Kelly Mooney's blog about the online shopping experience from the customer's point of view -- MooneyThinks.com

Taking Interactivity to the MAX

The listing of Macromedia MAX Award finalists is the perfect source of interactive inspiration for one of those how-in-the-world-are-we-going-to-top-the-competition moments. This year, we lapsed on entering our work (yikes!) but plan to be in the loop next year with Restoration Hardware where you can design your own lighting, and Reebok Running (click on Your Run in the main nav) to inspire your running regime as well as help you find the right gear to make it better. So, look for us to be listed next year! ; )

In the spirit of good sportsmanship, hats off to this year's winners....my favs below.

You'll notice a big theme at MAX 2005 was "the experience matters," and in order to promote great experiences, Macromedia keeps improving their tools to make those experiences easier and, of course, better. So after I got my kids settled in bed, last night I cozied up with my laptop in my favorite chair and got a taste of some of the winning experiences. Checkout the highlights.

Surf's Up. Freedom of the Seas -- As many times as I've seen the Royal Caribbean commercial about surfing a wave pool on the back deck of a cruise ship, I never really quite comprehended the concept. But now, with Royal Caribbean's microsite, I don't just get it, I want it. Great use of Flash 8--tight integration of "borderless" video that wasn't easy to do prior to it. Seamless  and clear. I don't ask a lot more of that kind of thing.

Explore. Engage. Enlighten. Tazo Tea -- I've enjoyed and admired this site for a while, and that's just the tea sipper in me. Beautiful design, on-brand, engaging copy, and, of course, flawless interactivity, which is complemented by just the right amount of sound, done just the right way.

Virtual Voyeur.  Watch Me Change -- There's something truly bizarre about seeing my virtual self come slinking out of a virtual Gap dressing room and do a virtual dance while I strip off my virtual khaki skirt and white shirt. A tad odd for the brand, but well done, nonetheless.

Lots going on in the customization arena these days. Take a look at Converse One – Me and My Chuck Taylors. This brought me back to high school basketball  except instead of bright orange Chucks, you can design your own in a wide variety of colors and patterns. Smooth interactivity. Clever functionality. Smart copy. Beautiful design. Well done.

Naughty Neiman's

Granted, many of the sales at Neiman Marcus come from personal shopping assistants – of which I do not espouse to have. With a mere splurge every year or two, I'm sure to be low on their list of favored customers. But with a black tie event just a week away and an unfruitful trip to every department store and specialty boutique in town, I was pulled in by a promising Neiman Marcus email promoting formal holiday tops – maybe, just maybe, this would be my annual purchase.

I decide to investigate, thinking overnight delivery would provide enough time to explore other options. No such luck. Sold out. Impossible! I had clicked on the featured top in the email (on the same day I received it!), only to be presented with a message that read, "Pre-Order.  Expected to ship no later than:  Date Unavailable."  How can that be?  Order this, but we
have no idea when we can send it to you? Not just your standard back-order but one with no date available???

After a fit of frustration, I then tried the other two featured tops. The exact same message popped up on the one top, and I could never even FIND the other featured top...anywhere on the site.

I wish I could say that this was the first time this has happened with NM, but it is not. Reminded me that that was the same experience I had last time on their site. Maybe those email/web sales are just penny change to NM.

An Email to Be Thankful For

Email has gotten more complicated. Regulations. Segmentation. Best practices. Pitfalls, and more.

But for me, it's much simpler. Above all else, strive for relevance and clarity.

Send the right message, to the right person, and, voila, you've got yourself a silver bullet.

I know I'm not the only one with an inbox that flirts with server capacities on a regular basis. Even outside of my spam filter, considering all the email I "asked to be sent" from retailers, manufacturers and goodness-knows-who-else, if I have to think twice about whether the sender or the subject line is worth my time, then I'm already out of time. And they're out of luck. And while in the past I've taken guilty pleasure in HTML emails, not only has my Treo-dependency made me more partial to text, but getting smart, effective emails this way proved to me that it can work.

Yesterday I got this email from my hair salon--literally "From" the salon. And the subject line reads: Thursday's Appointment Reminder. How incredibly...helpful! No phone tag or forgotten appointments. But wait, it gets better. I opened it up and read a personal salutation, a note of thanks for choosing them, the sentiment that they are looking forward to seeing me, the day, date, time, stylist, location, telephone number for cancellation or questions, and one final thank you -- all in about 50 words!

Relevance and clarity. I couldn't ask for more.

Rapid Service Recovery at Crate & Barrel

It didn't take long.

I received a thoughtful, empathetic reply less than 1 business day after I alerted Crate & Barrel customer service about my dissatisfaction with not one, but two shipping delays on a sofa I ordered. I was impressed that the issue was elevated to a supervisor who provided more detail as to WHY my order was delayed and how they were doing everything in their power to make it better. I have to admit, this approach does wonders for helping me empathize with THEM.

Even though I won't have the sofa to lounge on post-Thanksgiving feast, they offered to ship the product at no expense to me and my family--which makes the delay a little easier to swallow.

Delays, Delays at Crate & Barrel

Making a furniture purchase is always a big decision. I found the perfect sofa for our family room online at Crate & Barrel. But, who can really click to buy a sofa without trying it out? We had to go to the store so that my husband felt certain that he could stretch out comfortably for hours on end with a NY Times, my kids had to think it was "cozy," and for me, it had to be stylish yet practical enough to withstand the wear and tear of a busy household. For us, the Teddy sofa was the perfect solution. So, after a test drive at the store, we stewed about it for a weekend, and then ordered online. Since we were moving into a new space that would otherwise be empty, I was further inspired by the promise: "In-stock, ready to ship."

