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Hunter Becomes the Prey - shopping is broken

dilbert.com

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Re: Hunter Becomes the Prey - shopping is broken

#31

Post by jsm386 »

Hoff wrote: post #7

Adams is describing how marketing (tries to) work. Marketing seeks to identify customers. In a manner of consideration, Adams is seeking to acquire better and more targeted search results, or skills in searching for products or services. Google Adwords tries to offers something close. But the Googlers are not very good at this level of targeting. (Yet?) As for specifically contacting buyers, that's expensive for comm…

Google AdWords, if managed properly, does a very good job at this. Take his example: For example, let's say you're looking for new patio furniture. The words you might use to describe your needs would be useless for Google. You might say, for example, "I want something that goes with a Mediterranean home. It will be sitting on stained concrete that is sort of amber colored. It needs to be easy to clean because the birds will be all over it. And I'm on a budget.

So say I am retailer of stylish, affordable outdoor furniture, among many other products (that is what is important in the query, more on the Mediterranean part later). I might have an ad campaign dedicated to patio furniture. Within that campaign I might have an ad group for plastic furniture (easy to clean).

That ad group would include a mix of exact and broad match keywords/keyword phrases like patio furniture, budget, cheap, affordable, stylish, along with negative keywords like expensive, wood, etc. The ads would deliver him to a landing page with links to hopefully appropriate furniture. On that page he can then see the various items that meet his basic qualifications - stylish, affordable, easy to clean - and click through to the items that look like they would match his Mediterranean home, with its amber colored concrete patio.

Reading through what I just wrote: I don't know much about the furniture business, but Mediterranean might actually be an important and useful kw to advertise on...

Re: Hunter Becomes the Prey - shopping is broken

#32

Post by andrewljohnson »

yeeyay wrote: post #28
andrewljohnson wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they do have to pay for that privilege usually, and I still get terrible spam.

just thinking out loud, how about making the identity of the vendors that respond to you and the conversation you have with them public?

maybe it just needs to be anonymous a la craigslist.

This is starting to sound like a great start-up to me.

ineed.com

Re: Hunter Becomes the Prey - shopping is broken

#33

Post by gojomo »

I expect Hunch could easily grow this way: a mixture of introductory questions to assess your purchase interests and priorities, leading to an increasing proportion of sponsored 'questions' that are offers/pitches tuned to your revealed preferences.

Re: Hunter Becomes the Prey - shopping is broken

#34

Post by viraptor »

techiferous wrote: post #25

"www.answers.yahoo.com is a step in the right direction" I never, ever expected to come across this phrase spoken seriously.

Well - the idea seems sound. It's the same concept that makes stackoverflow, serverfault and others work. If there's a problem, it would be the target audience / moderation... Is there a stackoverflow clone for internet shopping already online?

Re: Hunter Becomes the Prey - shopping is broken

#36

Post by nzmsv »

The point about too many choices is just not true. I have a few online stores I purchase from. And eBay. Sometimes Amazon, but me living in Canada means that it's mostly restricted to books.

The average online store is so badly put together that it is the equivalent of shopping in a dirty dark alley in terms of confidence :) So, I don't. I find I keep going back to the same stores over and over. eBay wins because there is a buyer protection scheme in place.

The the point about thousands of stores to purchase from only holds for items costing less than I'd care about losing.

Re: Hunter Becomes the Prey - shopping is broken

#37

Post by efaith »

gr366 wrote: post #19
smallblacksun wrote: post #9

Do people really have trouble finding the things they want to buy online? Whenever I do a search for information on any kind of product, I get a ton of ads offering to sell it to me. This seems like a solution in search of a problem.

I think the point was that there are too many options: Now you shop on the Internet, and you can buy from anywhere on the planet. The options for any particular purchase approach infinity, or so it seems. So while you may get tons of ads offering to sell you something, how much effort is spent determining which is the best match for what you want. It would be better to get 5 results that are really close to what you'…

Go to Amazon. Type in "toaster". Pick "House & Garden" to let you sort. Sort by bestselling. Look at the first six items and pick one. Done. Time taken: it need not be more than 60 seconds. Quality of purchase: unlikely to be worse than what you would have gotten by visiting an appliance store.

As for me, I do take more time to select. But that's because I choose to. I don't have to. I am not in a situation where failure to spend half an hour selecting is going to ensure that I get garbage.

In short, shopping is not broken, at least not judging by the very example he gave. Shopping is better than it has ever been - even for items like toasters.

Re: Hunter Becomes the Prey - shopping is broken

#38

Post by efaith »

frossie wrote: post #30
jordanf wrote: post #29

The problem of too many product offerings (the paradox of choice / analysis paralysis) is something I'm trying to address with my startup Kallow. The issue with Adams' solution (which may work for some) is that customers sometimes don't know exactly what they want, and have a hard time describing it, especially when it comes to things like personal electronics. You are essentially asking them to design a product for…

customers sometimes don't know exactly what they want, and have a hard time describing it, I don't want to minimise the problem quoted, but that is not the entirety of it. There is still a problem for people who do know what they want, due to the one thing that is hard to quantify: whether the device performs its function well. The toaster example is particularly apt. I can start off knowing precisely what I want: Sa…

"The problem is that when you do find a few toasters that match your requirements on Amazon, most have reviews like "stopped working after 2 months" "completely uneven toasting" "doesn't pop toast" etc etc. So then you have to wade through review upon review on model upon model in order to find the least sucky toaster. That is when the toaster hunt becomes a time sink."

No, you don't have to. You didn't in a brick and mortar store. Why do you have to here? Because there are customers saying the product broke? But the only difference is that in a brick and mortar store the failures are hidden from you.

Look, products fail. That's just the way it is. Get over it. Realize that every product has a potential story of failure and the best products will have unsatisfied customers.

Counting is good. Statistics are good. I've found Rotten Tomatoes to be much more reliable than individual reviews, and I don't even have to waste my time reading the reviews. Similarly, the Bestselling ranking at Amazon is not a bad way to sort out the better from the worse, if you don't want to spend the time.

If you don't want to spend the time you don't have to! Sure, if you don't spend the time, your choice won't be as good as it could have been. But if we were back in brick and mortar land your choice would be worse! Now you have the choice, and even if you choose not to spend the time, your resulting purchase is still better. It's win win win in every direction.

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