At Home with BeHOME
by Heather Champ
This week's column is the first in a series looking into the different
aspects of online shopping interfaces.
Emily Davidow, partner in
Digital Elements, very kindly agreed to answer a few of my questions
regarding her beautiful site BeHOME. BeHOME is the online presence of Benchmark
Industries, an upscale home design and furnishings retailer in Kansas
City.
BeHOME utilizes Netscape's Secure Commerce Server and was highlighted in
a Netscape Commerce Solutions Case Study.
"BeHOME aims to be a total resource for home decorating, home theater, and home office products. 'We created BeHome as a tool to help people express themselves,' says Emily Davidow. . . . Beyond offering products for sale, the site includes comprehensive information about home-theater technology, and editorial content about home decorating is on the way. 'Guests are able to find and share ideas and solutions for their homes, or ask direct questions to experts in each field and get an immediate response,' Davidow says."
Heather Champ: What is BeHOME?
Emily Davidow: BeHOME is a magalog (magazine+catalog) of
home furnishings. I wanted to create a beautiful shelter magazine like the
glossies you see on the stands, but without having to flip to the back of
the book if you were interested in a product, with your fingers crossed,
hoping it's available in your area and price range. On the Web, we could
deliver to anyone anywhere and offer tremendous value.HC: How does the interface works?
ED: You can shop BeHOME in several ways--if you're mostly shopping for ideas, you can read through the feature articles; if anything interests you--you can click to learn about the products that make up the rooms and order. You can also shop by department as you would in a store. If you know what you are looking for you can do a search by keyword or manufacturer. Product pages are created on the fly from a database so that the price and quantity in stock is always current.
HC: Has the interface of the online shopping changed? If it has changed are the changes a result of comments from users of advances in technology or both?
ED: The outward appearance hasn't changed that dramatically, but the processes that create it have gotten much more sophisticated. Originally, most of our customers were checking us out from work on high-speed lines. Now, more and more people are viewing from home on slow connections. We want people to get as much detail as they want without having to wait.
What we also found was that people were using BeHOME for preshopping. People would walk into the Benchmark Home Furnishings Stores in Kansas City, sponsors of the BeHOME Web site, with printouts from the Web pages asking to see those sofas or rugs and then buying them at the store. In the beginning we carried a lot of unique merchandise on the Web site that the stores ended up carrying as well because so many people walked in the stores asking where those products were. Benchmark promotes the site in their local newspaper and television advertising, so people in that area don't see BeHOME as an unknown quantity, but an extension of a store that has been a part of their neighborhood for 29 years, which is a tremendous advantage.
It's easy to forget sometimes that the Web is worldwide, for we get frequent international orders as well. It's important when you conceive of a shopping site to determine your policies for worldwide shipping (even if it's just not to offer it for now) before you start and post it somewhere obvious so as not to disappoint potential customers.
HC: Many users are wary of sending their credit card information through the Web. Do you offer an alternative for those individuals?
ED: People can place their order through SSL on a Netscape Commerce Server, but if they are uncomfortable giving their credit cards over the Web, they may fax their order in, dial a 1-800 number, or even mail a check.
HC: Do you have any advise for designers who are developing online shopping sites?
ED: The interface here needs to be as simple and easy to understand as possible. What's cool should be the products, values, and descriptions, not a hard-to-understand interface.
