How Bike E-Retailers are Failing the Hunter?
In e-commerce profiling “the hunter” is the user who has an idea of what they want but needs help choosing. They are compared to “the tracker” who knows exactly what they want and needs help finding and buying. They can be summarised by focussing on their end goal and mind-set:
- The Hunter – I want a new mountain bike for £500 for weekend riding in the countryside
- The Tracker – I want an On-One 26’’ Scandal hard-tail mountain bike
In this blog I am going to compare 3 of the big bike e-commerce sites and explain how they fail the hunter and what they could do better. For the research I am me (unsurprisingly), a 28 year old, web literate, bike rider looking for size 10, black, off-road cycling shoes that are around £50 in price.
Chain Reaction
Using the extensive left hand menu I was easily able to find cycling shoes (despite clicking into casual shoes). Now I’m in the section it’s a case of selecting them by my preferences, mtb shoe, less than £70 but more than £30 and in size 10 please. I’d like them to be black too! Wait … stop the press … I can’t enter my preferences so I’m left having to sort by price and then look at each one individually before selecting. Having pictures at this stage helps me to visually filter, reviews also help me determine whether the product is good value. My biggest issue here is that I have to click into the product to check sizing and availability. If I know my Euro sizing (which I don’t) I can see the availability.
Is it all bad? No, if I know exactly what I’m looking for (e.g Answer XC1 Shoes) then I can get straight to the product and if I’m looking for suggestions Chain Reaction do show the best selling items.This answers the needs of the Tracker and the Explorer (i.e. looking for ideas).
Wiggle
I’ll start with the positive on Wiggle. Interestingly, just like Chain Reaction they accommodate the needs of the Tracker and Explorer very well. It’s easy to find a specific product and there are plenty of suggestions such as Wiggle’s recommended products (although my size seemed to be out of stock which was very frustrating and they’re using Euro sizing too!)
Putting myself into the tracker mind-set things get a bit tricky. I know what my purchase preferences are (black, MTB shoe costing around £50 in size 10) but am unable to enter these anywhere. I get some idea from the best sellers but I am unable to check that all of my criteria are met. Wiggle lets themselves down against Chain Reaction by not having a product picture and sizing (even if it is in Euros displayed on the category page).
Evans Cycles
Evans recently launched website was the best of the bunch for “the Hunter”. On the category page I was able to filter by the price and the listings were shown with two vital pieces of information. Firstly a good quality picture allowed me to see the styling and colour. Secondly a pop up menu showed me the stock information for each size without having to click into the product – a very nice touch although the Javascript could do with some fixing. Again the sizes were Euro based and I am at a loss as to why this is the case on all three sites when the primary audience is UK!
My only criticism of Evans Cycles was where the category is. On the other sites MTB shoes have been a top level category on Evans I’m 5 clicks deep:
> Home > Cycle Clothing > Cycling Shoes > Men’s Shoes > Mountain Bike Shoes
Conclusion
By far Evans provides the best e-commerce system for the Hunter. I was able to construct most of my preferences and was then able to pick by sight the products I want with minimal clicks.
It seems that many e-commerce sites are put together with a lack of attention to the category page. Space is often given to offers/best sellers without allowing the user to get help choosing between products. Enabling the user to construct their preferences and then quickly browse the choices is key to converting those who don’t know exactly what they want.
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Written by Quba’s Account Director – Dave Sealey, Account Director, usability enthusiast and e-commerce zealot.
