Where’s the best place to hide a body?
On page 2 of Google, because no one goes there.
Apart from me…
As I write this, I’m looking to buy a gift, what with it being Christmas in a few weeks.
I don’t really enjoy shopping, either online or off. And this experience is reminding me why.
I’m looking to buy wine from a site that offers international delivery at a decent rate (not the £40 I came across yesterday to send one bottle across the water) and decent wine at a reasonable price.
It’s a bit of a struggle, and I’ve somehow dropped down to page 4 on this particular dive:
It’s funny down here, like watching a David Attenborough programme on a Sunday night about the deep sea and all the strange life forms that don’t normally find themselves in front of a camera.
Here’s a few things I notice from the depths:
- Websites that deliver little in the way of user experience (UX) because they’re cluttered, out of date or displaying multiple languages and currencies
- Copy that’s written for search engines rather than human beings who actually want to buy something (for example: “At [name of website] we are proud to offer our service for International Delivery Gift Hamper Food and Wine.” No one speaks like that)
- Advertisers paying for their sites to show up when I search for a specific service that they don’t offer – money down the drain
- Multiple sites with different names but all with the same unhelpful design
- The Harrods website
But I search in hope, the hope that I’ll find the diamond in the rough, the needle in the haystack – before I run out of oxygen and have to go back up to page 1 to start again with a brand-new search term.
