of the United Kingdom’s capitol city.
What is Shopping?
If you are an eCommerce professional, how you answer that seemingly innocuous question is a telltale sign of how you approach your job.
…Or maybe you were never asked. But trust me, your actions signal an implicit answer.
For many of you, the (implicit) answer is that shopping is a chore. A chore to be optimized. A problem to be solved. A trail to be shortened. A journey with the incoming client (or “user” in UX parlance) on one end, and a happy ending—that would be the conversion—on the other.
The goal is to let the user slide as quickly as possible towards your cart and then, just as swiftly, through checkout.
Click. Click. Click. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Or even better: Click. Click
(That is, with as few clicks as possible.)
eCommerce as a digestive system. eCommerce as a point of sale. eCommerce as a lower-funnel exclusive.
Exciting, isn’t it?
But then, excitement isn’t really part of the equation if you belong to this school of thinking. In your view, eCommerce is a very serious thing. It’s about efficiency. It’s about important-sounding acronyms such as ROAS (Return on Advertising Spend) and GMV (Gross Merchandise Value). Lots of data analytics and the tracking of incremental improvements on everything. If it doesn’t make any money, it’s a hobby.
Heck, you are basically a Man in Finance. Or Woman (but not this one, obviously).
The Cult of Efficiency: Ecommerce Absolutism
This obsession with efficiency and data-driven, incremental improvements does have some merit—lest you think I’m one of those creative types that hate having to worry about the bottom line. But it cannot be the only mode of thinking. Too bad, it appears to be, with few exceptions.
If you only think about efficiency you end up with exactly what we have right now: eCommerce as a wasteland of digital non-places that look the same. (And cost a fortune to maintain, but that is for another article.) The UX is based around the same set of “best practices,” which are further hyper-optimised into total blandness. The endgame is frictionless conversion and the key performance indicators (KPIs) are engineered exclusively towards that.
For all talk of “digital flagships,” most eCommerce shops recall the insipid experience of an outlet store. Instead of worrying about improving this (thus becoming naturally attractive), the thinking is more akin to:
“How can I make the poor souls whom I either paid-advertised or CRM-siphoned into here actually buy something?”
This is a land ruled by dogmatic thinking—even A/B experiments and split tests aren’t about experimentation, they are just micro-optimisation under another guise. UX conventions flatten every design into pure wayfinding and very little magic. Most eCommerce websites I see (“most” is me being generous) are designed like the emergency exits on a plane: the only goal is to make sure that people, even under a shock, will find their way out.
None of this should be surprising. Commerce is part of the larger culture and, right now, blanding, short-termism and the death of creativity are key symptoms of the malaise that is affecting (marketing) culture.
There are thousands of posts decrying the sorry current state of Marketing/Creativity. Here is one.
Lessons from Crate-Digging
Can we do better than the current state of eCommerce experiences?
Yes.
But before we start, we need to go back to the original question and look for a different answer.
While shopping can be perceived as a chore, in many situations, it is first and foremost a pleasure. A pastime, if you will.
As Marilyn Monroe famously said: “Happiness is not in money, but in shopping.” A few decades later, Carrie Bradshaw put it even more succinctly: “shopping is my cardio”.
Now, put aside for a second the materialistic strike of those quotes (I mean, we are discussing commerce here. Materialism is bound to be a reference point). They both underlie a profound truth. Namely, that shopping is a pleasure to be enhanced, not a problem to be optimised. It’s a mental switch. A toggle button (more on this later).
I was reminded of this possibility recently, when visiting a well-stocked vinyl shop where I enjoyed a session of crate-digging.
For those not familiar, crate-digging is a term that originated in hip-hop culture. Producers and DJs would hunt for obscure records to sample unique beats or sounds for their music. Vinyls are usually kept in boxes (crates) and you must manually leaf through them—something as removed from “frictionless experience” as it could possibly get.
I spent half an hour flipping through records. The crates had some high-level labelling (“Metal,” “Afrobeat,” “'70s Rock”) but there were no search buttons, no “filters,” not even an alphabetical order to follow.
It was a supremely inefficient experience. And yet, it was a lot of fun.
I wasn’t looking for a specific record. (That kind of store is obviously not optimised for such a scenario.) I was simply a music enthusiast surrounded by an endless barrage of stimuli. The pleasant kind, not the doomscrolling variety.
Several interesting things happened, and I’ll try to process why they were interesting to begin with: first, the unexpected find. This is a key part of the crate-digging experience. It’s also a reflection of what great merchants have always understood about the customer: the key isn’t to give them what they want, but to inspire desires they haven’t yet imagined.
After a while, I noticed that some records had little paper notes fixed to them. This feature appeared randomly throughout the selection. A few sentences in length, they were a strange hybrid of review and personal rambling. Underneath it all, they spoke volumes about the owner’s passion for the category and proved a depth of knowledge.
Now, compare that with the sorry state of the eCommerce space: product descriptions lifted from a PIM (OK, there is the Palace thing but it’s really an exception) and no point of view (the fact that you are carrying everything doesn’t mean you have to actively like or endorse everything). Deeper down, there is a sense that whoever is operating the store could be selling anything, leading them to be completely uninvested in the product.
