Why having too much choice sometimes is a bad thing
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I have just been looking for a book on Amazon and I have noticed that they have added a new option to their buying process (only seems to be on some of their books) – “See all buying options”. This allows you to look different prices of booksellers from around the world.
Wow! Is this the long tail in action? Amazon aggregating books from around the world, so I can shop around for the best price. At first glance this looks great, I can select the book from the seller close to me. The reality is now I have more work to buy a find the best priced book. I have to check all the sellers for their shipping options, shipping costs and delivery times and figure out total cost of the books. Hmmm, what about returns, do I have send it back to the seller, or to Amazon , more work to find out! What a pain in *!
Ok, Ok I am whinging, but with good reason. I loved the fact that I could just use one click shopping and everything just worked.
So how can they fix it?
First, they should extend their onclick buying to include shipping costs. This would allow me to make a real comparison between sellers.
Second, what about enabling me to sort the list of sellers by total price (+shipping) and or delivery times to my 1click address.
That would proper comparison shopping without the work!
I suppose this is a reminder that new features aren’t always good for all your customers. By adding new features, you might alienate some of your customers, who are happy with the current options. Frustrated and unhappy, your customers may start to look elsewhere. This is another example where customer driven development would be more beneficial.