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Amazon.com is Beta Testing a new method for displaying other buying choices when a product is offered by more than one Merchant. This new method brings the first three ‘best priced’ buying choice front and center on the product page as opposed to the current method of having other buying choices in a box to the right, below the ‘Buy Box’.
The current method suffers from the fact that it requires potential customers to go to a second page that has a ‘jumble’ of New and Used buying choices. This creates the opportunity of causing some customer confusion and forces the potential customer to navigate a window not as commonly seen.
The Beta Test currently shows three buying option tabs while relegating the rest of the buying choices to the second page. Access to the rest of the buying options has been moved over from the right side of the screen as well. this information for these additional buying options now occupy a space where a fourth tab could have been located. In this space it tells you how many additional buying choices are available and offers a ‘text’ hotlink to click on to take you to another page to view these buying choices.
Esthetically, the design is more pleasing to the eye since it helps to eliminate some of the ‘boxy’ and cluttered look Amazon.com and many other online retailers suffer from.
Clicking each of the tabs ‘activates’ that particular buying choice and allows the potential customer the opportunity to view the Merchants details without navigating away from the product page. Buy Box-eligible merchant offers previously appearing in ‘More Buying Choices’ list format will be presented more prominently alongside the buy box winning offer in click-able tabs just beneath the availability message.
Each tab contains unique information set up by the specified Merchant and pertains only to making a purchase from the Merchant that is currently highlighted. Customers who click on the new offer tabs will now be able to view offer-specific promotion information directly below the active tab, making it easier for the customer to evaluate the other buy box eligible offers without having to leave the detail page.
This new method for displaying alternate buying choices offers a great advantage to the top three Merchants for a particular product, while essentially telling the rest of the Merchants offering the same product at a higher price or poor shipping terms to rethink your pricing or go away. The horizontal presentation makes it easier for customers to compare item pricing + shipping across all buy box eligible offers.
The one downside of this is that some customers may be confused by what they see and may make a purchase from one of the slightly higher priced options, if they have activated the wrong tab. This will cause higher incidents of Buyer’s Remorse and potentially unfairly impact a Merchant’s Feedback.
All in all, this is a definite design improvement, but a definitive Launch with detailed explanation may be required to reduce customer confusion and higher incidents of canceled orders.
This Beta is currently being used in the Electronics Department for what Amazon.com refers to as a ’subset of our customers’. Store wide launch date has been announced at this time.