The note game was evidence of another trait that is greatly lacking in the eCommerce space: a touch of serendipity. Little surprises sprinkled here and there. Unexpected plot twists and easter eggs that make the journey worth taking, not more “efficient.”
I’ll skip over the tactile pleasure of holding a physical record in your hands (they come in different weights, a topic vinyl snobs obsess over)...
OK, maybe I won’t skip it, simply because I’m passionate about records. The thing is, items such as a vinyl pressing of the “Death of a Unicorn” soundtrack have a physical “presence” that no amount of eCommerce photography can replicate. The digital space lacks both an olfactory and tactile side, which makes it more difficult to make the product and experience memorable. Videogames have found a way to address that while eCommerce remains generally as memorable as an ATM.
But I digress…
The last element we can draw useful inspiration from is the shop owner himself. Specifically, the way I could ask him questions and access his almost preternatural knowledge of all things music-related. Here, something miraculous happened: I asked him a question and he gave me a long-winded answer that wasn’t just a list of recommendations similar to Google, where everything is “related to,” or “bought with,” or “similar.” He listened to my request, understood it on a deeper level (I was looking for a percussive undercurrent), and then gave me genre suggestions that were far removed from the ones I was browsing.
AI-powered recommendation tools are simply not there yet. Although, in spirit, Chinese platforms such as Shein or Temu understand that sometimes the recommendations have to throw you a bit off balance by suggesting items that are out of your active searches’ immediate bubble.
As for the clienteling element (this is how an IT consultant would process it), it cannot obviously be offered toeveryone. But how about your most loyal customers? The VICs (Very Important Clients), in luxury parlance. Why shouldn’t they get a premium eCommerce experience, instead of the self-service one that a standard, Instagram-bought prospect gets?
Leftfield UX: A Wanderlust for Ecommerce
“Not all those who wander are lost.”
- Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
So what, then, is Leftfield UX? It’s UX for those who wander.
If Traditional UX in the context of eCommerce is a reactionary practice based on an ultra-functional, transactional approach, Leftfield UX is less preoccupied with efficiency and more with promoting discovery and efficacy. (As in, having a lasting impact on minds and desires, far beyond seven-day conversion windows.)
It’s a form of UX design that doesn’t underestimate the customer’s intelligence. Quite the contrary, it strives to stimulate him/her. It throws the odd curveball. It provides an element of surprise. It questions the way things are usually done.
It preoccupies itself with provoking smiles, not minimising clicks.
It’s UX design that understands shopping as a recreational activity.
It’s UX design with a bigger element of creative and brand direction.
It’s UX design that understands eCommerce as a place of cult; where brands are built, not just sold.
It’s not a fully codified approach—more like a framework for thinking. And it doesn’t have to be a full-fledged alternative to Traditional UX. Rather, you can take a page from “dork mode,” the brilliant concept that was introduced here on Future Commerce by Alex Greifeld. “An antidote to the sea of sameness,” dork mode was imagined as something you can activate by toggling a switch, much like what happens with “dark mode.”
Now, I’m not suggesting the “toggle switch” metaphor should be taken literally. Nor am I recommending brands take each and every inspiration from the crate-digging example and turn it into a “digital equivalent.” But I do hope that, by now, you get the gist of it.
Sometimes You Want Vanilla, Sometimes You Want Strawberries
Is Leftfield UX for everyone? For every product category? Every type of person? Every situation?
Absolutely not.
Sometimes, shopping is, indeed, a chore. You need a specific type of battery for your garage door’s remote control. You need it quick. You need tools to find it immediately, among the deluge of nearly-identical options. And you need a fast checkout experience because you are typing with one hand on your mobile and you don’t plan to buy anything else from that shop in the near future.
That’s a typical scenario where, by all means, efficiency is king. The litmus test? There is no passion involved. It’s a transaction you want to get over with in as little time as possible. But keep in mind, innovation is still possible!
On the other hand, when passion is involved, you have the potential for being more experimental. People are willing to give you extra time. Extra attention. People, quite simply, care more.
I just wrote that Leftfield UX shouldn’t be overtly codified, but here is a quick table that sums up the key differences and, to an extent, when it should be invoked as a mode of thinking.
What Comes Next?
A healthy debate, hopefully. Any new concept should at least provoke that kind of response.
On top of that debate, or maybe as part of it, I’d love to see some brands experimenting around the idea. It could be part of this new era in the retail space that several players, including Future Commerce itself, are partly predicting and invoking.
I, for one, think eCommerce is leaving its adolescence stage, and Leftfield UX will play a central role in driving its continued growth and evolution.
Finally, a new mode of thinking requires new metrics. I want to measure eCommerce as a brand-building device on top of its ability to generate “direct” sales. Your biggest single store deserves to be measured in a way that recognizes its place in (brand) culture, not just as a revenue stream.
Unrepented Marketer, Creative Director and Strategist, throughout his career Simone Oltolina has held senior roles in large companies, consulting firms and creative agencies alike. In 2016, he founded Merchants of Ideas, a Switzerland-based Brand Consulting firm. He’s also part of Grace Brigade, a new, Milan-headquartered company that straddles the line between eCommerce and Brand Direction.
What is Shopping?
If you are an eCommerce professional, how you answer that seemingly innocuous question is a telltale sign of how you approach your job.
