Design on the mind

According to a BBC report, shoppers in the UK will spend £200m a day on the internet in the run up to Christmas; with the total holiday spend likely to hit £4bn. This Year’s online spend is set to be 50% more than last Christmas.

People are more comfortable now than they have been with the idea of ordering on line. More and more businesses have set up ecommerce websites and are cashing in on this new buying trend. However, there are still weak areas that prevent the ecommerce businesses from achieving their full potential. The main issue that I want to discuss in this blog is:

Unpredictable Delivery

It is simply not convenient to have a package delivered at an unannounced or unpredictable time. Delivering goods to people’s homes during office hours whilst they are at work just doesn’t make sense.

I have had plenty of these little notes through my door saying: “Sorry we missed you…”. You then have to wait 48 hours for the package to get back to the depot before you can retrieve it. This not only delays getting your shopping but you then have to drive there yourself to pick it up. Great! That hardly takes the stress out of the shopping experience does it?

Another annoying delivery trick is when a courier company just leaves the package on your doorstep for all to see. If it hasn’t been stolen by the time you get home from work it has probably been damaged by torrential rain.

Some ecommerce websites allow you to put special instructions on your delivery details when you order which is certainly on the way to being helpful. This gives you the chance to specify a trusted neighbour to take it for you or a safe secret place where they can leave it. But it is still not ideal.

My delivery choice wish list

How about ecommerce websites giving a full range of delivery options? People like choice, it makes them feel like they have a say in the process. The range of options could look like this:

1. Free delivery – arrives 2–4 days
2. Standard delivery – arrives 1-2 days
3. Express delivery – arrives next day
4. Super Delivery – Arrives within a specified time slot of customer’s choice.
5. Special Evening delivery – Arrives after 7pm at night.
6. Weekend Delivery – Arrives at a specified time on the weekend.
7. Flying carpet delivery – Arrives at exactly the moment the customer specifies.

Well, if you had this many options for delivery you would certainly be spoiled for choice.

I have covered many ecommerce web design and business issues in these previous articles:

Types of Successful Ecommerce websites

Ecommerce peeves and must haves - Boost those conversion rates.

Anyone got any other ecommerce delivery solution ideas out there? Anyone want to rant about ecommerce delivery issues?

Toni

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I know that I am not by any means the first to raise this issue, nor will I be the last. But I do think that it is always a worthy topic for discussion. There are many areas of design where a greener solution could be chosen. The first and most obvious one for me is packaging design.

I was listening to the radio a few weeks ago and they were discussing the reason why a cucumber needs to be shrink wrapped in plastic.

The supermarket spokesperson gave these reasons:
a) We need to get the bar code on there for the cashier to scan.
b) It will stay fresh for 12 days in the fridge.

My response to this was who on earth wants to keep a cucumber for 12 days, it defeats the whole idea of eating FRESH food!! And if the supermarkets are insistent that the bar code needs to be on the vegetable then perhaps a sticker as shown below would be a better alternative?

I also felt the need to include this image of a single aubergine packed in plastic. What a ridiculous waste of resources, energy, land fill space etc. It is on a par with plastic trays displaying a couple of avocados or apples which are then wrapped again in plastic. Grrrrrrr!

Since the obvious solution of banning plastic packaging for food doesn’t look likely to happen anytime soon, why is biodegradable plastic not used more often? Well it’s down to the increased cost to produce it I guess, they wouldn’t want to eat into those gazillion pound profit margins.

Here is an example of a packaging manufacturer who use bio-plastics that are 100% biodegradable, with a low carbon footprint and are made from annually renewable plants:

London Bio Packaging Full marks to you!

I would also like to link to Noisy decent graphic’s blog on the subject who were the main influence for my blog. They have gone into much more detail, also raising the question of the involvement of the designers in the whole process of food packaging. A great read.

Graphic design for print is another area that can be looked at. The print industry is the 5th largest manufacturing industry in the UK and has the 6th worst pollution record. It is a resource intensive industry that is mostly unsustainable. Print companies and Design agencies should at least be offering their clients print services that use recycled paper or paper from sustainable forests as a green alternative.

Anyway, this is a huge topic and I don’t want to rant on about it too much but I would be most interested to hear any of your opinions on this subject.

Toni

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