After researching the hotel options for an upcoming trip, I knew exactly which hotel I wanted to stay at. The only thing left was to pick the right type of room. Even though the property only had about 50 rooms in total, they claimed to offer six different room types.

Once I read through the paragraph of text describing each room type, I determined which one met my requirements. But something bugged me about the process: why did this hotel, like so many others, inundate customers with such a long list of room types? Isn’t there a better way to present these options?

In my case, the room types were nearly identical, aside from the king versus queen bed and the optional kitchenette. The hotel probably could have reduced the selection from six types to three, and nobody would notice the difference.

Along these lines, there’s another way to make choosing a room easier for customers. Instead of presenting the room types in a list, and forcing customers to read a bunch of text about each one, just present the information in the form of a comparison chart. By highlighting how the rooms are the same and how they’re different, you’ll be giving customers everything they need to make a quick and accurate decision. So, even if a legacy booking system requires you to present a long list of room types, at least you can provide customers with a more efficient way of picking the right one — without asking them to wade through paragraphs of text about every room.

In the limited subset of stores and restaurants that I visited during the holidays, the Christmas music was anything but subtle. Every year, it seems, the music gets louder, and the selection of songs gets narrower. For whatever reason, the powers that be have decided that customers respond best to loud, repetitive holiday music.

This raises an interesting question: if the overall consumer environment during the holidays is becoming increasingly polarizing, why don’t retailers start designating a few “quiet” shopping days during the holiday season? On those dates, the Christmas music would be turned way down or replaced with non-holiday fare. And to make this a low-risk endeavor, they could test the quiet shopping day concept during a few of the traditionally weaker days on the calendar, with the promotional campaign limited to specific marketing channels.

For a certain subset of customers, the opportunity to shop and dine in relative peace would be a very attractive proposition. And for the businesses that allocate a few days towards making those customers happy, the incremental revenues should more than compensate for the perceived risk of deviating from the usual holiday soundtrack.

The new grocery store in my neighborhood is rather massive, with two floors and an incredible selection of products. So when I needed wrapping paper for the holidays, I figured I could stop by and find plenty of choices there. However, the only gift wrap I saw was a rather sad collection of wrapping paper near the checkout area.

Thinking that I must have walked right past the good stuff, I asked several staff members if they had anything besides the box up front. The employees said that was all they carried, and seemed puzzled that I was expecting them to have a bigger selection of wrapping supplies.

Here’s the thing: if you’re going to make an effort to carry seasonal items, it pays to do it right. For instance, instead of dedicating a modest amount of space to the same junky collection of gift wrap that people could find at any number of places, make the display a little bigger and include a better selection of wrapping supplies. In other words, if you’re known for offering a diverse selection of products in regular categories, then apply the same merchandising approach to the seasonal items. That way, you’ll give customers what they’re looking for, and generate more revenues in the process.

I always keep a relatively compact umbrella in my travel bag, though it takes up a fairly significant amount of space for something that I use so infrequently. So, I recently started looking for a smaller, lighter replacement. What I found is that a lot of different umbrellas are marketed with terms like these:

- Travel size

- Mini

- Micro

- Compact

- Lightweight

However, the vast majority of them are no smaller or lighter than the one I already have.

Granted, it’s possible that my current umbrella is already state of the art. More likely, though, is that the manufacturers’ notion of terms like “travel size” is a lot different than how consumers like me interpret those same terms. This probably leads to a lot of disappointed customers who were expecting a much smaller and lighter item than what they received.

What’s the solution? It’s quite simple, really: if you’re marketing something as “travel size”, make sure that the description of the product that you provide to retailers and on your website includes the dimensions and weight of the product. If you can couple this with a photo showing the product alongside a common object to help customers form a visual estimate of its size, that’s even better. But don’t fall into the trap of just calling something travel size without backing it up with some basic specifications, since that’s a recipe for unhappy customers and above-average return rates.

While working through my shopping list at a local store, I spotted a rather strange approach to product sampling. A particular tissue brand was apparently trying to get customers to touch and experience their new design. So, the product display contained a supply of tissues sticking out the front, along with a call to action about trying one.

There are several problems here. First, could there be anything grosser than asking shoppers to blow their nose? Who knows how many germs would end up dispersed throughout the store if the call to action was successful. Second, the display included a trash area where people could place the used product. The trash bin was crystal clear and mounted at eye level, leaving the dirty tissues for all to see.

When I encountered the display, the new tissues were gone and the trash area was filled with dirty ones. Accordingly, I would be more inclined to associate the advertised product with overflowing garbage than with anything remotely related to cleanliness and hygiene. So if you’re ever involved with designing a product sampling station that has a built-in trash repository, make sure that the trash area is opaque or well-hidden enough that it doesn’t steal the show from the actual product.

