The art of losing customers

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Earlier this week I was shopping for a digital camera. I went online and compared products and prices on a few Websites. After I had an idea of what I wanted to buy, I ended up going on a big electronics chain’s Website.

I sign up, add the product to my cart, proceed to checkout and begin the 5-step process. At step 3 I enter my shipping address, at step 4 I enter my credit card information and address, click Next and step 4A is added asking me to enter my credit card information and sign up to the Verified by Visa program:

What’s wrong here?

Step 4a turns out to be mandatory. In other words, I have to sign up for Verified by Visa in order to complete the transaction.Not only does this give me the impression that the site has serious security issues, it also makes the transaction process feel unfinishable. What tells me there are no surprise steps c and d? Users, especially on e-commerce Websites, need to feel in control. Be clear, be transparent, that’s how you build thrust.In the end, I dropped out at step 4a, went to another Website and purchased the same product for 5 dollars more…

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 6th, 2008 at 9:10 pm and is filed under Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.