good product + bad website = no sale

My brother had mentioned Crumpler bags very favourably. And my oz friends also had very very good things to say about the products. So it was with the enthusiastic anticipation of a seasoned online shopper with a hot tip that I looked up and visited Crumpler's US website.



The first thing that you notice is that it is a completely flash based website.

Flash Website = Bad Website.

For a variety of reasons, including the fact that google doesn't index them.. and the non-standard (read Stupid) user interfaces that are used. The websites can be noisy, flasy, confusing, irritating.... ad nauseam.



However due to the strong endorsements for the products, I decided to wade through the flash flotsam and find and purchase a bag or a sleeve for a 15" Mac Book Pro.



But at every turn my efforts were thwarted.

First of all the very weird and obnoxious music that played automatically as you entered the site. OK, I turned that off. But that doesn't turn off the sound effects... which are weird and obnoxious too. Think teenagers' myspace page.

The language used to describe the products was the next irritant. I mean OK, it's cool to be cool and trendy and explain the type of bag with humorous and witty descriptions. BUT.. the descriptions.. if you can call 'em that... are such that the potential customer won't know whether it's a bag he's reading about or a furry sex toy or a victorian naughty book...

You are more embarrassing than a lizard without a tongue, chum, more embarrassing than Superman’s skidmarks, son, I’m gonna throw you reverse piking from the diving board with your costume up your three bum cheeks!



Let me rub my hands on you, hairy one . . . Oooh, you are like silk that’s gone rough, yes. You are like velvet that someone has blended a goat coat through, hmmm. You are so tight, tight, tight, I can see your bruschettas through you

You see? It's funny. Sure. But it doesn't help me when I'm trying to see what kinda bag or laptop case I'm going to spend $130+ on.



ANYWAY.. even after all this, I still persevere. I decide to go with a sleeve not a bag and even manage to kinda interpret some of their gibberish babytalk to choose what I wanted. And then I realised that if I ordered it online it might not arrive on time, unless I paid another $15 for rush delivery.



So I decided to look for stores in the area which would stock these products.



And that's when I almost died with frustration because of the amazingly dumb user interface that is used in order to locate stores in the US. Why? Why? Why? At the very least take pity on guys who don't have the time to go through your site like they're trying to find their way out of the crimson room. Put in a link to a regular normal text based page with the information we are searching for.



Pheww..



It was one of my worst experiences with a website designed to sell a product.



I'm sure the product is great and if I do see it in a store I will probably buy it. But man, change your website design please.



So no, I did not end up buying one. And I did not end up finding the information which would help me find the product in a brick/mortar store. So essentially, due to poor design and user interface, the website lost a customer who was willing to pony up.



I hope someone from Crumpler reads this and realizes that if they already have a great product they do not need to indulge in flashy website bells and whistles to convince the buyer. If the person is a serious buyer then you'll only scare away the fella. And if it's a person who's just stumbled upon your site, he's gonna walk away without looking back. Lose-lose situation.