[LINK] rant - online shopping websites

[Jan Whitaker]

Linkers, I thought I'd do some price comparison between the big two 
before going out for my groceries this week. Wow, what a shocking 
situation! Coles is where I started. It's full of js and its shopping 
area has FIVE frames. What a disaster. It has flashing pictures, 
instructions to use the Browse Aisles area, which is nowhere to be 
seen. The left column frame words run 'under' the central frame, so 
you can't read them without a horizontal scroll. Wait -- I went back 
to the beginning and the Browse Aisles had disappeared after I had 
selected a different button, funnily enough, the first one on the 
list called My Shop. Once I found that, it is pretty cool. Provides 
the per unit price on some items without me having to do the division 
in my head. [but given that it's not based on the store prices, there 
is more to this story as I found out]

Safeway is interesting. No frames, but not the whole product line. 
For example, search for toilet paper, and the returned result is a 
holder, not the paper. Coles has 56 choices.
Then I went to the product search screen which allows you to put in 
multiple products (at least according to the instructions). Put in 
toilet paper, tea and cheese. The only result--you guessed it--toilet 
paper holder. They don't sell tea online? Pitiful. Wait -- there is a 
drop down box! And there is the cheese and tea. No earl grey, though. 
[found on the Coles result list] The cheese list is interesting. 
Includes every instance of the word, including dog and cat food 
varieties. Adding 'tasty' helped, but not the price! Home Brand Tasty 
1kg block is $8.12. In the shop it's around $6. That's a 25% markup.

Now, while I've been scoping out the competition, the Coles 'session' 
logged out and is asking me to log in to resume shopping. I didn't 
log in in the first place, but it's evidently put a cookie somewhere 
because even my backup commands are sending me off to the same login 
screen. I feel like saying several naughty words that I'm thinking 
now. I was able to go back to the very beginning of the session and 
get the browse icons back. OK, back to the cheese, Coles' brand is 
even higher - $8.63.

Then there is this little thing called a Service Fee and Redelivery 
fee. They are listed on the FAQ, except the embedded link to them 
doesn't work. If you didn't know HTML, you might think they didn't 
want the prospective customer to read that bit. I just clicked on the 
closest one that worked and scrolled to the right spot. That little 
puppy is an extra $8-$15. Redelivery is $10. Safeway is similar, with 
$15.90 their top level.

So, can't do price comparison of store prices, costs a bomb, and has 
design problems. Thank goodness I'm mobile and not reliant on this.

/rant/

Jan

Jan Whitaker
JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com
personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/
commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/

Writing Lesson #54:
Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for 
guests. - JW, May, 2007

'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, 
there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005
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