Costco and Compaq are good examples.

I read news articles hyping new Compaq laptops with good pricing and feature sets being sold through Costco. I visit Costco, but the only details about the laptops are tidbits printed on a price card meant for display.

I have two choices:

a) Route around in the Control Panel of the display laptop and examine every exterior port to figure out the specs. No thanks, I'm not that patient or savvy.

b) Look for specs on Compaq and Costco web sites. Costco.com doesn't have information about its in-store products. It's pretty much a standalone sales site with a different product set than the physical stores. I e-mail Compaq.com asking for specs on the models sold at Costco. I receive an e-mail telling me to call a represenative. What, so I can get a sales pitch on some other model Compaq will sell me directly? I told the company what I wanted and they chose not to give it to me. I eventually found at Compaq.com (I think) the model sold at Costco stores (the pricing information directs me to a page to locate a local retail outlet). So why didn't Compaq's customer rep refer me to the product I wanted to buy?

In the end, I'm not buying any computer equipment from Costco. Compaq's customer service and lack of clear labeling on its web site and Costco's clueless disconnected-from-brick'n'mortar-operations web site annoy the heck out of me.

Posted by: Sally Merryweather on February 28, 2003 01:45 AM

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A couple of years ago The Economist's survey of e-commerce said the main cause of failure was channel conflicts and internal turf wars. Companies are inhibited by the fear of competition between their established outlets and the new ones (and of conflicts between the sales / marketing managers responsible for different channels) so they avoid the problem by offering different products in different channels.

That may explain Sally's problems with Costco & Compaq.

Posted by: Philip Chalmers on February 28, 2003 04:46 AM

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The article holds Amazon up as a paragon of usability. Whilst I'd agree they're one of the best sites which I use regularly, I find it surprising that their usability 'score' has increased recently, as there are two recent developments on the site which I think have made things worse.

First, the drop-down graphics which appear whenever I visit the home page, sliding out from under the main menu bar. They're an unwanted distraction, often concealing something I DO want to look at. And PopUpCop doesn't stop them.

Second, I can't seem to move on the site now without Amazon pushing clothing in my face. This ranges from the constant glossy pictures in the sidebars to the ridiculous "customers who wear clothes also like..." prompts. If anyone from Amazon is reading - I will NEVER buy clothes from you or any other online source. Books, CDs, DVDs are fine, because it's "one size fits all". Clothes are different - I'll stick to real shops, thanks. Personally, I view this as the first indication that Amazon might be taking their eye off the ball.

Posted by: Alan Fisher on February 28, 2003 10:28 AM

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Try Proxomitron. I don't see any moving menus. But then again, numerous page elements have been tagged as advertising, so there's a lot at Amazon I'm not seeing. Strangely enough, none of what I'm missing appears to be important.

Posted by: Hooky Malookum on February 28, 2003 11:31 AM

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