…Or maybe you were never asked. But trust me, your actions signal an implicit answer.
For many of you, the (implicit) answer is that shopping is a chore. A chore to be optimized. A problem to be solved. A trail to be shortened. A journey with the incoming client (or “user” in UX parlance) on one end, and a happy ending—that would be the conversion—on the other.
The goal is to let the user slide as quickly as possible towards your cart and then, just as swiftly, through checkout.
Click. Click. Click. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Or even better: Click. Click
(That is, with as few clicks as possible.)
eCommerce as a digestive system. eCommerce as a point of sale. eCommerce as a lower-funnel exclusive.
Exciting, isn’t it?
But then, excitement isn’t really part of the equation if you belong to this school of thinking. In your view, eCommerce is a very serious thing. It’s about efficiency. It’s about important-sounding acronyms such as ROAS (Return on Advertising Spend) and GMV (Gross Merchandise Value). Lots of data analytics and the tracking of incremental improvements on everything. If it doesn’t make any money, it’s a hobby.
Heck, you are basically a Man in Finance. Or Woman (but not this one, obviously).
The Cult of Efficiency: Ecommerce Absolutism
This obsession with efficiency and data-driven, incremental improvements does have some merit—lest you think I’m one of those creative types that hate having to worry about the bottom line. But it cannot be the only mode of thinking. Too bad, it appears to be, with few exceptions.
If you only think about efficiency you end up with exactly what we have right now: eCommerce as a wasteland of digital non-places that look the same. (And cost a fortune to maintain, but that is for another article.) The UX is based around the same set of “best practices,” which are further hyper-optimised into total blandness. The endgame is frictionless conversion and the key performance indicators (KPIs) are engineered exclusively towards that.
For all talk of “digital flagships,” most eCommerce shops recall the insipid experience of an outlet store. Instead of worrying about improving this (thus becoming naturally attractive), the thinking is more akin to:
“How can I make the poor souls whom I either paid-advertised or CRM-siphoned into here actually buy something?”
This is a land ruled by dogmatic thinking—even A/B experiments and split tests aren’t about experimentation, they are just micro-optimisation under another guise. UX conventions flatten every design into pure wayfinding and very little magic. Most eCommerce websites I see (“most” is me being generous) are designed like the emergency exits on a plane: the only goal is to make sure that people, even under a shock, will find their way out.
None of this should be surprising. Commerce is part of the larger culture and, right now, blanding, short-termism and the death of creativity are key symptoms of the malaise that is affecting (marketing) culture.
There are thousands of posts decrying the sorry current state of Marketing/Creativity. Here is one.
Lessons from Crate-Digging
Can we do better than the current state of eCommerce experiences?
Yes.
But before we start, we need to go back to the original question and look for a different answer.
While shopping can be perceived as a chore, in many situations, it is first and foremost a pleasure. A pastime, if you will.
As Marilyn Monroe famously said: “Happiness is not in money, but in shopping.” A few decades later, Carrie Bradshaw put it even more succinctly: “shopping is my cardio”.
Now, put aside for a second the materialistic strike of those quotes (I mean, we are discussing commerce here. Materialism is bound to be a reference point). They both underlie a profound truth. Namely, that shopping is a pleasure to be enhanced, not a problem to be optimised. It’s a mental switch. A toggle button (more on this later).
I was reminded of this possibility recently, when visiting a well-stocked vinyl shop where I enjoyed a session of crate-digging.
For those not familiar, crate-digging is a term that originated in hip-hop culture. Producers and DJs would hunt for obscure records to sample unique beats or sounds for their music. Vinyls are usually kept in boxes (crates) and you must manually leaf through them—something as removed from “frictionless experience” as it could possibly get.
I spent half an hour flipping through records. The crates had some high-level labelling (“Metal,” “Afrobeat,” “'70s Rock”) but there were no search buttons, no “filters,” not even an alphabetical order to follow.
It was a supremely inefficient experience. And yet, it was a lot of fun.
I wasn’t looking for a specific record. (That kind of store is obviously not optimised for such a scenario.) I was simply a music enthusiast surrounded by an endless barrage of stimuli. The pleasant kind, not the doomscrolling variety.
Several interesting things happened, and I’ll try to process why they were interesting to begin with: first, the unexpected find. This is a key part of the crate-digging experience. It’s also a reflection of what great merchants have always understood about the customer: the key isn’t to give them what they want, but to inspire desires they haven’t yet imagined.
After a while, I noticed that some records had little paper notes fixed to them. This feature appeared randomly throughout the selection. A few sentences in length, they were a strange hybrid of review and personal rambling. Underneath it all, they spoke volumes about the owner’s passion for the category and proved a depth of knowledge.
Now, compare that with the sorry state of the eCommerce space: product descriptions lifted from a PIM (OK, there is the Palace thing but it’s really an exception) and no point of view (the fact that you are carrying everything doesn’t mean you have to actively like or endorse everything). Deeper down, there is a sense that whoever is operating the store could be selling anything, leading them to be completely uninvested in the product.
The note game was evidence of another trait that is greatly lacking in the eCommerce space: a touch of serendipity. Little surprises sprinkled here and there. Unexpected plot twists and easter eggs that make the journey worth taking, not more “efficient.”
