Buy.com sucks (or, how not to do e-commerce)
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Maybe you’ve been in a similar situation. If you haven’t, then I bet your life is so perfect that everyone loves you, and singing bluebirds perch on your shoulders, and rainbows and unicorns shoot out of your butt. If so, I hate you. Also, you should probably get that butt condition checked out.
Anyway…
I purchased a Christmas gift for my mother, inexplicably waiting until 9 days before the big day. I’m lazy like that, but that’s my problem.
I looked around at some of the major shopping sites but ultimately settled on Buy.com, since they guaranteed delivery by Christmas and were also the best price I could find. Yes, I am a cheap professional millionaire, thank you for asking.
The damn thing didn’t arrive until December 31st, at which point it was useless because I had driven to Best Buy and purchased the item on Christmas Eve. I swear every year that I will never do shopping on that accursed day of Christmas Eve. Yet, somehow, I always end up violating that oath. Trust me, my loathing of humanity is only amplified by Christmas Eve shoppers.
1. Guaranteed shipping times were both confusing AND incorrect
This is a deal breaker at Christmas, much less any other time. Any e-commerce operation knows exactly how long a package will take to arrive via a ground carrier (Postal Service not withstanding). To screw that up, and by so many days, is unforgivable.
2. The return process makes you wonder if just keeping the item is a better option
In order to return this item without incurring return shipping charges, I had to request a return authorization, have that request approved (a one-day delay), and then wait around for the FedEx guy to show up so I could refuse the package. Our FedEx guy comes at 8:00 AM, and I’m not a happy camper when I awake before noon.
3. Looking up an order is an herculean task
Unless you go through the crap of setting up an account (which should have been done when I purchased but somehow wasn’t), you can only look up orders by order number. In the long run, it’s a trivial annoyance. However, enough annoyances add up to lost customers.
4. It took four days for the order to ship
Four-day handling times are the hallmark of a badly designed fulfillment system. Unfortunately, this sort of delay is what led me to cancel the order. I’ve also witnessed this behavior with Overstock.com and Amazon Marketplace (not the main Amazon site), which suffer from many of Buy.com’s problems. Fulfillment issues such as these violate the fundamental flow of good e-commerce:
- Find the item
- Checkout
- Receive confirmation of payment and expected shipping times
- Confirm shipment
When a site adds other steps, such as “Wonder if my item shipped yet?” or “Wait for the FedEx guy so I can refuse the package,” that’s the sign of a fulfillment system in disarray. It’s also the sign of lost customers.