It was laughed at by consumers. There was a time not long ago when buying anything from internet was considered taboo because, you said it, fear of losing your credit card information to scammers.
> There was a time not long ago when buying anything from internet was considered taboo because, you said it, fear of losing your credit card information to scammers.
That's a distinctly American problem. As is the (over)use of credit cards in general.
Here in Europe, the main worry was simply paying in advance and not getting the item. Early on, the popular choice was just paying to the postman on delivery - it moved some of the risk on to the seller, but it was balanced out by the seller making this option ~50% more expensive. It took some time for people to get used to dispute processes in marketplaces, and then for the laws to be updated with additional safeguards (e.g. 14 days no-questions-asked return policy for online purchases, which I think is an EU directive), and at some point, transferring money in advance of delivery became a normal practice. That was even before payment gateways, or even smartphones, became ubiquitous.
American here, I remember buying some items online via check because of the fear of credit card theft, haha. It wasn't super common but I did it a few times. You'd "purchase" the item online, get a code in response, and you'd write the code in the memo area of the check and mail it out. I was definitely scared I'd never receive my package but thankfully it always worked out. I never paid too much for that reason, I think the most I paid was $90 for a hard to find game cartridge.
Not just this, but you couldn't see the product. In a store you can look at the product, see how it feels, try it on, test it out, etc. Early online shopping was a big gamble with different stores having different rules. It was often a frustrating experience.
Distance selling regulations helped with it a lot. I can buy a product online and if I'm not happy with it, for any reason, I can send it back for a refund. This just isn't the case with shopping in a store.
I learned this the hard way twice buying in store from Argos in the UK, only to get home and find I had bought a used product which someone else had returned already. Argos refused to refund or replace the items because they are used.
I looked this up at the time and it seemed to be a common occurrence, I can only assume people returned items they bought online and Argos just put them back on the shelves.
Had I bought it online and had it delivered to my house I could have returned it. I buy online wherever possible now.
Interestingly "click-and-collect" services are not covered by distance selling regulations which is how I got burned twice by Argos.
If you want to sell something like clothes where purchase without trial results in very high returns, you need to build this into your model. The way Old Navy does returns means you can buy multiples and send 80%+ of them back very easily. Their business model is completely based on anything less than 100% returns is a win, so they optimize very differently than say, "how can we reduce returns to single digits?"
Pretty much every clothing brand out there, and usually more often than once a year.
Also at this point they don't give a damn about quality controls. E.g. there was a time when you could order shoes online rather reliably. Today? What you get in the mail is barely correlated with the size you specified on the order.
From the last 10 days: we order two pairs for our kids, size X and Y - which we selected by actually following measurement instructions of the shoe company. When the order comes, it it turns out size X is too big for the younger kid, size Y is too small for the older. We return those, and order again, this time sizes (X-1) and (Y+1). What we got is... the (X-1) shoes were identical to X shoes (therefore still too large); the (Y+1) shoes were like Y+3 - way overshooting the target.
This was same models, same company, with no logistical confusion according to labels. Just one of multiple similar events we had (and many more I heard about from others) where the size of shoes received was pretty much random. So this is one category of goods that we're going back to buying in person.
And yes, that means dragging a 1.5 y.o. and a 4 y.o. into a shoe store in a large mall - the very one I mentioned above. Yes, our kids will likely get overwhelmed by lights and wares and ads, and start making all kinds of scenes. I don't care. If the store doesn't want a scene, they should not be routinely fucking up their order sizes.
I have never experienced this buying shoes from both big and small brands. Adidas, Nike, Allbirds, Converse, John Elliott, Beckett Simonon, etc. Maybe kids shoes are a different ballgame?
Also never experienced this with clothes. I buy everything online and it always fits as I would expect from the measurements listed on the website.
I have experienced this with Levi jeans. I buy a nice pair of jeans, they fit well, look nice, affordable etc. I need more jeans, so I go to the store a month later and try on a bunch of different jeans. One pair says they are the same size but fit entirely different, so I chalk it up as being a different "fit" of jeans. Nope, when I get home, they were an IDENTICAL pair, but fit like a different size.
For me (not the guy you responded to) the big thing is shoes. When I find a pair I like I’ll often buy two or three extra pairs (often online) in other colorways but when those wear out they usually aren’t made anymore or I want to try something new. Boots and shoes (especially rock climbing shoes) seem to never be consistently sized, even inside the same brand, and I need to try them on to get them to fit right. Can’t really think of anything else off the top of my head!
I do find shoes sometimes have inconsistent sizing between brands, but they usually say something like "runs 1/2 size small". Worst comes to worst I can compare size charts with a pair that I already own.
It's never a crapshoot where I can't rely on their sizing at all.
That's a distinctly American problem. As is the (over)use of credit cards in general.
Here in Europe, the main worry was simply paying in advance and not getting the item. Early on, the popular choice was just paying to the postman on delivery - it moved some of the risk on to the seller, but it was balanced out by the seller making this option ~50% more expensive. It took some time for people to get used to dispute processes in marketplaces, and then for the laws to be updated with additional safeguards (e.g. 14 days no-questions-asked return policy for online purchases, which I think is an EU directive), and at some point, transferring money in advance of delivery became a normal practice. That was even before payment gateways, or even smartphones, became ubiquitous.