Today I needed to buy some organic ghee. For those intrigued by what the heck ghee is, it’s clarified butter for cooking and has a high smoke point making it more healthy. Google it.
Anyway…. I was at the mall and the health food store didn’t stock the type I wanted. So I decided I’d just order online.
I Googled the brand I wanted, went to their website and added the ghee to my shopping cart.
I went to my cart, looked over it quickly and saw an Apple Pay button. I use Apple Pay all the time in person so I clicked it.
Instantly Apple Pay opened with the card I wanted to use, my email address and delivery address all pre-filled. I double tapped the side button on my phone and the order was placed.
That was it!
I’ve never experienced a simpler order process at an online website before outside of buying something in the Apple App Store.
It was so much easier than even being there in person, lining up at the counter and tapping my card.
This is the benchmark for all online shopping. It should be this easy everywhere. Yet so many online shopping experiences require me to manually type in my details every time. It's painful.
Doing business online should be easier than in person
If I were to start a business online that required payment, I’d be finding out how to implement that.
Something to think about beyond just payment is the experience customers have and how doing business via your website should be as easy as being in person.
Some thoughts
Anyway…. I was at the mall and the health food store didn’t stock the type I wanted. So I decided I’d just order online.
I Googled the brand I wanted, went to their website and added the ghee to my shopping cart.
I went to my cart, looked over it quickly and saw an Apple Pay button. I use Apple Pay all the time in person so I clicked it.
Instantly Apple Pay opened with the card I wanted to use, my email address and delivery address all pre-filled. I double tapped the side button on my phone and the order was placed.
That was it!
I’ve never experienced a simpler order process at an online website before outside of buying something in the Apple App Store.
It was so much easier than even being there in person, lining up at the counter and tapping my card.
This is the benchmark for all online shopping. It should be this easy everywhere. Yet so many online shopping experiences require me to manually type in my details every time. It's painful.
Doing business online should be easier than in person
If I were to start a business online that required payment, I’d be finding out how to implement that.
Something to think about beyond just payment is the experience customers have and how doing business via your website should be as easy as being in person.
Some thoughts
- Website should be fast and be well designed
- It should be easy to navigate
- It should have enough of the required information without overwhelming the visitors
- It should cater to all visual, auditory and kinaesthetic types (the last one I’m sure there is research on how you can at least do better in this area)
- You should have an online chat that is proactive, asking if they have a question (and have someone actually manning it!!! and some automatic suggestions of answers based on the other they are on)
- You should be able to buy or easily book whatever is on offer in a couple of clicks
- Collecting payment should be as simple as what I experienced today
Too often doing business online is hard and people would prefer to just go to the shop or call on the phone. And there is a need for that because no matter how easy the experience, that human touch is always desired by a percentage of customers.
But at the same time there are people like me who go to the shops and are on a mission, I know what I want, I don’t need anyone to talk to me, I just want to be in and out.
Businesses that don’t sell online are going to die out
Going back to the health shop that didn’t stock my product. I was intrigued when writing this article if they had an online shop. They didn’t. They simply had a list of their locations.
I wonder how much that business loses being an in-person store only? Why not leverage the online world that is only crushing in-person more and more? I can only see the need for in person shopping only reducing more and more in the future as buying online become cheaper and easier.
-Ben