The Little "Gremlins" That Are Killing E-Commerce (Part One)
Cliff Ennico
www.creators.com
During this holiday shopping season, there is going to be a lot of ballyhoo in the press about how more people than ever are doing their holiday shopping online, and how the Internet is going to kill traditional "brick and mortar" retail.
This is not going to be one of those articles.
This was the year I decided to do all of my holiday shopping online. After all, when you're convinced that the Internet is the future of retail, shouldn't you put your money where your mouth is?
Well, based on three experiences this past week, I must regretfully conclude that it's going to be a while before everyone does all of their shopping online. There are a lot of "gremlins" - some technical glitches, some the result of really bad customer service -- that will need to be worked out before online shopping becomes the instant, seamless, "real time" process that it's being touted to be.
Case # 1: my Mom loves brass monkeys. Not the animal, the cocktail. For the unenlightened (or the merely sober), a "brass monkey" is a concoction of vodka, orange juice, and dark rum, with a little umbrella added for effect. Years ago Heublein included the brass monkey in their line of premixed, prebottled cocktails, but Mom has had trouble finding them lately as her local liquor stores are focusing more on wine and beer.
So I went online looking for a case of brass monkeys to give Mom this Christmas (let it never be said that I'm not a dutiful son).
After some searching (you would be amazed what pops up in the search results when you type in "brass monkey"), I came across an online liquor store in southern California that specializes in hard-to-find items, and lo! They had a listing for "Heublein Brass Monkey Cocktails". Now, since Club took over the Heublein brand a number of years back and now markets all of the former Heublein products under the Club name, the reference to Heublein should have given me a clue that this Website might not be 100% up to date. But no matter - the Website looked otherwise to be very professional, with a very efficient checkout and "shopping cart", and I was able to place my order for a case of brass monkeys in about 30 seconds.
I did think it was a little odd that the site didn't ask me my age at any point, but I figured that anyone ordering a case of Polynesian cocktails from the 1950s probably didn't need to prove they were underage.
Two days after placing my order, I received an e-mail confirmation of my purchase . . . with an AOL return address. Uh oh. Serious e-commerce operations do not use AOL as their Web server. Home based Mom and Pop businesses do.
Then I read the confirmation, which was accurate but contained the following cryptic (and ungrammatical) statement at the end: "All submitted orders does NOT guarantee shipment [sic] and will go through our verification process first. Your payment information will only be charged after your information has been verified."
What do they mean by "verification"? Does it mean checking me out to make sure I'm of legal drinking age? Great, but how do they do that with only my credit card information? How long will the verification take? And how long after that before the brass monkeys ship (I do need them by Christmas after all)? I sent this company an e-mail message asking for answers, and have done so each day since then, but haven't yet received a response. I tried calling the customer service telephone number that appears on their home page (not a toll free number), but the phone merely "rings off the hook" - there's no automated customer service, not even an answering machine.
Not exactly the way to conduct your e-commerce business, folks. Marsha Collier (
www.coolebaytools.com
), a leading eBay expert and author of "Santa Shops on eBay" (John Wiley, $16.99) says that for an e-commerce Website to be taken seriously, "the customer should get an e-mail confirmation immediately upon placing the order, and shipment within 48 hours." Amen.
Since this is clearly a Mom and Pop operation, I am willing to cut them a little slack and give them a little time to get their act together. What happens, though, when the culprit is an established company - in fact a leader in electronic publishing? More next week . . .
Cliff Ennico (
cennico@legalcareer.com
) is a syndicated columnist, author and host of the PBS television series 'Money Hunt'. His latest book is 'Small Business Survival Guide' (Adams Media, $12.95). This column is no substitute for legal, tax or financial advice, which can be furnished only by a qualified professional licensed in your state. To find out more about Cliff Ennico and other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit our Web page at
www.creators.com
. COPYRIGHT 2006 CLIFFORD R. ENNICO. DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC. Permission granted for use on DrLaura.com.