I’ll skip over the tactile pleasure of holding a physical record in your hands (they come in different weights, a topic vinyl snobs obsess over)...
OK, maybe I won’t skip it, simply because I’m passionate about records. The thing is, items such as a vinyl pressing of the “Death of a Unicorn” soundtrack have a physical “presence” that no amount of eCommerce photography can replicate. The digital space lacks both an olfactory and tactile side, which makes it more difficult to make the product and experience memorable. Videogames have found a way to address that while eCommerce remains generally as memorable as an ATM.
But I digress…
The last element we can draw useful inspiration from is the shop owner himself. Specifically, the way I could ask him questions and access his almost preternatural knowledge of all things music-related. Here, something miraculous happened: I asked him a question and he gave me a long-winded answer that wasn’t just a list of recommendations similar to Google, where everything is “related to,” or “bought with,” or “similar.” He listened to my request, understood it on a deeper level (I was looking for a percussive undercurrent), and then gave me genre suggestions that were far removed from the ones I was browsing.
AI-powered recommendation tools are simply not there yet. Although, in spirit, Chinese platforms such as Shein or Temu understand that sometimes the recommendations have to throw you a bit off balance by suggesting items that are out of your active searches’ immediate bubble.
As for the clienteling element (this is how an IT consultant would process it), it cannot obviously be offered toeveryone. But how about your most loyal customers? The VICs (Very Important Clients), in luxury parlance. Why shouldn’t they get a premium eCommerce experience, instead of the self-service one that a standard, Instagram-bought prospect gets?
Leftfield UX: A Wanderlust for Ecommerce
“Not all those who wander are lost.”
- Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
So what, then, is Leftfield UX? It’s UX for those who wander.
If Traditional UX in the context of eCommerce is a reactionary practice based on an ultra-functional, transactional approach, Leftfield UX is less preoccupied with efficiency and more with promoting discovery and efficacy. (As in, having a lasting impact on minds and desires, far beyond seven-day conversion windows.)
It’s a form of UX design that doesn’t underestimate the customer’s intelligence. Quite the contrary, it strives to stimulate him/her. It throws the odd curveball. It provides an element of surprise. It questions the way things are usually done.
It preoccupies itself with provoking smiles, not minimising clicks.
It’s UX design that understands shopping as a recreational activity.
It’s UX design with a bigger element of creative and brand direction.
It’s UX design that understands eCommerce as a place of cult; where brands are built, not just sold.
It’s not a fully codified approach—more like a framework for thinking. And it doesn’t have to be a full-fledged alternative to Traditional UX. Rather, you can take a page from “dork mode,” the brilliant concept that was introduced here on Future Commerce by Alex Greifeld. “An antidote to the sea of sameness,” dork mode was imagined as something you can activate by toggling a switch, much like what happens with “dark mode.”
Now, I’m not suggesting the “toggle switch” metaphor should be taken literally. Nor am I recommending brands take each and every inspiration from the crate-digging example and turn it into a “digital equivalent.” But I do hope that, by now, you get the gist of it.
Sometimes You Want Vanilla, Sometimes You Want Strawberries
Is Leftfield UX for everyone? For every product category? Every type of person? Every situation?
Absolutely not.
Sometimes, shopping is, indeed, a chore. You need a specific type of battery for your garage door’s remote control. You need it quick. You need tools to find it immediately, among the deluge of nearly-identical options. And you need a fast checkout experience because you are typing with one hand on your mobile and you don’t plan to buy anything else from that shop in the near future.
That’s a typical scenario where, by all means, efficiency is king. The litmus test? There is no passion involved. It’s a transaction you want to get over with in as little time as possible. But keep in mind, innovation is still possible!
On the other hand, when passion is involved, you have the potential for being more experimental. People are willing to give you extra time. Extra attention. People, quite simply, care more.
I just wrote that Leftfield UX shouldn’t be overtly codified, but here is a quick table that sums up the key differences and, to an extent, when it should be invoked as a mode of thinking.
What Comes Next?
A healthy debate, hopefully. Any new concept should at least provoke that kind of response.
On top of that debate, or maybe as part of it, I’d love to see some brands experimenting around the idea. It could be part of this new era in the retail space that several players, including Future Commerce itself, are partly predicting and invoking.
I, for one, think eCommerce is leaving its adolescence stage, and Leftfield UX will play a central role in driving its continued growth and evolution.
Finally, a new mode of thinking requires new metrics. I want to measure eCommerce as a brand-building device on top of its ability to generate “direct” sales. Your biggest single store deserves to be measured in a way that recognizes its place in (brand) culture, not just as a revenue stream.
Unrepented Marketer, Creative Director and Strategist, throughout his career Simone Oltolina has held senior roles in large companies, consulting firms and creative agencies alike. In 2016, he founded Merchants of Ideas, a Switzerland-based Brand Consulting firm. He’s also part of Grace Brigade, a new, Milan-headquartered company that straddles the line between eCommerce and Brand Direction.
What is Shopping?
If you are an eCommerce professional, how you answer that seemingly innocuous question is a telltale sign of how you approach your job.
…Or maybe you were never asked. But trust me, your actions signal an implicit answer.
