I will never forget the first time I shopped online, I thought “Wow, this great, simple way to feed the shopping addiction I have.” Initially, I hesitated jumping on the online shopping bandwagon, thinking the process would easily frustrate me. I worried about misleading products and having to deal with various return policies. However, I was wrong; online shopping has made shopping so much easier at the click of a button. However, I was let down recently when I went to make a purchase at Fabletics.com.
Fabletics.com features an athletic apparel line for women created by Kate Hudson and JustFab Inc. I thought “Look at Kate Hudson, she’s fabulous. I want to be fabulous.” This is when I decided to venture to the website. My first impression of the site was that it was fairly easy to navigate, with simple fonts and a nice little drop down arrow where it says “shop”. The site makes it obvious where to click on things, the prices stand out, and the merchandise is presented well. I had the perfect outfit selected and was eager to checkout. As I went to purchase I noticed it did not take me to my shopping cart, and a quiz popped up. The first wave of frustration came over me as I discovered I had to complete the quiz to purchase. The quiz is made to customize your shopping experience. I thought this was a nice feature and would make my shopping experience more efficient in the future.
What I did not realize is that to shop on Fabletics.com you must sign up to be billed every month for merchandise, and must skip each month by a certain date if you do not wish to purchase that month. I found it irritating that I would have to go through the lengthy process of a quiz and remember to cancel subscriptions to make a single purchase. This I did not like; I feel that this complicated the entire checkout. When reading Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug something emphasized throughout the first couple of chapters is that the website user is always in a hurry. This is a very true fact, and imagine trying to explain how this site works to your grandma, I doubt she would remember to cancel that subscription or take the time to take a quiz every time she shops. I won’t be expecting any gifts from Fabletics.com from grandma any time soon, because the site complicates one-time purchases.
A sad ending to the story, as much as I loved the athletic wear on Fabletics.com I never purchased anything, because I find the checkout process to be a headache. It would be wise for Fabletics.com to allow guest checkouts that do not require any kind of subscription or extra steps to checkout. I would purchase merchandise from them frequently if they simplified the checkout process.