Why is online shopping often so impersonal?

When you go to a real shop, you bring a number of expectations with you. In most cases, you expect to be able to pick up a product and get a nice close look at it. You get a feel for the size, the weight and the quality of it. Or, with items such as books or magazines, you get a chance to have a thumb through and get a feel for it.

Then, once you’ve had a little look at it, you might want to ask an assistant a question. Granted, they may not always know the answer, but I always appreciate a shop where the assistants try to help and answer questions.

Why can’t these niceties carry through to the world of online shopping more often?

Of course, you’ll never be able to pickup the product and have a feel, but most online shops leave something to be desired with the images they provide. A lot of the time, they’re small, poor quality, inaccurate or just don’t give you enough of an idea for the size or scale of a product.

Speaking to the shop owner or an assistant is hardly ever made to be a big feature with online shops. Sure, you could find the contact page and track down the right email address or phone number, but why not flaunt it along-side the products? Why not say ‘Got a question about this product? Just phone or email us and we’d be glad to help’? It would make it such a better experience.

In the real world, if someone opens a shop, you expect them to know their products intimately, but with some online shops, it can feel as if the people running it are just selling what they can – not what they know.

I know this is not the case with all online shops. There are many shops which make it easy to get in touch and ask questions about their products and make use of large images, etc. but there’s still an awful lot of online shops which feel cold and impersonal with small images, lack of information about their products, hard-to-find contact details and staff which are slow to respond to enquiries.

Photo by dougww