For many of you, the (implicit) answer is that shopping is a chore. A chore to be optimized. A problem to be solved. A trail to be shortened. A journey with the incoming client (or “user” in UX parlance) on one end, and a happy ending—that would be the conversion—on the other.
The goal is to let the user slide as quickly as possible towards your cart and then, just as swiftly, through checkout.
Click. Click. Click. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Or even better: Click. Click
(That is, with as few clicks as possible.)
eCommerce as a digestive system. eCommerce as a point of sale. eCommerce as a lower-funnel exclusive.
Exciting, isn’t it?
But then, excitement isn’t really part of the equation if you belong to this school of thinking. In your view, eCommerce is a very serious thing. It’s about efficiency. It’s about important-sounding acronyms such as ROAS (Return on Advertising Spend) and GMV (Gross Merchandise Value). Lots of data analytics and the tracking of incremental improvements on everything. If it doesn’t make any money, it’s a hobby.
Heck, you are basically a Man in Finance. Or Woman (but not this one, obviously).
The Cult of Efficiency: Ecommerce Absolutism
This obsession with efficiency and data-driven, incremental improvements does have some merit—lest you think I’m one of those creative types that hate having to worry about the bottom line. But it cannot be the only mode of thinking. Too bad, it appears to be, with few exceptions.
If you only think about efficiency you end up with exactly what we have right now: eCommerce as a wasteland of digital non-places that look the same. (And cost a fortune to maintain, but that is for another article.) The UX is based around the same set of “best practices,” which are further hyper-optimised into total blandness. The endgame is frictionless conversion and the key performance indicators (KPIs) are engineered exclusively towards that.
For all talk of “digital flagships,” most eCommerce shops recall the insipid experience of an outlet store. Instead of worrying about improving this (thus becoming naturally attractive), the thinking is more akin to:
“How can I make the poor souls whom I either paid-advertised or CRM-siphoned into here actually buy something?”
This is a land ruled by dogmatic thinking—even A/B experiments and split tests aren’t about experimentation, they are just micro-optimisation under another guise. UX conventions flatten every design into pure wayfinding and very little magic. Most eCommerce websites I see (“most” is me being generous) are designed like the emergency exits on a plane: the only goal is to make sure that people, even under a shock, will find their way out.
None of this should be surprising. Commerce is part of the larger culture and, right now, blanding, short-termism and the death of creativity are key symptoms of the malaise that is affecting (marketing) culture.
There are thousands of posts decrying the sorry current state of Marketing/Creativity. Here is one.
Lessons from Crate-Digging
Can we do better than the current state of eCommerce experiences?
Yes.
But before we start, we need to go back to the original question and look for a different answer.
While shopping can be perceived as a chore, in many situations, it is first and foremost a pleasure. A pastime, if you will.
As Marilyn Monroe famously said: “Happiness is not in money, but in shopping.” A few decades later, Carrie Bradshaw put it even more succinctly: “shopping is my cardio”.
Now, put aside for a second the materialistic strike of those quotes (I mean, we are discussing commerce here. Materialism is bound to be a reference point). They both underlie a profound truth. Namely, that shopping is a pleasure to be enhanced, not a problem to be optimised. It’s a mental switch. A toggle button (more on this later).
I was reminded of this possibility recently, when visiting a well-stocked vinyl shop where I enjoyed a session of crate-digging.
For those not familiar, crate-digging is a term that originated in hip-hop culture. Producers and DJs would hunt for obscure records to sample unique beats or sounds for their music. Vinyls are usually kept in boxes (crates) and you must manually leaf through them—something as removed from “frictionless experience” as it could possibly get.
I spent half an hour flipping through records. The crates had some high-level labelling (“Metal,” “Afrobeat,” “'70s Rock”) but there were no search buttons, no “filters,” not even an alphabetical order to follow.
It was a supremely inefficient experience. And yet, it was a lot of fun.
I wasn’t looking for a specific record. (That kind of store is obviously not optimised for such a scenario.) I was simply a music enthusiast surrounded by an endless barrage of stimuli. The pleasant kind, not the doomscrolling variety.
Several interesting things happened, and I’ll try to process why they were interesting to begin with: first, the unexpected find. This is a key part of the crate-digging experience. It’s also a reflection of what great merchants have always understood about the customer: the key isn’t to give them what they want, but to inspire desires they haven’t yet imagined.
After a while, I noticed that some records had little paper notes fixed to them. This feature appeared randomly throughout the selection. A few sentences in length, they were a strange hybrid of review and personal rambling. Underneath it all, they spoke volumes about the owner’s passion for the category and proved a depth of knowledge.
Now, compare that with the sorry state of the eCommerce space: product descriptions lifted from a PIM (OK, there is the Palace thing but it’s really an exception) and no point of view (the fact that you are carrying everything doesn’t mean you have to actively like or endorse everything). Deeper down, there is a sense that whoever is operating the store could be selling anything, leading them to be completely uninvested in the product.
The note game was evidence of another trait that is greatly lacking in the eCommerce space: a touch of serendipity. Little surprises sprinkled here and there. Unexpected plot twists and easter eggs that make the journey worth taking, not more “efficient.”
I’ll skip over the tactile pleasure of holding a physical record in your hands (they come in different weights, a topic vinyl snobs obsess over)...
