ranges (example: Fruit of the Loom men’s T-shirt: 2.08 to 70.79 euros). Sometimes, five T-shirts are spat out in five variations, then again as only one result, where I can choose the colours in the product window. Or I search for a product name (so I know exactly what I want) and get variations which I then have to laboriously match again.

If there’s something I don’t want as a customer, it’s to take over the tasks that the dealer should do for me. But their motivation is driven by something completely different: namely, to satisfy the advertiser. This leads to strange situations. For example, when I am looking for a certain product, sometimes only “similar” products of the competition are displayed in the visible area. I only find the actual product after scrolling down. As a customer, it’s also not nice if I don’t see at first glance whether a product is “sponsored” and has been pushed to the top of the results page via monetary input. Neither is it apparent whether Amazon itself or a third-party retailer is shipping the product (often at an extra cost). “Customer first” is a different approach.

Plague or Cold?

Reviews are actually a big plus for Amazon, but fake reviews thwart the idea behind them. The latest scam: a couple from Massachusetts repeatedly received packages they had never ordered. The cheap items were paid for with voucher cards, which enabled the unknown sender to give a positive assessment of his own products. It is estimated that every fifth review is fake — and that trend is rising.

This exemplary list of shortcomings could be continued at will — Amazon is no leader in the areas of logistics and personalisation, either. There is also a lot of room for improvement in the “mobile commerce” category. But here, too, if you have the choice between the plague and the common cold, you’ll choose the common cold.

Now What? What Can retailers Do in Concrete Terms?

Quite simply, make it better!

Now is the best time! The COVID-19 pandemic is bringing completely new target groups to online retailers, such as people over 60. Japanese credit card data indicates this, and the OECD also finds evidence of this in many other countries. These are new potential customers who attach great importance to a pleasant and simple user experience.

So check your webshop conscientiously and from the customer’s perspective. And check your level of maturity! Because before you start the freestyle, you should master the basics. For example, your customer should be able to handle their purchase smoothly from A to Z. Also check your returns policy and your feedback culture towards the customer. You would be surprised at how many online retailers struggle with this.

Only when all this fits, we move on to the next step. You will learn a lot about yourself, I promise. I call it self-discovery by doing.

What do you want to be? A merchandiser or a brand with customers as fans? Both have their justification but remember: as a pure merchandise broker, you are interchangeable. Also think about who your customers actually are — and whether your appearance (web design, language, articles) fits the target group. Then remove all obstacles that could prevent customers from making a purchase. Is your homepage clearly arranged? Is the page navigation logically structured? Are product filters intuitively operable? If you are careless here, you can expect high loss rates. Users are impatient, and online competition is only a click away.

For a Better Shopping Experience Than Amazon, You Don’t Need Magic

You shouldn’t try to save money when building your search either. Does your search engine spit out the right results? Are they displayed clearly? And can it offer further products in the haze of the results display? Also, think about reviews. Nobody will blindly buy a product today. In case of doubt, your customer will google reviews — and then they are gone. A good review also pushes the purchase decision. And products with bad reviews? They have lost nothing in your range anyway!

But that does not mean you have reached your goal. The checkout process is the be-all and end-all! After all, 40 to 60 percent of online shopping fails in the last few metres of the shopping basket process. Reduce hurdles by allowing registration-free ordering processes, avoiding unnecessary input fields, creating trust with certificates and seals of approval, and so on.

Sure, you won’t just pass Amazon by — but you can become the leader in your industry. And it doesn’t take magic or anything else supernatural to give new e-commerce customers a better shopping experience than at Amazon.