My Go-To Websites

There are a host of websites I use frequently.  I am a busy father of two, a full-time teacher and a part-time student.  Shopping is not retail therapy, and convenience is important to me.  When it comes to shopping, I want to be able to gather a copious amount of comparative data online and then and purchase quickly, with shipping.  Three sites that I use frequently for shopping are amazon.com, yelp.com and etsy.com

1.  Why Efffective?

Amazon is effective because their pricing is so much better than what many retailers can offer.  If you are willing to wait for your product delivery, or if you are a power customer, or if you batch your purchases, the shipping cost is negligible.

When it comes to date night or other entertainment choices, I always use yelp.  My fiance and I are foodies, and health nuts, and we both cook a lot, so we are particular where we go to eat and drink and like to try new places.  It's not so much about only going to places with good reviews as it is avoiding places with bad reviews.  Decision making made simple by the power of the open forum.

Etsy.com.  That right fellas, I'm man enough to shop on etsy (a site for hand made jewelry and crafts).  The prices are way better than what you'd get in a retail outlet (hello markup) because you are buying directly from the artist.  Also, you are getting a hand-crafted piece.  Yes, you are relying solely on photos to make your decision, but I've returned several items with no problem.  Like yelp and amazon, vendors want to maintain their positive reviews.  Go window shopping with your girl at the retail stores so you can find what style she likes, and then source a hand crafted piece from etsy :-)

2.  Good Design.

Amazon's search bar makes this the google for shopping, and they've been smart in adopting a similar interface to google in how customers look for what they want.  

Yelp also uses the search bar method.  This is becoming the norm for how customers obtain their web information, so the website needs to be geared up to deliver quality search results.  This requires some extensive program and keyword organization on the design side.

Etsy...once again - search bar solutions :-)

3.  What makes me come back?

Price.  Convenience.  Selection.  I prefer to be a planned purchaser, and the internet allows me to do that.  When I purchase via retail, I tend to make more impulse decisions that I regret later. 

4.  What could be improved.  

My only complain here would be with yelp.  The self-reported structure requires weeding through some drama-queen posts that are questionable in their objectivity.  Also, if you are business, yelp typically screens out your top two and bottom two recent posts, to average out your scores. Sometimes they screen out even more posts, but the algorithm behind why your positive posts get screened out is unclear.  Yelp wants volume, because that's where the objectivity comes in.  But there is still a lot of room for abuse by customers and retailers alike on yelp.