OK, maybe I won’t skip it, simply because I’m passionate about records. The thing is, items such as a vinyl pressing of the “Death of a Unicorn” soundtrack have a physical “presence” that no amount of eCommerce photography can replicate. The digital space lacks both an olfactory and tactile side, which makes it more difficult to make the product and experience memorable. Videogames have found a way to address that while eCommerce remains generally as memorable as an ATM.
But I digress…
The last element we can draw useful inspiration from is the shop owner himself. Specifically, the way I could ask him questions and access his almost preternatural knowledge of all things music-related. Here, something miraculous happened: I asked him a question and he gave me a long-winded answer that wasn’t just a list of recommendations similar to Google, where everything is “related to,” or “bought with,” or “similar.” He listened to my request, understood it on a deeper level (I was looking for a percussive undercurrent), and then gave me genre suggestions that were far removed from the ones I was browsing.
AI-powered recommendation tools are simply not there yet. Although, in spirit, Chinese platforms such as Shein or Temu understand that sometimes the recommendations have to throw you a bit off balance by suggesting items that are out of your active searches’ immediate bubble.
As for the clienteling element (this is how an IT consultant would process it), it cannot obviously be offered toeveryone. But how about your most loyal customers? The VICs (Very Important Clients), in luxury parlance. Why shouldn’t they get a premium eCommerce experience, instead of the self-service one that a standard, Instagram-bought prospect gets?
Leftfield UX: A Wanderlust for Ecommerce
“Not all those who wander are lost.”
- Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
So what, then, is Leftfield UX? It’s UX for those who wander.
If Traditional UX in the context of eCommerce is a reactionary practice based on an ultra-functional, transactional approach, Leftfield UX is less preoccupied with efficiency and more with promoting discovery and efficacy. (As in, having a lasting impact on minds and desires, far beyond seven-day conversion windows.)
It’s a form of UX design that doesn’t underestimate the customer’s intelligence. Quite the contrary, it strives to stimulate him/her. It throws the odd curveball. It provides an element of surprise. It questions the way things are usually done.
It preoccupies itself with provoking smiles, not minimising clicks.
It’s UX design that understands shopping as a recreational activity.
It’s UX design with a bigger element of creative and brand direction.
It’s UX design that understands eCommerce as a place of cult; where brands are built, not just sold.
It’s not a fully codified approach—more like a framework for thinking. And it doesn’t have to be a full-fledged alternative to Traditional UX. Rather, you can take a page from “dork mode,” the brilliant concept that was introduced here on Future Commerce by Alex Greifeld. “An antidote to the sea of sameness,” dork mode was imagined as something you can activate by toggling a switch, much like what happens with “dark mode.”
Now, I’m not suggesting the “toggle switch” metaphor should be taken literally. Nor am I recommending brands take each and every inspiration from the crate-digging example and turn it into a “digital equivalent.” But I do hope that, by now, you get the gist of it.
Sometimes You Want Vanilla, Sometimes You Want Strawberries
Is Leftfield UX for everyone? For every product category? Every type of person? Every situation?
Absolutely not.
Sometimes, shopping is, indeed, a chore. You need a specific type of battery for your garage door’s remote control. You need it quick. You need tools to find it immediately, among the deluge of nearly-identical options. And you need a fast checkout experience because you are typing with one hand on your mobile and you don’t plan to buy anything else from that shop in the near future.
That’s a typical scenario where, by all means, efficiency is king. The litmus test? There is no passion involved. It’s a transaction you want to get over with in as little time as possible. But keep in mind, innovation is still possible!
On the other hand, when passion is involved, you have the potential for being more experimental. People are willing to give you extra time. Extra attention. People, quite simply, care more.
I just wrote that Leftfield UX shouldn’t be overtly codified, but here is a quick table that sums up the key differences and, to an extent, when it should be invoked as a mode of thinking.
What Comes Next?
A healthy debate, hopefully. Any new concept should at least provoke that kind of response.
On top of that debate, or maybe as part of it, I’d love to see some brands experimenting around the idea. It could be part of this new era in the retail space that several players, including Future Commerce itself, are partly predicting and invoking.
I, for one, think eCommerce is leaving its adolescence stage, and Leftfield UX will play a central role in driving its continued growth and evolution.
Finally, a new mode of thinking requires new metrics. I want to measure eCommerce as a brand-building device on top of its ability to generate “direct” sales. Your biggest single store deserves to be measured in a way that recognizes its place in (brand) culture, not just as a revenue stream.
Unrepented Marketer, Creative Director and Strategist, throughout his career Simone Oltolina has held senior roles in large companies, consulting firms and creative agencies alike. In 2016, he founded Merchants of Ideas, a Switzerland-based Brand Consulting firm. He’s also part of Grace Brigade, a new, Milan-headquartered company that straddles the line between eCommerce and Brand Direction.
What is Shopping?
If you are an eCommerce professional, how you answer that seemingly innocuous question is a telltale sign of how you approach your job.
…Or maybe you were never asked. But trust me, your actions signal an implicit answer.
For many of you, the (implicit) answer is that shopping is a chore. A chore to be optimized. A problem to be solved. A trail to be shortened. A journey with the incoming client (or “user” in UX parlance) on one end, and a happy ending—that would be the conversion—on the other.
