Why Many Indian e-commerce Sites Suck

Indian E-com sites still need a lot of work. Most are characterized by churlish interfaces, bad writing, poor grammar, pathetic delivery options, poor searchability, and often, blatant mis-classification of the goods on sale. Add to the this the extremely limited selection available at most of these places. Even something as slick as Fabmart fails in this last department. And don't bother saying, "we're an Indian site, this is to be expected...". When you are online selling books and music, I -- and any customer with sense -- will judge you to Amazon's standards. And you don't have to be a giant like Amazon to make a great impression. Try ThinkGeek (a shopping site oriented towards techie types) or HerHifi.com (a consumer electronics site for women) to get an idea of what it ought to be like.

This image (of an Indian e-store that shall remain nameless) is a good example of all that is wrong with Indian e-com sites... maybe it's just me, but after a user experience like this, I tend to rush back towards Amazon or ThinkGeek to assure myself that, yes, e-shopping can be a satisfying experience for the consumer. I'd like readers to note that I'm not bashing this site per se, I'm merely using it as an example to point out many of the symptoms that affect most Indian e-stores.

• Blatant Misclassification. I like Chris De Burgh and the Bee Gees, but classical? I mean, come on, equating Mozart with this guy is... unspeakable. And this wasn't an isolated incident on this site.
• The Fonts Suck. I mean, with beauties like Georgia and Verdana in the hands of IE5 users, and even the most rudimentary Linux distros having basics like Times New Roman, do I really have to tolerate MS Sans Serif? To me it just means an amateur designed it.
• The Graphics look Cheap and Shoddy. That "Versign Secure" doesn't inspire much trust, does it? Looks like it's been scanned in (by an amateur) from some random place. Or worse, ripped from some other website. Ditto for the Visa and Mastercard logos, and the one which is too tiny for me to make out. Which brings us to...
• Tiny Graphics. Maybe they want smaller graphics to reduce page load time for us poor Indians with slow lines, but it doesn't help much if we can't see them, does it? Why, I'd miss that "Add to Shopping Cart" link if I wasn't looking for it... not exactly heart-warming for the site owner, eh? :-)
• Flashing Banner Ads. You can't see it here, but this site also featured irritatingly animated banner ads. Guys, I know you have to recover costs of running this site, but when someone is trying to buy something from your store, don't disturb him. Please? Pretty please?

As a sort of finale, and to make my point about bad writing, this site also has this Disclaimer, reproduced verbatim below (with font and coloring intact).

Disclaimer

We are not responsible for any errors, omissions or representations on any of our pages or on any links on any of our pages. We do not endorse in anyway any advertisers on our web pages. Please verify the veracity of all information on your own before undertaking any reliance.

The linked sites are not under our control and we are not responsible for the contents of any linked site or any link contained in a linked site, or any changes or updates to such sites. We are providing these links to you only as a convenience, and the inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement by us of the site.

We hereby expressly disclaim any implied warranties imputed by the laws of any jurisdiction. We consider ourselves and intend to be subject to the jurisdiction only of the courts of the state of Karnataka, India.

If you don't agree with any of our disclaimers above please do not read the material on any of our pages.

"Undertaking any reliance"? Enough said, I think.