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Adam Kalsey

This is the blog of Adam Kalsey. Unusual depth and complexity. Rich, full body with a hint of nutty earthiness.

Amazon Shipping indicator

25 Nov 2006

Back when I was doing a half dozen ecommerce sites a month, the question that often came up was, "what does Amazon do?" I found myself constantly reminding people that while we could look to Amazon for guidance on what probably works well, they have by no means solved every UI problem. There’s always room for improvement and simply copying Amazon on everything wouldn’t result in the best possible site.

Today I noticed an example of an area where Amazon could improve. Amazon’s free Super Saver shipping and Amazon Prime are two ways customers can save on shipping costs. But when looking at items in some departments—Home and Garden for instance—not all products are shipped by Amazon and thus aren’t available for Prime or Super Saver. You have no way of knowing if the product’s available for cheap shipping until you open the product detail page.

To find the one product among dozens of similar ones that has free shipping, I have to go through the list, clicking on each product, going back, and repeating the process. An indicator in the search results that showed me which items qualified for Prime and Super Saver would be very helpful.

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