Example of an E-Commerce Failure

An example of an E-Commerce failure is boo.com. Boo.com was a British Internet company and selling products like clothing and cosmetics.

Why will boo.com failed in their online business? The causes were Boo.com’s sales did not match expectations, due partly to the very high number of products returned by customers. Poor management and a lack of communication between departments resulted in costs spiraling unchecked—the effectiveness of an eye-catching (and expensive) ad campaign was limited because the website wasn't ready in time, resulting in curious visitors being greeted with a holding page.

Beside, boo.com website was widely criticized as poorly designed for its target audience, going against many usability conventions. The site relied heavily on JavaScript and Flash technology to display pseudo-3D views of wares as well as Miss Boo, a sales-assistant-style avatar. The first publicly released version of the site was fairly hefty—the home page alone was several hundred kilobytes which meant that the vast majority of users had to wait minutes for the site to load.

Furthermore, complicated design required the site to be displayed in a fixed size window, which limited the space available to display product information to the customer. Navigation techniques changed as the customer moved around the site, which appealed to those who were visiting to see the website but frustrated those who simply wanted to buy clothes.

Lastly, its interface was also complex with a hierarchical system that required the user to answer four or five different questions before revealing that there were no products in stock in a particular sub-section. The same basic questions then had to be answered again until results were found.