Praise for Amazon.com (as a customer)

Many times I've been involved in conversations about what makes a website successful. Features, features, features. Bells and whistles. This and that. But what has never changed in the 12 years I've worked on websites as a merchandising professional, the one thing that never changes is the basics.  

Amazon.com is not perfect in many ways especially for those who know the site well. But that is only because what it offers or what it can do is so far beyond any website in the world, what it needs to work on respectively to what it does right is merely edge case in comparison.

Today I ordered a bunch of things that I will ask my mom to bring from the U.S.: running shoes, cosmetics, saran wrap and aluminum foil, powdered water flavoring, and facial wash. The site had everything I wanted and when I entered my credit card, the order pipeline recognized it as a foreing card and immediately converted the summary to euros.   It also was very easy to change my billing address and the order went through fine. The order confirmation was detailed and easy to read. If I have to change my order that will be easy to do too.

I performed the simplest of transactions and it was still a delight. It was a delight because no other website can match the basic experience of ordering something at Amazon.  No other site can touch the basics.  Most retail websites are still a complete disaster in comparison. 

I will also give praise to Orbitz as I believe it is the best travel site in terms of UX as well as price and selection.

I will also give praise to Overstock.com where I buy all my super luxurious sheets for next to nothing.