Best ecommerce UX practices from mcmaster.com

Post by wwweston » Thu, Dec 15, 2022, 11:16 PM UTC

yamtaddle wrote: post #151

spchampion2 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if I put full fucking detail with brand and model I keep getting pages and pages of random products with different "sponsored" brands, model, features and so on. Its clearly need of Amazon are taking priority over mine. When inside of a real brick and mortar store, have you walked by one of those displays on the ends of a row that's selling Pepsi products or Doritos? How do you think those things got there? Th…

Yes, of course end caps are doing the same thing, prioritizing the store's needs over the shopper's. They pull the same shit with how they lay out the store, to make you spend more time in it and travel over more of it. Which turns out to mean they're not just prioritizing profit over what's personally best for their shoppers, but also over public health , when there's serious infectious disease on the loose—which is…

Post by stingrae » Thu, Dec 15, 2022, 11:29 PM UTC

mmmmpancakes wrote: post #162

gumby wrote: post #54

Unmentioned is the origin of much of this value: > McMaster-Carr shoppers don’t encounter distractions; you can see proof of this on the homepage which jumps right into the action: The web site is based on the paper catalogue (book), from layout, visual interface, and organization. The paper version was excellent and useful. Instead of trying all sorts of "fun" (for the designer) web capabilities, they focused on ohw…

The problem with your comparison to Amazon is that the scale of products offered on Amazon is completely different. A catalogue system like this is only viable if the number of products is relatively small, as appears to be the case of mcmaster-carr.

Post by function_seven » Fri, Dec 16, 2022, 12:11 AM UTC

chrisjc wrote: post #88

intrepidhero wrote: post #59

The article focuses on the UI, which is good, but the number one reason McMaster is the tops shopping experience (IMHO) is that they have a rock solid taxonomy. Every single product is meticulously categorized a dozen different ways, allowing me to drill down the feature tree to get exactly to the part I want. On Amazon even the product categories that have a few filters are hopelessly difficult to navigate. I'm stuc…

> rock solid taxonomy > On Amazon Although I have never used McMaster but use Amazon most of the time, I definitely agree. And it's not even really related to taxonomy. The amount of disorganized information on Amazon is frustrating and many times leads me to believe that something is just fake, drop-shit, subpar quality, etc... There's so much "WxHxD: 2", "color: yes", "weight: 34.6 inches" that I just end up buying…

Post by mmmmpancakes » Fri, Dec 16, 2022, 1:32 AM UTC

hammock wrote: post #98

gumby wrote: post #54

Unmentioned is the origin of much of this value: > McMaster-Carr shoppers don’t encounter distractions; you can see proof of this on the homepage which jumps right into the action: The web site is based on the paper catalogue (book), from layout, visual interface, and organization. The paper version was excellent and useful. Instead of trying all sorts of "fun" (for the designer) web capabilities, they focused on ohw…

>Compare this to, say, Amazon where Amazon's needs are prioritized over the customers' I'm not sure that's the whole story. A critical point is that this is a B2B site. The people shopping here would tend to have a need in mind that can be solved by finding the exact right part that meets their specifications. By comparison, the typical consumer shopping experience is much more one of discovery, not need-solution mna…

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Fri, Dec 16, 2022, 1:45 AM UTC

jameshart wrote: post #108

TeMPOraL wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are HN users even representative customers of McMaster Carr? Let alone of any other e-commerce site? Why wouldn't they be? Yes, most HN users have some expertise or occupation in tech, or tech-adjacent fields, but other than that, HN has a diverse userbase from all around the world and great many walks of life.

Sure, some HN users are going to be McMaster Carr users. Some HN users are probably Boeing customers as well, but I wouldn’t trust HN’s collective assessment of the procurement UX for a 787. The users who McMaster Carr is targeting peripherally intersect with the HN community. And it also happens to be a community that contains people who are more likely than the average population to enjoy browsing a parts catalog f…