Internet Purchase of Backfriend Seat - Assignment Example

Internet Purchase of “Backfriend” Seat I wanted to buy an orthopedic seat called a Backfriend. I saw this seat at a friend’s house and she told me it was very good for preventing back pain when driving or working at a computer, or even just watching television. The seat is portable and it folds up in half, so that you can carry it around. It is light in weight as it is really just a thin layer of molded plastic or fiberglass covered with some foam and fabric. Because you cannot buy a Backfriend from the shops, I asked my friend to give me the name of the seat and she said it was “ME Backfriend” made by a company in England, ME Design. I could not find any local company that sold this product so I looked on the internet by typing in the words “ME Backfriend”. Numerous sites came up on the search results and I first went to the one that said “Welcome to ME Design Limited, Home of Backfriend”. This site (http://www.medesign.co.uk/) opened with a blue page showing some pictures of various health products, including a picture of the Backfriend. It was not possible to click on the picture to find out more, so I clicked on a tab at the bottom of the home page, which said “Products”. This took me to a page with several pictures of the products, and here I was able to click on the photograph of the Backfriend and it came up with another page. There was another photo of the Backfriend, this time with a man sitting in it in a car seat. Next to the picture it said “The Backfriend is a combined backrest and seatbase. In What Car magazine’s opinion ‘the MEDesign Backfriend is the only one we recommend. It can make a bad seat good’.” The price was given as £45.96. I was about to leave this page, thinking that this was not enough information, when I saw a link that said “Click for details”. This took me to a page which was concerned only with the Backfriend, and I found out everything I needed to know here, including the size and weight of the seat, and everything that it is used for and the reason why it helps to prevent back pain. The one thing I could not find, however, was the cost of postage. I was concerned that postage might be very expensive. I tried to find out the cost of postage by placing the item in my basket and clicking on the “Checkout” link, and then selecting my country’s name from a list of many countries. However, this merely led to another page asking me for my credit card details. I then saw a tab at the top of the page which said “Ordering”, so I clicked on it. Another page appeared, and halfway down this page it said, “International delivery: We deliver worldwide - please contact us for specific delivery costs”. I decided to leave my search of this particular site for the time being, and I returned to the original search results page. I then clicked on a page called “ eBay.co.uk: NEW Backfriend Orthopaedic Support Seat” and it opened on a page with a photo of the Backfriend. Next to the picture it said “Starting bid £39.99” and a bit further down it said “Postage £9.98”. However, I noticed that at the top of the page it said “This item has been relisted” and beside the photo it said “Ended 18 February 07”. I assumed from this that the item was no longer for sale, and then I noticed that it had been sold for £41. I went into another page which confirmed that two buyers had bid for the item and it had been sold and bidding had ended. Just to check that I was not missing anything, I scrolled to the bottom of the page, where I found some factual information on the Backfriend. There was also a section which advertised other items for sale by the same person, mostly pieces of clothing and a pair of shoes. I realized that this site was of no use to me and I returned to the original search results page. I then clicked on “Alison Short” at www.helensandersonassociates.co.uk but this was a personal page of a private individual and I could not find any mention of the Backfriend at first glance. I went back to the search results page, and clicked on “Backfriend – makes a bad seat good” at www.mylowerbackpain.com/backfriend.html. This turned out to be a blog by someone about lower back pain. While it was very interesting and I found out some more useful information about the Backfriend, this was not a shopping site. There was a link to the ME Design site in the UK. Finally I found another shopping site for Backfriend, at Working-Well.org (http://www.working-well.org/pchair.html). This appeared to be an American site. I was on a page called “Products – seating” and there were a lot of photographs of office chairs and a few exercise balls. Eventually after I had scrolled down quite far I found a section called “Car and Chair support Cushions” and there was a photograph of the Backfriend, the same picture as I had seen on the ME Design site. Just above this was a picture of a very similar looking chair made by a different company. The chair was called SacroEase and it had a large price range, starting more cheaply than the Backfriend. However, because I was by now familiar with the Backfriend I decided to look only at this product. It was selling for $149.95. There was a link to the ME Design site, but when I clicked on it I was taken to some information about local (American) vendors. I was pleased to find this information because I thought it would probably be cheaper to buy the Backfriend locally in terms of postage. Lower down in the same section I saw the site for the UK company and clicked on the link, and it took me back to the very first site I had researched, for ME Design in the UK. I went back up to the picture