Another BFL shopping trip:
I did my own BFL shopping trip, prior to asking Aleta and PartyTime to take their own shopping trips, to see if they would validate my observations.
Aleta's shopping trip was consistent with what I observed during mine.
I visited three shops.
First, I visited the Barnes & Noble bookstore, where I placed a book in my cart. Now, at this point, it was unclear to me whether the cart was maintained by B&N or by BFL, as well as who maintained the pages themselves. A menu of "BFL" options appeared at the top of the screen, with bookstore stuff lower down.
After visiting the bookstore, I decided to move on, and shop for consumer electornics. This led me to J&R Music World. The first think I noticed is that the pages looked quite a bit different. Buttons that had been present when I was shopping at B&N were not there, and the buttons that were there were in different places.
Clearly, the J&R pages (probably maintained at J&R) were being "framed" inside of the BFL pages. It WAS done rather well, using transparent frames. Most people would not notice unless they visited several shops. When visiting several shops, though, shoppers would be expected to experience "user interface confusion" as buttons and options move around and appear and disappear.
I picked out a DVD player, and went to put it in my cart. However, I was prevented from doing so immediately - before I could do so, I would have to fill out a special J&R registration form, and get a user ID and password from J&R Music World.
I passed, and decided to visit another shop. I decided to pick up some music, and followed the links to CD Warehouse.
This had an interface more like the B&N shop, and I quickly picked out a CD and put it in my cart without the annoyance of a registration form.
However, when I got to my cart, I noticed that the book that I picked out at B&N was not there. It was clear what was happening - the carts are being maintained separately by each shop.
I liken this to going to Wal-Mart, picking out a book, a DVD player, and a CD, and then having to go to three separate check-out stands. NOT very convenient!
I don't think this makes a satisfying consumer experience. Add to this that there is only one store in each category - and that that is BFL's stated goal - it is not possible to explore competitive pricing. You are stuck with whatever store BFL chose in each category, which is probably the store they were able to make the best deal with. This may or may not be the store that is the best deal for the consumer, though.
I also wonder if, after experiencing the confusion of moving from shop to shop and having to check-out separately anyway, if most consumers wouldn't just go DIRECTLY to each store the next time? If BFL is smart, their agreements with stores include some percentage of revenue on subsequent direct visits to the stores. If the stores are smart, the agreements don't. :)
It might be possible for BFL to provide a convenient, innovative shopping experience by providing the e-commerce hosting at their own site, getting daily or real-time updates from each store. However, this would likely be a tremendous technical development and operations undertaking. The way BFL is currently organized, just about any store can probably be linked-in in just a few minutes. Bringing the inventory and ordering process under one roof would probably require many man-years of development over-all, and at minimum weeks of preparation to bring each store under their roof.
My conclusion is that the model is just not viable. There are some things, however, that they could do to make the experience more palatible. They will have to more explicity acknowledge that they are NOT a "department store", but a "mall". They will need to install the proper "signage" to insure that consumers understand that they need to check-out from each store individually. They will also need to push to get revenue streams from those customers who choose to shop directly with each store in the future, though I think this is going to be difficult. |
