Shopping Tips Online

Online shopping has always meant using a credit card – until now. Retail Expansion Network, an e-commerce solution provider, has launched PaidByCash, a nationwide network that allows shoppers to pay in “cash” for Internet transactions. It can be used with any online retailer that currently accepts Debit MasterCard®.

The way it works is very simple. Go to the PaidByCash website and enter your zip code. This generates a list of locations in your area where you can go to get your PaidByCash card. The retailer loads a card with the amount you choose, from $10 to $350. The store charges a fee of $4.95 for this service. To activate your card, you go back to the PaidByCash site. Once the card is activated, you simply go shopping online, and you use the card just like a credit card.

For people who either don’t have a credit card, or don’t want to use one for online shopping, this is an excellent alternative. For retailers, it’s a great way to capitalize on a previously untapped market.

Cash Transactions, Debit MasterCard, Online Shopping

If you like to just browse through products online, but hate the wrist-numbing clicking, clicking, clicking, you have to check this out. It’s an entirely new shopping interface created by a company called Dotted Pair.

Browse Goods allows you to scan hundreds of products at once, search by feature or category (search by price is coming soon), and you zoom in and out on items of interest. When you find items you like, you can save them for closer inspection or side-by-side comparison. When you click “buy” Browse Goods opens the retailer’s window and you purchase the item as usual.

Browse Goods is not a retailer, rather they bring multiple online retailers together to allow the shopper to easily scan and browse products. This saves time, but it also allows us to browse almost like we would at a brick and mortar department store – just randomly looking around, then zeroing in when something catches our eye. The new shopping interface is in the Beta version right now. It currently only features shoes, watches, toys and sports products from Amazon. I expect other retailers will jump on this bandwagon soon.

I tried Browse Goods myself and I really enjoyed the experience. It took me a minute or two to get oriented, but then I was happily zooming and saving and, well, browsing, to my heart’s content. It was a new, fun and functional way for me to see hundreds of pairs of shoes (or watches) without having to click my way from one end of the Internet to the other.

Experts say that online shopping is due to level out, so retailers are looking for the next big thing to keep us online and shopping. This could be it. I encourage you to try this out and let me know what you think!

Browse Goods, Online Shopping, New Shopping Interface, Amazon

Shopping online is easy. Well, relatively easy. Okay, sometimes it’s just downright frustrating. For the most part, though, I am willing to jump through the hoops in order to get the items I want because either they are not available to me locally, the prices are better or it saves me a trip to a brick and mortar.

Shop.org, a trade group for online retailers, performed a study of “real shoppers” and their experiences online. You can read the full article here.

The sites they chose to use in the study included Best Buy, Circuit City, Coach, Finish Line and Overstock.com, among others, meaning these were not your little niche or upstart sites. They are well-known and presumably the most well-designed sites out there. The shoppers were also not newbies. They considered themselves “veteran” online shoppers, and represented an upscale demographic.

Shoppers were asked to talk through their experiences shopping on these sites, while web developers watched them via closed circuit TV. What they found out was that most of the sites had inherent design flaws, or were missing key functionality that would help a shopper make choices or compare products more easily. The research company reported that web developers themselves were just as frustrated when shopping online, finding the same issues with the sites.

I will admit there are sites I shop that perpetually frustrate me. When an item comes in multiple colors but I can not see a photo of the item in each color, that frustrates me. When I want to continue shopping after adding something to my cart, but I have to back click to return to the section I was browsing, that frustrates me. When I am not allowed to “view all” to make my browsing faster, that frustrates me. When I am not given multiple ways to search or browse, that frustrates me. But, I suffer through the frustrations because most of the time for me, the advantages of online shopping outweigh the disadvantages.

I think in the near future we will see some drastic changes in the design and functionality of online shopping sites. Retailers are beginning to understand that they’re not designing web sites for themselves, so they had better catch up to what online shoppers really want. And, with more and more competition online, those sites that don’t function the way we need them to will lose out to the ones that do.

