Wish-lists and e-gift certificates are necessities for sites that sell goods online. But usability flaws are potentially limiting their reach as the online marketplace swells. It doesn't help that a large portion of the population may not have psychologically accepted them, nor does it help that an emailed gift certificate has a high likelihood of being marked as a phishing attempt.

"If you're running a B2C site without wishlists and gift certificates, you're leaving millions on the table," writes usability expert Jakob Nielsen, who also wrote the following metaphoric conundrum: "Wishlists and gift certificates are the anti-pet-food of e-commerce."



While anti-pet-food left us scratching our heads in the writers' room here, we agree that if you're selling to the online market without such options, you're missing a vital element of online sales. Plus we know that Nielsen does his homework, so we'll let that unfortunate turn-of-phrase just slide right out the doggy door.



Nielsen was describing his latest study entitled, "Wishlists, Gift Certificates, and Gift Giving in E-Commerce," which looks at wish-lists and e-certificates from Amazon, Buy.com, CD Universe, CooksCorner.com, Barnes & Noble, LL Bean, Target, and Wal-Mart, among a host of others.



Some points well taken from the summary:



1. Disclose total of shipping and handling, sales tax, and other charges before asking for personal information. Though gift certificate users often spend more than has been given to them, others are put off by totals unexpectedly exceeding the allotted amount (and view it as dishonest at times).



2. A narrow target-market doesn't mean a narrow group of gift givers. Grandma could be buying those platform heels for that "professional dancer" granddaughter of hers. So these offerings need to be relatively simple to use.



3. E-certificates were deleted by 30% of tested email recipients thinking they were some form of spam, and 20% were not trusted to be what they claimed to be. "This is the worst outcome in any research study we've conducted since the end of the dot-come bubble in 2000," writes Nielsen. Add trust markers that users see in the inbox.



4. People are paradoxes, thinking it too selfish to make a wishlist while wishing others would send make them to make their own shopping easier, and thinking gift-certificates are less thoughtful than selecting a gift (and they kind of are, really) while saying they prefer gift cards themselves. Some reverse psychology marketing may be needed here, to positively spin the image, i.e., "people like gift cards" and "your friends don't want to have to think about what to get you" - but nicer.





Tag: e-commerce



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