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 Ordering
Online - Continued
In Pursuit of
Happiness
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Recently,
I parked myself in front of my computer one Sunday evening and placed a fairly sizable
order on-line. The order contained some 40 line items. It took me about 20 minutes from
start to finish. There was no endless calling out of part numbers over the phone, I did
not have to repeat my-self once and I had a receipt in about 5 minutes. When the parts
arrived 2 days later, I was really impressed. The whole process required so little effort
and yet yielded excellent results. The future is truly here today. Now, there are some people that for one reason or another have a real problem
with ordering on-line. They might feel it isn't safe or they don't feel comfortable with
the process. I know people that still won't use an ATM machine for the same reasons. This
is ok. Online ordering is not for everyone. But, if you're one those who have considered
ordering on-line but felt intimidated by it, welcome to the club.
The vast majority of on-line orders placed by web shoppers
are abandoned before they are completed because on-line ordering systems are too difficult
to figure out. This is because the process is new and people tend to read more into it
than is really there. Buying on-line should be easy and it is getting more that way as
time goes by. It would be easier if there were some standardization of the many ordering
systems, but that's a long way off. In any event, every on-line catalog store is made up
of 3 key parts; the catalog section, the 'shopping cart' function (where you store your
goodies until you pay for them) and the check out process.
The idea behind this concept is simple; it replicates how you
shop now. When you go shopping at the local supermarket, you enter the store, pick up a
shopping cart and start browsing the aisles. As you shop, you place items into your cart
for check out at a later time. At the end, you get a receipt and someone packs everything
out for you. It's really that simple. Now, to get to that level on-line and feel secure
may require a little more insight into the process. So, let's have a look.
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