Online Shopping, Shop.org, Web Development

Just this week I spent a little time (okay, quite a bit of time) online shopping. I love to scour the sale pages to find bargains. I have my personal favorites, and those are the sites I frequent the majority of the time. There are a ton of online retailers, but it takes time and effort to search them out, and when I’m just looking for a pair of tennies or a cotton tee, why bother with all that?

According to a report on InternetRetailer.com, most people shop online with well-known brands that have been around for years. And, their unique visits remain pretty constant year to year.

The Top 10 apparel and beauty sites, with unique visitors in millions and percent change from a year ago, as reported by Nielsen/NetRatings, are:
eBay Clothing Shoes & Accessories, 11.17, -7%
LLBean.com, 5.91, 9%
VictoriasSecret.com, 5.88, 13%
eBay Jewelry and Watches, 5.46, -14%
Old Navy, 4.73, 7%
Zappos.com, 4.66, 42%
eBay Health & Beauty, 4.62, 7%
Lands’ End, 3.96, 4%
The Gap, 3.49, -5%
Avon, 3.08, -2%

Obviously, Zappos enjoyed the biggest increase from a year ago, but the rest are within 14% plus or minus from last year.

What does this mean? I believe shoppers go to online stores the same way they go to brick and mortar stores – retailers that we trust to deliver a consistently good product at a decent price.

Internet Retailer, LLBean, Land’s End, Zappos, Unique Visitors, Top Ten Apparel and Beauty Sites

Consumers want what they want, when and where they want it. We don’t want to be limited. We want to interact with the brands we love across multiple channels.

When Blockbuster introduced Total Access, they got it right. Total Access allows subscribers the flexibility of exchanging their movies in Blockbuster stores, not just online. Blockbuster is using their stores and their site to their advantage, which is something their main competitor, Netflix, can not do. Since the introduction of Total Access, Blockbuster increased their online members by 700,000 in just two months.

Blockbuster is banking on this program. InternetRetailer.com reports that the company plans to spend $35 million in the first quarter of 2007 to promote the new program. Check out Total Access for yourself on Blockbuster’s site. Keep your eye out for more multi-channel options for Blockbuster customers, both in-store and online.

Blockbuster, Movie Rental, Total Access

If you have a craving for something tasty and a bit offbeat, check out Pixie Girl Shop. The sushi bracelet and earring set runs $30, and comes in a carry-out container. If you’re really hungry, there are other sushi products to choose from, including fun and funky sushi pillows. If sushi isn’t your thing, no problem. Pixie Girl Shop offers an unbelievable variety of jewelry, accessories, and home decor including fine art prints. Most of the products skew toward teens or twenty-somethings, but the Lego® jewelry (yes, they are made out of Legos) is wonderfuly nostalgic and appeal to those of us who are… well, quel certain age.

I love running across these kinds of online retailers. Pixie Girl Shop is a network of artists who hand craft the items sold on the site. They are offering fresh, unique items that just can’t be found in most areas of the country.

The founder of the site says:

My goal is to give people an alternative to shopping at chain stores, while exposing people to talented artists and the new modern craft world!

Sushi like this can be very satisfying!

Shopping, Sushi, Jewelry, Artists, Pixie Girl Shop

My niece is a princess, which makes her one tough little customer, just like her Aunt Polly. So, when she says she wants an alarm clock for Christmas, she doesn’t mean just any old alarm clock. She means a PRINCESS alarm clock, and PINK.

After quite a bit of research online, I located THE Disney®Princess Clock Radio for Miss Thing, at Best Buy.

I clicked, I bought. There was plenty of time, so I specified regular ground shipping, which they say is 4-8 business days. I received an email confirmation of my order, which was placed at 8:45 a.m. on December 4th. The clock arrived on my desk before 10 a.m. on December 5th! With NO additional shipping charges!

I don’t know what makes me so special, except that I have a princess for a niece. All I know is that Best Buy won my online business, and I get the Best Aunt Ever award. All with one easy click!

Best Buy, Disney Princess, Shipping, Online Shopping