Grinds My Gears: Canadian Tire Website | September 14th, 2008
I am going to run with Dion’s frustrating user experiences, or what I like to alternatively call “grinds my gears” care of Peter Griffin.
At any rate, like all good Canucks I have spent many hours wandering the isles of my local Canadian Tire store looking for a hammer, cooler, fishing rod, car part, or hockey stick. In general the in store experience of Canadian is a nice one that brings back memories of childhood for many. Canadian Tire stores from my experience (aside from the new Wal-Martesque mega stores) are notoriously dirty and unorganized and when you finally make your purchases you always get your Canadian Tire money that goes into the car glove compartment never to be seen again.
Meanwhile the Canadian Tire website experience starts something like the image below…
The first thing that they want to know is your postal code. WTF! I just want to buy something, take my Canadian Tire money, and leave. I definitely do not want to engage in a relationship beyond that with you Canadian Tire and yet just to browse your products I have to enter my postal code.
Now I know that Canadians tend to be pushovers (though not always) but I can’t help wonder how much more money Canadian Tire would make if they did not require people to enter their postal code just to browse. If anyone reading knows someone with any pull at Canadian Tire online please put me in touch because I want to buy a solar panel from them!
September 15th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
When I was in university I read a case study on the Canadian Tire website. Its relevant to know that they actually don’t really sell that much through the site itself, but people log on every Saturday and Sunday morning to see what specials are happening at their local outlet. Then they drive down to the actual store and buy there. That’s why they really need your postal code up front so they can show you the specials at the local store. Anyway, it’s considered to be a very successful site.
September 15th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Use JC Whitney for solar panels. I have bought three panels from them. They are great about warranty work too.
http://www.jcwhitney.com/RV-Solar-Battery-Chargers-Accessories/600016460.jcw
September 15th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Thanks for the tip Bryan - might go and purchase from there.
@alexei the world has changed a lot since you left university you know! The least they could do is let people browse and enter their post code _only_ when they want to check the availability of the first item while they are visiting the site. Surely there are many better solutions than to try and turn people away on the first page! Home Depot I am sure does just fine.
OfficeDepot also asks for the post code but at least lets you get to the website homepage first - which has changed sometime in the past two years since they used to do it like Canadian Tire.
September 18th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
The Internet might have changed, but Canadian Tire’s customers might not have. As I recall they did some research to show that this is the normal purchasing behavior of their customers. I personally don’t see the big deal with entering my postal code. I can guess why they want it, and its probably going to give me more relevant results. I mean, who buys nails off the Internet. Of course you’re going to go down to the store.. but I might check to see if there are any deals - that might determine if I’m going tomorrow or right now.
This issue is really about the value of customer segmentation. It might be worthwhile to take the hit on conversions with the postal code-step than to not know where people are shopping at. The Richmond CanTire is probably serving a different market than the North Van one. Maybe they want to see more deals on Jungle Gym’s instead of shovels.
Overall I don’t think it’s as cut-and-dry as you’ve portrayed it. You may be right, but then again you don’t know what they know.