Couldn't have gone smoother....until....the dreaded email. "We're sorry. Your purchase is not in stock and will be delayed up to 2-3 weeks." Disappointed, but we can handle that. 3 more weeks came and went. But then a few days ago, ANOTHER DELAY! This time, approximately 6 ADDITIONAL WEEKS. Unacceptable. I've communicated that to them as well. Curious to see if there will be a reply, outreach, or an effort to make me less disenchanted with their brand right now. Stay tuned.

Home Depot Goes Upscale with 10 Crescent Lane

Retailers' interest in what women want has them stretching to reach all-new heights. Home Depot's latest venture is called 10 Crescent Lane.

For the record, I have yet to uncover the meaning behind the name. Could it be as meaningful as Gap's Forth & Towne??? I have to say, the main menu is airy and elegant, and, at the surface, feels very much like "the destination for inspired living" that it says it is.

Landing pages, too. Nice, elegant, downright inspiring. There's even strong copy (albeit small copy) to round out the moment you have sitting there enjoying it.

But, some of the details fall short considering that a purchase could be in the hundreds or thousands of dollars. With that kind of cash outlay to an unknown brand, let's face it, expectations run high:

Specifics? Check out a product page:

• Love the clean image of the product, but if you say you're going to enlarge it, then make it big enough to see the details.
• Decent descriptive copy about each product, but leads with model numbers, internet numbers and catalog numbers. Not very enticing. All three may be important, so set them aside for those who are looking for them.
• Some cross-sells are relevant and helpful. Some just aren't.

I know it's a test -- and a gutsy, ambitious one at that -- but my biggest disappointment was the lean inventory. Numerous categories, little depth. Just 3 kitchen tables to choose from, 1 headboard, 10 rugs. Not enough to satisfy my appetite.

It's a Winter Outerwear Wonderland at L.L. Bean

How much fun! And, more importantly, how incredibly useful!

Gone are the days of staring blankly at coat after coat, wondering which ones will fit our family needs for the season, searching for matching mittens and hats, scarves and the like. Now L.L. Bean makes it easy.

Start big, then funnel down. Your search begins with all the outerwear main pieces (coats, vests and pants) for either men, women or kids, then narrow it down by price, item, use, lining, features. And at the same time you can drop up to five selections into a comparison tool that is visual and intuitive.

And that's just the beginning. It gets better. They call it "thoughtful details," but I think it's just plain brilliant. Just imagine a special pocket in your ski jacket designed specifically for your goggles, your cell phone or, drumroll, your MP3 player.

Top the whole experience off with a handly little Weather Channel widget. Just enough detail to help you feel good that you're choosing the outerwear you need.

Disconcerting Deep Linking at Home Depot

We've just moved into a remodeled house that's....well, a work in progress, so home stores (both online and off) are my stomping grounds these days.

While I'm thrilled by how much more I can research, order, buy or just plain do online since the last time we remodeled, this weekend I deep-linked into a page on Home Depot that took me back to 1995! 

I actually hadn't set out to shop at Home Depot; I Googled something about exterior lighting and this is the page I was served up by Home Depot.

Can you believe it? I couldn't. In fact, my first thought was how archaic! But the reality is, customers get to pages like this all the time when companies don't take searchers and search engines into consideration as they develop their sites. Home Depot is just one of many.

As great of a transformation as HomeDepot.com made a couple years back, they didn't take that transformation ALL the way through the site, so searchers end up with pages like this one. It goes beyond uninspiring to really not useful. No categories, no descriptions, no images. A total search buzz kill. I left and looked elsewhere.

With more than half the online population using search engines every time they go online, you have to realize that, technically, you've got more than one home page. In fact, you may have hundreds. You never know where a searcher might land. And, you want everyone who comes to your site to feel welcome, no matter what door they come in.

 

TJMaxx.com Puts an End to E-commerce Initiative

I've always loved T.J. Maxx...the store. A great place to go and get lost for hours, hoping to find something original, something worth more than other shoppers might realize. T.J. Maxx has always been about the thrill of the hunt for me. Online? Not so sure. To tell you the truth, I never visited their site. Never felt the urge. Never head any buzz about it. I got the thrill of the hunt for unique items from Bluefly.com instead. Apparently I wasn't the only one. While Bluefly keeps on going, TJMaxx.com said last week that it's exiting e-commerce. "It hasn't delivered the sales we planned," said the CEO. While I hate to see an e-commerce site lose the fight and shut its doors, I suppose I'll just stop back in the store next time I have a couple hours to myself. Unfortunately, that's no time soon.

Bath & Body Works is Ready for the Perfect Christmas

Check out the new e-commerce experience at Bath & Body Works -- launched yesterday after an intensive team effort among the direct folks at Bath & Body Works as well as our staff and GSI. Not only can consumers shop (and purchase!) by Brand, Collection, and Category, but also by Solution -- such as Chapped Lips, Cracked Skin, Stress Relief, and my personal favorite – Shoppers Fatigue!

I have 6 sisters dispersed around the country (each with different lifestyles), so I was thrilled to find one section dedicated to my annual gifting dilemma – Create Your Own Perfect Gift. Here I can choose products from topics like The Perfect Bath, Ultimate Body Care, and Home Spa Treatment. And it's easy to add a gift card to an item (because every woman likes to receive them, but it's much more personal when they're attached to a small gift – wouldn't you agree?).

Gift presentation is the icing on the cake. I know my gifts will look beautiful when I choose the $4 Signature Gift Wrap and a personalized message. I can even send each gift to a different address, although that functionality is communicated a little late in the shopping process.

If your lunch hour permits the indulgence, check out the Tips and Trends sections. Kind of makes me wish the holidays would arrive sooner. Is that possible?!