Firstly, a preface. At The VG Press there are some text ads, and the revenue for those ads goes to a PayPal account. All revenue generated goes back into the site, so for E3 we had a contest and the winner won a game or points card. Because the audience on the site is international, the easiest way to ship the prize would be to order it to the address of the winner, as opposed by buy it then send it myself. Not only is it cheaper due to it only being needed to be shipped once, but it allows the shipment to come from the country of origin.
Which then led me to yesterday to get that sent to the winner, who lives in Florida. My first stop was Amazon, but consequently Amazon does not accept PayPal. Moving onto Best Buy, PayPal is accepted. As well, the orders can be put through as a guest, so I don't need to sign up for anything, which is also a bonus. Getting to the order information screen, I was unable to put the billing address to myself as it only accepted American addresses (even through there is a Canadian Best Buy site). Not a big deal since it's an online transaction and a billing address is relatively meaningless. Everything in place, I go to place the order and...cannot pay using a non-American PayPal account. This despite the funds being in American dollars. This is not a limitation of PayPal, but a bizarre choice by Best Buy.
So let's go to GameStop. I search for the points card, and... "Currently Not Available Online."
Starting to run out of stores now. Toys R Us? Item just isn't listed.
NewEgg? Well I find the Wii Points card, and add it to the cart. At checkout, they want me to sign in -- fine, I already have an account. Signing in just seems to refresh the page without an error message or anything. I try again and it takes me to an unrelated page. I go to checkout again, and the process repeats. Looks like they don't like Opera, so I open Chrome. Okay, now we're getting somewhere. Fill out the order information, alright, they want a phone number hrmf *fake number*. Just about there... "We're sorry but we're not able to process your order completely. The shipping address information we received from PayPal indicated that your address status is "unconfirmed". Unfortunately NewEgg only ships to confirmed PayPal addresses. Mind you that "confirmed addresses" can by definition only be your own address, meaning you can't ship to anyone else.
Walmart, then. Searching for "Wii Points Card" immediately brings up a Wii Console -- not what I want. A more general search for "Wii Points" brings up a long list of things, but somewhere in the middle the card appears. Go to checkout, and Walmart wants me to create an account as well. Fine, whatever at this point. Enters typical information..."Password must be between 6-11 characters". This is getting ridiculous. Ultimately, eventually, painfully it gets down, and the order shipped.
No fewer than five different American retailers lost a sale by not being able to take my money. They may as well have said, "We're sorry, but we unable to accept your payment at this time." Meanwhile, it's an exercise in atrocious web usability. There is no need whatsoever for a user to have to create an account to checkout. Arbitrary limitations that essentially prevent you from sending gifts are inexplicable. Password length limitations announce to the world that you aren't hashing your passwords. And a country-centric look with disregard for international customers undermines the advantage of having an online presence in the first place.
An average user would not have tried multiple browsers. An average user would not know what a "confirmed address" is. And an average user would have given up long ago. For myself, I'd have ordered directly through the Wii long prior. Meanwhile the consoles themselves are decidedly non-international, restricting games and online stores by region.
How about we get some semblance of usability or just common sense?
Which then led me to yesterday to get that sent to the winner, who lives in Florida. My first stop was Amazon, but consequently Amazon does not accept PayPal. Moving onto Best Buy, PayPal is accepted. As well, the orders can be put through as a guest, so I don't need to sign up for anything, which is also a bonus. Getting to the order information screen, I was unable to put the billing address to myself as it only accepted American addresses (even through there is a Canadian Best Buy site). Not a big deal since it's an online transaction and a billing address is relatively meaningless. Everything in place, I go to place the order and...cannot pay using a non-American PayPal account. This despite the funds being in American dollars. This is not a limitation of PayPal, but a bizarre choice by Best Buy.
So let's go to GameStop. I search for the points card, and... "Currently Not Available Online."
Starting to run out of stores now. Toys R Us? Item just isn't listed.
NewEgg? Well I find the Wii Points card, and add it to the cart. At checkout, they want me to sign in -- fine, I already have an account. Signing in just seems to refresh the page without an error message or anything. I try again and it takes me to an unrelated page. I go to checkout again, and the process repeats. Looks like they don't like Opera, so I open Chrome. Okay, now we're getting somewhere. Fill out the order information, alright, they want a phone number hrmf *fake number*. Just about there... "We're sorry but we're not able to process your order completely. The shipping address information we received from PayPal indicated that your address status is "unconfirmed". Unfortunately NewEgg only ships to confirmed PayPal addresses. Mind you that "confirmed addresses" can by definition only be your own address, meaning you can't ship to anyone else.
Walmart, then. Searching for "Wii Points Card" immediately brings up a Wii Console -- not what I want. A more general search for "Wii Points" brings up a long list of things, but somewhere in the middle the card appears. Go to checkout, and Walmart wants me to create an account as well. Fine, whatever at this point. Enters typical information..."Password must be between 6-11 characters". This is getting ridiculous. Ultimately, eventually, painfully it gets down, and the order shipped.
No fewer than five different American retailers lost a sale by not being able to take my money. They may as well have said, "We're sorry, but we unable to accept your payment at this time." Meanwhile, it's an exercise in atrocious web usability. There is no need whatsoever for a user to have to create an account to checkout. Arbitrary limitations that essentially prevent you from sending gifts are inexplicable. Password length limitations announce to the world that you aren't hashing your passwords. And a country-centric look with disregard for international customers undermines the advantage of having an online presence in the first place.
An average user would not have tried multiple browsers. An average user would not know what a "confirmed address" is. And an average user would have given up long ago. For myself, I'd have ordered directly through the Wii long prior. Meanwhile the consoles themselves are decidedly non-international, restricting games and online stores by region.
How about we get some semblance of usability or just common sense?
Recently Spotted:
*crickets*
Well thanks again, and as always thank you for this great site.
Definitely not meant to make you feel bad. I've made web usability a topic of interest for the past year, so I like to explore these things anyhow.
I was aware of the options. With the card, you can choose what to buy when you want without feeling any sort of obligation. You could sit on those points for months without concern. Traversing the web is what I do -- no trouble. The trouble is particular for those who don't. And thank you for all you've brought to the site yourself.
A few years back a friend of mine in Canada wanted to buy an Xbox original one, for a girl in the states. He went through such an amazing hassle. Not BB or Newegg or TRU nor Amazon would allow shipping to someone other than him, plus the out of country deal. Finally he came across J&R music and they were able to do it but it literally took him weeks to figure out where to buy it. He almost gave up and sent me the money and I was going to send it to her in Las Vegas from Chicago. It's sad to see this has not changed a lot since 7 or 8 years ago.