Competing against patents

By Kristoffer Bohmann, Bohmann Usability

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I was left rather confused by a recent column by Jakob Nielsen about usability differences between two fulfillment providers - Amazon.com versus Wordsworth.

First, Nielsen states that usability matters. Usability at Amazon.com is better than Wordsworth.com. Result: Users buy from Amazon, not Wordsworth.

Wordsworth could, however, change the situation by improving their ordering process. (1) Use the standard term shopping "cart", not "bag". (2) Add confirmation screen that shows the shopping cart and its contents. (3) Make the checkout button more visible.

Second, branding matters more than usability (at present). Amazon wins in the short run because users trust Amazon more. So, any usability improvement made by Wordsworth will have little or no effect on sales. Why bother... ;-)

Third, technological changes are likely to make Amazon's current branding advantage obsolete. In particular, reputation management sites will rank less-known sites (e.g., Wordsworth) and make users more likely to buy from them if they receive acceptable rankings.

Conclusion: Usability work has no effect (!) if you are competing with Amazon. Instead, sites should sit down and wait (or die), while their affiliates should link to Amazon or become reputation managers.

Implication: Patents are the number one factor that inhibits online capitalism on a large scale (many sellers, many buyers, etc.). The solution is to create open source technologies that destroys the value of ecommerce patents and makes less-known sites more trustworthy.

Kristoffer Bohmann

Competing against patents

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