If you’re a regular visitor to a certain store, it’s easy to tell which customers have never set foot in there before. These first-time shoppers walk through the door slowly, stop in random places, and generally look rather confused. Some stores put a lot of thought into the “decompression zone” just past the doorway, so why not segment this further and create a holding pen of sorts for first-timers?

To accomplish this, the store could provide a little nook or endcap targeted towards new customers. Start with signage that says something like “First time here?” Next, include a very basic map of the store, and a list of the top-selling product categories — the latter designed to show which products keep bringing customers back. And finally, use the opportunity to explain your pricing approach. In other words, do people need a loyalty card to get the best deals, and if so, how can they sign up?

In the limited swath of retail stores that I visit regularly, I don’t recall seeing any attempts to better educate first-time shoppers. However, I’m sure that some retailers have tried it out, and I bet this approach helps convert more first-time visitors into paying customers.

Over the weekend, I updated my Southwest account to include the extra info for the TSA SecureFlight program. The idea is to ensure that the name, date of birth, and gender that you give to the airline match up exactly with your driver’s license, passport, or whatever other identification document you present at the airport. Presumably, this reduces the chance that you’re mistaken for someone else who has the same name, but is on the terrorist watch list.

Dubious benefits of this program aside, I am puzzled by one aspect of how Southwest implemented it. When they ask you to enter the extra data, it says it’s a “one-time” opportunity and you only get “one chance” to update it. Sure enough, once you click Save, there’s no way to edit the info.

Granted, your date of birth can’t change, and I imagine that very few people undergo a sex change that would result in them having a new gender. But the name field presents an issue. What if you get a new ID that lacks your middle name, or just shows a middle initial? What if you start traveling with your passport instead of your driver’s license? Surely there should be a way to update your SecureFlight info.

This is probably an issue with TSA rather than Southwest itself. But I’d really like to see Southwest provide some details about how you can change your info later. Otherwise, I suspect many people will be scared by the apparent permanence of the changes and just skip the process of entering their info — thus defeating the purpose of the program in the first place.

The following scenarios have a lot more in common than you might think:

– You decide to try an online grocery service, so you visit their website to get pricing info. Each delivery is only $4.99. Your time is worth way more than five bucks, so you buy the week’s groceries online.

– You arrive at a foreign airport and need to exchange some currency. You ask what their fees are, and they say it’s a flat rate of $3.50 per transaction. Sounds like a good deal, so you give them $100 USD to exchange.

So far, so good. But what happens next? In my experience, you’re in for a nasty surprise.

– Aside from the delivery fee, the online grocer marks up every item 20-50% higher than what a regular store charges.

– Separate from the service charge, the currency exchange tacks on several extra percentage points — in their favor — when calculating the exchange rate.

What’s going on here? These businesses are engaging in a form of bait and switch. They lure you in with the promise of a very reasonable, flat rate price. Then, since you’ve already agreed to what you think it’s going to cost, it’s much easier for them to sneak in more charges. In my examples, the companies do this by inflating the prices for the core goods and services, making a ton of extra money along the way.

How can you avoid getting caught in this trap? One approach is to check the total cost and compare it to the alternatives — before you mentally commit to doing business with a company. In a perfect world, these businesses would have to provide clear, upfront disclosures of the true cost of their products and services. But since that probably won’t happen anytime soon, we all need to be on the lookout for sneaky companies that hide one fee behind another.

While walking through a busy Trader Joe’s on Saturday, I found myself in a conversation about whether the store is a better deal than places like Jewel-Osco. As anyone who reads this blog could guess, my answer was an overwhelming “yes”. I told the new shoppers about how I save at least $100/month versus any other stores in downtown Chicago, and they seemed pretty happy with the endorsement.

Basically, the prospective customers were asking me a very simple question: why do you shop here? If you asked 100 people that question, you’d probably get 100 different answers. However, I bet many of those responses would make for great testimonials. So why don’t more stores ask their repeat customers for this sort of info, and then make it a key part of their outbound messaging?

Restaurants already do a great job of this: any decent place will have a wall full of reviews, and some restaurants may even include customer quotes in the mix. Online retailers also make extensive use of testimonials. If you ask me, local stores need to adopt the same model. Find out why people shop with you, select the most convincing responses, and get big signs printed up to tell the world why your store is the best place to shop. My personalized testimonial helped bring a new customer into the Trader Joe’s family, so just imagine the impact that information would have on a larger scale.

When you’re designing for the web, perhaps the most basic rule is to make hyperlinks look different than the rest of your text. Some people take this too far, and try to think up new and often ridiculous visual treatments for their links. Blue and underlined suits me just fine, thank you.

Even worse than going overboard with your link style is going out of your way not to have a link style at all. I came across this very problem while looking for warranty repair info on the Samsonite site. Some genius at Samsonite made the links in their body text identical to the rest of the text. In other words, the links are black, non-bold, non-underlined — just like all the other text on the page. If it wasn’t for a few crudely placed “click here” phrases, I wouldn’t have known there were links on the page at all.

Obviously, this is a terrible approach. Visitors should be able to instantly discern where the links are within a page, rather than having to hunt for them by rolling over each piece of text with their mouse. Perhaps the person who designed the Samsonite website has never used the web before, or some careless person changed the CSS file without testing a single page afterwards. Either way, violating such a basic convention of web design is a surefire path towards low task completion rates and pissed-off users.

It’s happened to all of us: you go to the store to buy a specific product, only to be greeted by an empty shelf. What do you do next? You could ask a sales rep if they have more in the back, or seek out a similar item elsewhere in the store. However, I believe many shoppers choose door number three: they just give up and don’t buy anything from that category.