of the Backfriend and clicked on the other link there, which was for “The Back Shop”. This gave me the addresses and telephone numbers of three shops in California which sold the Backfriend. However, there did not seem to be the choice to make any online or postal purchases, which I found disappointing. I live in Miami, Florida, so it did not help me to know of shops in California. There were no shops listed for my area. I decided that in terms of usefulness and comprehensiveness, the first website which I had looked at was the best. All of the sites (ME Design, e-Bay UK, and WorkingWell.org) had the same basic photographs. The first two gave the most factual information on the Backfriend. If I had only visited the Working-Well site I would not have been very impressed, and it might have been difficult to get the kind of information I needed unless I knew that the seat was made by ME Design in the UK. There was nothing to point me to that link, so I might have missed out on it if I had not already visited that site earlier. So in terms of an actual shopping experience I would say that the ME Design site was the best. This is understandable because it is the website of the company that actually makes this product. The other sites are just people or companies who deal with the seats, and do not manufacture or export them. In fact the price of the UK seat was lower than the American one and if I had gone ahead with ordering the seat at this point, I may have chosen to get the Backfriend sent to me straight from the UK. The American companies did not seem very geared to handling internet and postal sales and it was as if they expected you to go to their showrooms. They also gave minimal information and did not make it clear that you should visit the ME Design site if you wanted to know more. In contrast, the UK site was very professional and you find out everything you wanted to know straight away. You could also order the product right there on the internet using your credit card. I returned to the ME Design website and spent some time browsing through all of their products, and I read up all the information on the Backfriend again. In the end I did buy a seat from the UK company, but I had it delivered to a cousin of mine who was going to come and visit us in March. So I paid only the local postage and the Backfriend arrived at my cousin’s after only two days. Because the Backfriend weighs so little (1.6 kg to 1.8 kg depending on which site you consult) it was easy for him to fold it in half and pack it into his suitcase. I have been very happy with my Backfriend ever since. I use it all the time in the car and at the computer. I enjoyed making this purchase on the internet because it was so easy. But what made it especially easy for me was that I had already seen a Backfriend in the home of a friend, so knew that I was dealing with a real product made by a real company, and that it was a good product. With this knowledge, it was far easier to make my purchase on the internet, using a site that was very professional and was the manufacturing company’s main website. This was preferable than having to try and deal with one of the Back Shops listed in California, for example to have to telephone them and try to find out about the availability of stock, the cost of postage, whether they could accept my credit card as payment over the phone, and so on. That is what I would have had to do if I had been having a traditional shopping experience. I am not sure how well the purchase would have worked if my cousin had not been visiting. But I can see no reason why I would have had any trouble in ordering the Backfriend and having it mailed to me. It just may have taken a few more days than it took to reach my cousin in the UK, and I am sure that the postage would have cost a lot more. I never did find out the cost of postage to the US, because when I was placing the order, my credit card details were required and then the next section had the option for a different delivery address from my own residential address. So I just put in my cousin’s address and I experienced no problems at all, and nor did he. He said the Backfriend arrived in a large box and he removed this when he packed the seat into his suitcase to bring it to me. In conclusion I must state that I cannot think of any way in which the ME Design site could be improved. All of the information on the site is easily visible and it is laid out in a sensible way with easy-to-access information. Everything is very clear and you can see what to do next, such as “Add this item to my cart” and so on (the first time I tried to go to “Checkout”, a notice popped up to tell me that I did not have any items in my cart, and this reminded me to go back and click on “Add to cart”.) I am sitting on my Backfriend right now, because I always use it when I am at the computer, and it has made life a lot more comfortable for me whenever I want to go onto the internet to do some research or even to make further purchases of useful items. References 1) ME Design Limited, Home of Backfriend. http://www.medesign.co.uk/ Accessed 16 April 2007 2) eBay.co.uk: NEW Backfriend Orthopaedic Support Seat. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NEW-Backfriend-Orthopaedic-Support-Seat_W0QQitemZ290082361301QQihZ019QQcategoryZ28178QqcmdZViewItem. Accessed 20 April 2007 3) Blog of “Steve” My Lower Back Pain at www.mylowerbackpain.com/backfriend.html. Accessed 22 April 2007 4) “Alison Short” at www.helensandersonassociates.co.uk Accessed 16 April 2007 5) Website ofWorking-well.org http://www.working-well.org/pchair.html. Accessed 22 April 2007 Read More