If you’ve ever looked through a series of pictures that were taken by your friends or family, chances are that some of those photos have the date printed in the corner. In many cases, the date stamp can be helpful, such as figuring out which trip the photo came from. However, it’s not always desirable to include the date when displaying the picture in an online album, printed photo book, and so on.

Obviously, you can just crop the picture and leave out the part where the date appears. However, that also means you’ll lose a potentially valuable piece of the foreground and background. There’s another solution here, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone try it.

In short, the sites that you let display and print photos could provide an option to cover up the date stamp with something else. For instance, you could put a solid color block with a title or caption there, or upload a small image to cover up the date. Either way, giving customers another option for removing date stamps seems like a smart move, and should increase their satisfaction with photo-related websites and printing services.

Over the weekend, my wife and I created a customized photo book as a holiday gift for some of our family members. The process was labor-intensive and frustrating, but we somehow managed to complete the book. There was only one step left: entering our billing and shipping information.

After we clicked the button to start the checkout process, a progress bar appeared. As most progress bars are known to do, it began by showing 0% complete. At least a minute went by, and nothing had changed: still 0%. We were getting worried that the site had crashed, and there was no indication of how to start the checkout process again. Finally, the bar began counting upward, and we were prompted to enter the appropriate info.

Clearly, it’s not ideal to leave the customer staring at a progress bar for minutes on end, especially if it’s stuck on 0% the whole time. Instead, make sure the progress bar is accompanied by some sort of other status indicator that stays in motion. Heck, a flashing line of text that says “Working…” or “Please wait…” is better than nothing. Of course, the optimal solution is to ensure that your site responds so quickly that progress bars are irrelevant, but it always helps to have a backup plan to retain the customer’s trust and confidence during the transaction process.

A few days ago, I saw a really neat leather jacket on the website of a mainstream clothing retailer. It looked like a great product — except for the price. Despite virtually all of the store’s items being priced at $100 or less, the jacket in question was listed at a jaw-dropping $400+.

Even on sale, I couldn’t imagine who would pay that much for anything this particular retailer offered. In short, the pricing was way out of line with how the brand is positioned and the other items they sell.

In a situation like this, you have several options. For example, you can keep the high-priced product under the regular brand umbrella, but add a detailed narrative explaining why it’s so costly (premium materials, limited edition, etc.). Or, you could create a sub-brand to encompass the higher-priced items, and position the sub-brand as being associated with premium offerings. Either way, you’ll help customers to quickly reconcile the disparity in pricing and positioning, and thus free up their minds to make a buying decision based on the product’s merits.

In the past, I’ve lamented that there was no way to buy an ebook as a gift, and request that it be delivered to the recipient at a future date, e.g. on their birthday or during a specific holiday. However, now that at least one of the major online retailers allows you to choose a future delivery date for ebook gifts, I’m left with a different question: why can’t you buy a physical item as a gift today, and elect to have it shipped later?

This functionality would come in handy for any situation where you want to make the purchase today and have the item delivered in the future. For example, the product might be on sale right now and you’d like to lock in a low price, but it’s too bulky to keep on hand for weeks or months until the gift occasion arrives. Or, you’ve made the decision about what to buy and are worried that it may sell out later, but you can’t exactly have it sent to your friend or relative months ahead of time and just expect them to leave it unopened.

With that said, I see some challenges with delayed shipments as well. For instance, will manufacturers honor the warranty based on the ship date, or will they say it began on the purchase date? What about cancellations during the extended period from purchase to shipment? Despite these concerns, I would be very curious to see if a buy now, ship later option leads to increased sales volume, since the benefits to the gift-giving public appear to be quite substantial.

While researching what to do with an old computer, I learned that quite a few companies — including retailers and product manufacturers — offer trade-in programs for older equipment. Mine was too old to be worth anything, but slightly newer gear would have garnered at least $100 or so. And if my experience is at all typical, there seems to be very little awareness of these programs among the electronics-buying public.

There’s a very easy way to increase awareness of these initiatives. Simply put an insert into the bag or shipping box (for retailers) or the product package (for manufacturers) to let people know that the old equipment they’re replacing may be worth something. Since the trade-in programs that I’ve seen can be used before or after new products are purchased, people would be motivated to finish setting up the new stuff, and then send in the old stuff after that.

By encouraging more people to take advantage of trade-in programs, companies would help make new technology more affordable for their customers. In turn, these customers will tend to buy newer products more often, leading to increased revenues for retailers and manufacturers alike.