The goal is to let the user slide as quickly as possible towards your cart and then, just as swiftly, through checkout.
Click. Click. Click. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Or even better: Click. Click
(That is, with as few clicks as possible.)
eCommerce as a digestive system. eCommerce as a point of sale. eCommerce as a lower-funnel exclusive.
Exciting, isn’t it?
But then, excitement isn’t really part of the equation if you belong to this school of thinking. In your view, eCommerce is a very serious thing. It’s about efficiency. It’s about important-sounding acronyms such as ROAS (Return on Advertising Spend) and GMV (Gross Merchandise Value). Lots of data analytics and the tracking of incremental improvements on everything. If it doesn’t make any money, it’s a hobby.
Heck, you are basically a Man in Finance. Or Woman (but not this one, obviously).
The Cult of Efficiency: Ecommerce Absolutism
This obsession with efficiency and data-driven, incremental improvements does have some merit—lest you think I’m one of those creative types that hate having to worry about the bottom line. But it cannot be the only mode of thinking. Too bad, it appears to be, with few exceptions.
If you only think about efficiency you end up with exactly what we have right now: eCommerce as a wasteland of digital non-places that look the same. (And cost a fortune to maintain, but that is for another article.) The UX is based around the same set of “best practices,” which are further hyper-optimised into total blandness. The endgame is frictionless conversion and the key performance indicators (KPIs) are engineered exclusively towards that.
For all talk of “digital flagships,” most eCommerce shops recall the insipid experience of an outlet store. Instead of worrying about improving this (thus becoming naturally attractive), the thinking is more akin to:
“How can I make the poor souls whom I either paid-advertised or CRM-siphoned into here actually buy something?”
This is a land ruled by dogmatic thinking—even A/B experiments and split tests aren’t about experimentation, they are just micro-optimisation under another guise. UX conventions flatten every design into pure wayfinding and very little magic. Most eCommerce websites I see (“most” is me being generous) are designed like the emergency exits on a plane: the only goal is to make sure that people, even under a shock, will find their way out.
None of this should be surprising. Commerce is part of the larger culture and, right now, blanding, short-termism and the death of creativity are key symptoms of the malaise that is affecting (marketing) culture.
There are thousands of posts decrying the sorry current state of Marketing/Creativity. Here is one.
Lessons from Crate-Digging
Can we do better than the current state of eCommerce experiences?
Yes.
But before we start, we need to go back to the original question and look for a different answer.
While shopping can be perceived as a chore, in many situations, it is first and foremost a pleasure. A pastime, if you will.
As Marilyn Monroe famously said: “Happiness is not in money, but in shopping.” A few decades later, Carrie Bradshaw put it even more succinctly: “shopping is my cardio”.
Now, put aside for a second the materialistic strike of those quotes (I mean, we are discussing commerce here. Materialism is bound to be a reference point). They both underlie a profound truth. Namely, that shopping is a pleasure to be enhanced, not a problem to be optimised. It’s a mental switch. A toggle button (more on this later).
I was reminded of this possibility recently, when visiting a well-stocked vinyl shop where I enjoyed a session of crate-digging.
For those not familiar, crate-digging is a term that originated in hip-hop culture. Producers and DJs would hunt for obscure records to sample unique beats or sounds for their music. Vinyls are usually kept in boxes (crates) and you must manually leaf through them—something as removed from “frictionless experience” as it could possibly get.
I spent half an hour flipping through records. The crates had some high-level labelling (“Metal,” “Afrobeat,” “'70s Rock”) but there were no search buttons, no “filters,” not even an alphabetical order to follow.
It was a supremely inefficient experience. And yet, it was a lot of fun.
I wasn’t looking for a specific record. (That kind of store is obviously not optimised for such a scenario.) I was simply a music enthusiast surrounded by an endless barrage of stimuli. The pleasant kind, not the doomscrolling variety.
Several interesting things happened, and I’ll try to process why they were interesting to begin with: first, the unexpected find. This is a key part of the crate-digging experience. It’s also a reflection of what great merchants have always understood about the customer: the key isn’t to give them what they want, but to inspire desires they haven’t yet imagined.
After a while, I noticed that some records had little paper notes fixed to them. This feature appeared randomly throughout the selection. A few sentences in length, they were a strange hybrid of review and personal rambling. Underneath it all, they spoke volumes about the owner’s passion for the category and proved a depth of knowledge.
Now, compare that with the sorry state of the eCommerce space: product descriptions lifted from a PIM (OK, there is the Palace thing but it’s really an exception) and no point of view (the fact that you are carrying everything doesn’t mean you have to actively like or endorse everything). Deeper down, there is a sense that whoever is operating the store could be selling anything, leading them to be completely uninvested in the product.
The note game was evidence of another trait that is greatly lacking in the eCommerce space: a touch of serendipity. Little surprises sprinkled here and there. Unexpected plot twists and easter eggs that make the journey worth taking, not more “efficient.”
I’ll skip over the tactile pleasure of holding a physical record in your hands (they come in different weights, a topic vinyl snobs obsess over)...
