Does it offer a "I will know it when I see it" function? Sometimes I have in mind a specific tool or accessory, but not its specs necessarily.
Naming things can be very hard. For this, it helps to have the paper catalog to flip through.
Best ecommerce UX practices from mcmaster.com
51–60 of 175 posts
Re: Best ecommerce UX practices from mcmaster.com
#52Unmentioned is the helpful explanation text in some categories, for example if you search for "compressed air fittings", you get a small box labeled "How to Identify and Measure Fittings" at the top of the page that can be expanded. Included in this is a table of *all* the different kinds of fittings, including measurements. In my case, I had something that I didn't know what was and this allowed me to identify it, then narrow my search for compatible parts.
Re: Best ecommerce UX practices from mcmaster.com
#53I'm confused about medusajs. It has an API but yet I can't find anything about other SDK's. Are you locked into only using JS?
Medusa is a headless API, so you are free to consume it from wherever you want whether it be a React-based storefront, a C# backend, or something third - there's really no limitations. But the source code of the open-source project is written in Node.js, so if you looking to contribute, you are forced to write JS. Re SDKs, there's an official JS SDK and a community-led Flutter SDK - that I know of. The former can be…
Thank you. I'm actually going to be building a B2B app for a client soon and this will help a lot.
Re: Best ecommerce UX practices from mcmaster.com
#54Unmentioned 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 web could augment what they were already successfully doing. No redesign for design's sake.
Some of the best paper catalogues like McMaster and Sigma had excellent, customer-centered design, which led to long term loyalty. Easy to find what you needed, and useful as references, not just as a place to buy. They have retained that philosophy into the web world.
Compare this to, say, Amazon where Amazon's needs are prioritized over the customers', with the obvious result of reduced loyalty and the need to shore that up with rewards (prime, discounts, advertising).
Re: Best ecommerce UX practices from mcmaster.com
#55It is strange that the article refers to McMaster as a B2B site. It works just as well for consumers.
McMaster is definitely B2B oriented, but I think one of the reasons they're much loved is because they do a lot better job of dealing with individual consumers and small orders than a lot of B2B. There are sometimes annoying MOQ and sometimes high shipping fees (they do sell a lot of bulky/heavy/long items), but for the most part McMaster is still perfectly pleasant to deal with if you're buying a few bits and pieces for a household project. This really matters to me: doing some electrical projects, for example, there are things (like certain Legrand raceway) that are difficult to buy other than through electrical distributors that only want to deal on account and have a fifteen-step process to open one. McMaster sometimes has a good equivalent and they'll just ship me one!
Re: Best ecommerce UX practices from mcmaster.com
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Medusa is a headless API, so you are free to consume it from wherever you want whether it be a React-based storefront, a C# backend, or something third - there's really no limitations. But the source code of the open-source project is written in Node.js, so if you looking to contribute, you are forced to write JS. Re SDKs, there's an official JS SDK and a community-led Flutter SDK - that I know of. The former can be…
Thank you. I'm actually going to be building a B2B app for a client soon and this will help a lot.
Don't hesitate to reach out. We are amid extending our B2B capabilities, so it would be super interesting to learn about your client's requirements. And your own.
Re: Best ecommerce UX practices from mcmaster.com
#57Does anyone remember Small Parts? They had an awesome catalog somewhat akin to McMaster. When Amazon bought them out, for a year or two, Amazon search maintained the really detailed category stuff and was approaching McMaster utility for things like machine screws. But then, like much with Amazon, it died.
I'm very much confused about why there aren't more Amazon competitors that do better with this sort of UI stuff and charge more. At this point, I'm happy to pay a 10% (or maybe even 50%) tax from McMaster or Digikey because of the time and effort it saves and the backend customer service if something goes wrong. When I started my university lab 10 years ago, I was so excited by what Amazon is doing. At this point, the only reason I still use them is that its hard to set up sales tax exemptions with all the small vendors. If someone could automate that process in checkout, I'd never use Amazon for work...
Re: Best ecommerce UX practices from mcmaster.com
#58It is strange that the article refers to McMaster as a B2B site. It works just as well for consumers.
The UX practices used on McMaster are most suitable for B2B sites. If you were trying to sell beauty products to consumers with a landing page like theirs it likely wouldn't perform that well. You could, however, draw inspiration from McMaster if your brand was selling the same beauty products wholesale to retailers.
If there were a beauty products web site that was organized that well, I'd switch to it immediately.
I've spent more than 3 hours linearly searching local CVS and Walgreens for basic stuff in the last week, so you've touched a nerve!
For any given product category, they now group some stuff by brand, then function, and other stuff by function, then brand.
A given brand or function can be split across a half dozen such hierarchies. Also, they then slice the inventory by attractiveness to shoplifters, doubling the already intractable search problem. Finally, the aisles for a given type of product are not necessarily contiguous.
Amazon actually has a landing page like the McMaster one for beauty products:
https://www.amazon.com/b?bbn=3760911&rh=n%3A3760911&dc&qid=1...
Except it is broken:
- It displays "featured categories" which can be expanded with "show more", but there is no "show all categories" button.
- The first screen is spam, the second screen is content. More spam (== algoritmic suggestions not based on intent) until roughly screen 10,
- At that point, there is a helpful "filter hair care by ethnicity" table. Since this is their second most important flow (apparently), let's focus on it.
Back on screen two, tapping "hair care" drills down to hair products, but there is no ethnicity filter. Why even have an ethnicity grouping (and waste scarce landing page space on it) if it is not discoverable by people shopping for hair care? Also, how do you filter skin care, cosmetics, etc by ethnicity?
What about other facets, such as medical issues (e.g., sensitive skin or allergic to fragrances)?
Re: Best ecommerce UX practices from mcmaster.com
#59The 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 stuck guessing at search terms and browsing "related" lists. If you want to build an Amazon killer, you can let UI, price and shipping slide, but nail your taxonomy and I'm in.
See also digikey, parts-tree and rock auto.
Re: Best ecommerce UX practices from mcmaster.com
#60Does it offer a "I will know it when I see it" function? Sometimes I have in mind a specific tool or accessory, but not its specs necessarily.
Naming things can be very hard. For this, it helps to have the paper catalog to flip through.
One of the nice things about McMaster in my mind is the way their website is organized very much like their paper catalog. It's not as good as the paper catalog for casual browsing, but it does mean that when you're not quite sure what you actually need you can "flip through" the website and have a decent chance of spotting something like it.
Unfortunately McMaster is a little stingy with their paper catalog, I think you have to hit a certain $$$ amount on orders before they send you one. I think that's fair, it's a pretty hefty book and presumably costs them a meaningful amount of money per copy. I'm always surprised with U-Line which now sends me two of each edition of their catalog when I hardly ever order from them... I think they might be losing money on me as a customer at this point.