Why leave this to chance? Instead, create some basic signage that directs customers towards the desired behavior. For instance, say you’re the type of store that has a lot of extra inventory in the back. You could place some signage at the back or bottom of the shelf area that’s only visible when all the units are sold out, saying something like “Is this product sold out? Ask a sales rep to check the back room for more.” Or, if all your inventory is placed on the sales floor, you could use similar signage to point people towards similar items when the first item is sold out.

Either way, out-of-stock signage helps shoppers help themselves — and help the store in the process. By providing a relevant call to action, you’re increasing the chance they’ll find what they need and leave the store happy. At the same time, you’re enlisting shoppers to seek out your staff when the shelves are empty, increasing the chance that fast-selling products get replenished quickly.

I was looking at some things on the Target website, and decided to add them to my cart. However, I didn’t plan to buy them that day, but instead, sometime later in the week. Would the site save my cart for that long? Who knows. So I did the logical thing: I tried to print out the shopping cart page.

Unfortunately, the Target shopping cart isn’t designed for printing. Only three items showed up on the printout, and there was no way to print extra pages with the full contents. This is a missed opportunity: especially with higher ticker or high decision products, many shoppers will want to print out or otherwise save their item list so they can think about the purchase and easily locate those items later, without taking a chance that the online cart contents have expired.

To address this problem, e-commerce sites should ensure that their shopping cart pages can be printed out. In other words, you should provide a clean list of each item in the cart, no matter how long the list might be. For each product, include the product name along with an item number or SKU so that customers can easily find that item later on your website. And to avoid any confusion, make sure the page includes the date it was printed and some text saying that prices are subject to change. By adopting these simple changes, you’re making it much easier for customers to save and retrieve their planned purchases, which should ultimately lead to higher sales.

I often hear certain cities described as great places for “foodies” — in other words, they’re chock full of great restaurants. In the US, this list would arguably include big cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco. However, you rarely hear about how expensive the food is in those locations. Take Chicago, for instance. Most of the famous restaurants are far too expensive for regular people to eat at. You might go there for a special occasion, but they probably won’t be part of your regular rotation.

Vancouver is different. While I’m sure there are plenty of expensive and glamorous restaurants, it’s also incredibly easy to find high quality food on the cheap — without settling for a crappy atmosphere. This makes a big difference in the dining experience: for the price of a single great meal in Chicago or New York, you could probably eat out once a week for a whole month in Vancouver.

What’s the takeaway here? In cities like Vancouver where amazing food is actually affordable, the tourism board should emphasize that regular people can enjoy great food there. I’d also like to see travel magazines and websites get a little more realistic with their recommended cities and restaurants. Instead of just focusing on ultra-pricey celebrity chef operations on the high end and hole in the wall dives on the low end, they should highlight more of the mid-priced restaurants that offer high-quality food and a unique atmosphere. That way, you won’t have to blow through your entire meal budget on the first day of your trip just to enjoy some great food.

Whenever I stay in a hotel, I’m amused at the ridiculous prices associated with the minibar items. Granted, nobody’s forcing you to buy them — but I’ve noticed a disturbing trend of trickery and deception with these products. For instance, the hotel might:

– Use an automated switch system to charge you for items you merely picked up, but never opened or consumed.
– Place items you have to pay for next to free ones, hoping that you’ll eat them by mistake.
– Include extra sets of certain free items in a slightly different location, thus tricking you into thinking every copy of that item is free.

To me, this approach is rather unethical and is bound to create consumer backlash over time. What’s the solution? I’d like to see a clear and obvious label on every pay-for item in the room. Regardless of the text they choose, the label needs to convey the idea that “if you open or use this product, we’re going to charge you for it.”

Would better labeling of minibar items reduce hotel revenues? Probably a bit, as fewer customers would be duped into paying for things they thought were free. However, it should also lead to greater customer loyalty in the long run. After all, is an extra $15 in minibar fees enough to justify scaring a customer away for life?

While visiting Vancouver last week, I had the opportunity to ride the Canada Line train from the YVR airport to downtown Vancouver. This was my first experience with Vancouver’s SkyTrain system, and I came away quite impressed. Here are some of the things they’re doing right, along with a few areas where they could improve.

The good:

– The train station is very close to the airport: just walk out the doors from the main concourse, cross the street, and you’re there.
– The train cars are clean and modern, with wide aisles and big windows at the end of each car. (Looking out the front window made it feel like a ride at Epcot Center!)
– It’s so quiet on the train that you can talk at a normal volume, and maybe even at a whisper.
– Compared to taking a cab, the Canada Line is vastly cheaper. Even when they add the airport surcharge next year, the cost advantage should remain significant.

The bad:

– While the train station is close to the airport terminal, you have to walk outside to get there. It rains a lot in Vancouver, so they should find a way to cover that walkway.
– Exterior signage, at least at the Vancouver City Centre station, was incomplete. One sign said “YVR” instead of “YVR airport”, which is likely to confuse people who think of it as the Vancouver airport or are just looking for the word “airport”.
– The ticketing kiosks are really hard to use. Instead of asking where you’re going, they present the ticket choices in terms of how many “zones” you will be crossing. And the process for buying more than one ticket is confusing, too. They should just ask how many people are traveling, rather than force you to hunt for the right menu option.
– There is no way to buy future day tickets at the kiosks. Apparently, you can buy a bulk pack at various retail stores, but every ticket from the kiosk expires 90 minutes after purchase. Needless to say, the lack of advance purchase options leads to added anxiety (and probably long lines) during peak travel periods.

I suspect that many of my concerns will be addressed over time, and the Canada Line will continue to improve. Overall, the new train system is a huge asset to Vancouver, and something to look forward to if you’re visiting the city.