OK, maybe I won’t skip it, simply because I’m passionate about records. The thing is, items such as a vinyl pressing of the “Death of a Unicorn” soundtrack have a physical “presence” that no amount of eCommerce photography can replicate. The digital space lacks both an olfactory and tactile side, which makes it more difficult to make the product and experience memorable. Videogames have found a way to address that while eCommerce remains generally as memorable as an ATM.
But I digress…
The last element we can draw useful inspiration from is the shop owner himself. Specifically, the way I could ask him questions and access his almost preternatural knowledge of all things music-related. Here, something miraculous happened: I asked him a question and he gave me a long-winded answer that wasn’t just a list of recommendations similar to Google, where everything is “related to,” or “bought with,” or “similar.” He listened to my request, understood it on a deeper level (I was looking for a percussive undercurrent), and then gave me genre suggestions that were far removed from the ones I was browsing.
AI-powered recommendation tools are simply not there yet. Although, in spirit, Chinese platforms such as Shein or Temu understand that sometimes the recommendations have to throw you a bit off balance by suggesting items that are out of your active searches’ immediate bubble.
As for the clienteling element (this is how an IT consultant would process it), it cannot obviously be offered toeveryone. But how about your most loyal customers? The VICs (Very Important Clients), in luxury parlance. Why shouldn’t they get a premium eCommerce experience, instead of the self-service one that a standard, Instagram-bought prospect gets?
Leftfield UX: A Wanderlust for Ecommerce
“Not all those who wander are lost.”
- Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
So what, then, is Leftfield UX? It’s UX for those who wander.
If Traditional UX in the context of eCommerce is a reactionary practice based on an ultra-functional, transactional approach, Leftfield UX is less preoccupied with efficiency and more with promoting discovery and efficacy. (As in, having a lasting impact on minds and desires, far beyond seven-day conversion windows.)
It’s a form of UX design that doesn’t underestimate the customer’s intelligence. Quite the contrary, it strives to stimulate him/her. It throws the odd curveball. It provides an element of surprise. It questions the way things are usually done.
It preoccupies itself with provoking smiles, not minimising clicks.
It’s UX design that understands shopping as a recreational activity.
It’s UX design with a bigger element of creative and brand direction.
It’s UX design that understands eCommerce as a place of cult; where brands are built, not just sold.
It’s not a fully codified approach—more like a framework for thinking. And it doesn’t have to be a full-fledged alternative to Traditional UX. Rather, you can take a page from “dork mode,” the brilliant concept that was introduced here on Future Commerce by Alex Greifeld. “An antidote to the sea of sameness,” dork mode was imagined as something you can activate by toggling a switch, much like what happens with “dark mode.”
Now, I’m not suggesting the “toggle switch” metaphor should be taken literally. Nor am I recommending brands take each and every inspiration from the crate-digging example and turn it into a “digital equivalent.” But I do hope that, by now, you get the gist of it.
Sometimes You Want Vanilla, Sometimes You Want Strawberries
Is Leftfield UX for everyone? For every product category? Every type of person? Every situation?
Absolutely not.
Sometimes, shopping is, indeed, a chore. You need a specific type of battery for your garage door’s remote control. You need it quick. You need tools to find it immediately, among the deluge of nearly-identical options. And you need a fast checkout experience because you are typing with one hand on your mobile and you don’t plan to buy anything else from that shop in the near future.
That’s a typical scenario where, by all means, efficiency is king. The litmus test? There is no passion involved. It’s a transaction you want to get over with in as little time as possible. But keep in mind, innovation is still possible!
On the other hand, when passion is involved, you have the potential for being more experimental. People are willing to give you extra time. Extra attention. People, quite simply, care more.
I just wrote that Leftfield UX shouldn’t be overtly codified, but here is a quick table that sums up the key differences and, to an extent, when it should be invoked as a mode of thinking.
What Comes Next?
A healthy debate, hopefully. Any new concept should at least provoke that kind of response.
On top of that debate, or maybe as part of it, I’d love to see some brands experimenting around the idea. It could be part of this new era in the retail space that several players, including Future Commerce itself, are partly predicting and invoking.
I, for one, think eCommerce is leaving its adolescence stage, and Leftfield UX will play a central role in driving its continued growth and evolution.
Finally, a new mode of thinking requires new metrics. I want to measure eCommerce as a brand-building device on top of its ability to generate “direct” sales. Your biggest single store deserves to be measured in a way that recognizes its place in (brand) culture, not just as a revenue stream.
Unrepented Marketer, Creative Director and Strategist, throughout his career Simone Oltolina has held senior roles in large companies, consulting firms and creative agencies alike. In 2016, he founded Merchants of Ideas, a Switzerland-based Brand Consulting firm. He’s also part of Grace Brigade, a new, Milan-headquartered company that straddles the line between eCommerce and Brand Direction.
Continue Reading...
THIS ARTICLE IS FOR MEMBERS ONLY
Insights and futurism for executives in eCom and Retail
Those things we shouldn’t say out loud? We say them on the private feed. Bi-weekly “after dark” podcasts and a members-only newsletter, just for subscribers.
Our research reports combine visionary thinking with data-backed findings from our own advisory panel, made up of leaders at brands you know and trust.
Upskill, cross-skill, and future-proof your teams with Future Commerce Learning, the leading digital eCommerce learning platform, created by professional educators.
.jpg)
