Sometimes I am too curious for my own good, I wouldn’t call it nosy because most of the time my curiosity doesn’t involve people. At least not in the sense of personal life details, in fact on that side of relationships I am likely often perceived as rude because of my disinterest. But, I am always curious as to the why behind things, sometimes the how, but always why. Why do people act the way they do, why do some web sites work and others not so much, way does one business fail and yet another similar one succeed? Why is Jimmy Johns so fast and McDonald’s slow by comparison? Better than why is my question “Did they think it all the way through?” “Did they know if they did this… it would have these results?” something too many congressmen never ask. Which always leads to my ultimate curiosity “What if?”
DeAnn and I are ready to buy some furniture for our hobby house; it’s a small house and will require new furniture to fit the room size, layout, and the particular “look”. We live an hour away from serious shopping in 3 directions, in the fourth I don’t think there is any till you hit the west coast. Those three others likely don’t qualify as major shopping meccas but they suffice for most things. However when you don’t know exactly what you want and you are looking for ideas you’ll find your furniture shopping somewhat limited. After a less than successful hunt to the north we came home and spent the next few days shopping on line, looking for the right furniture at the right price.
One of the stores we visited had a web site touting its brand name lines with helpful links to their suppliers so you could explore all your options from the discomfort of your furniture bare living room floor. I clicked on one link and was transported to a site that offered hundreds of choices in styles and hundreds of choices in fabrics, wow!
I spent several minutes engaged in finding that perfect chair, then I saw it! My cat hair stood on end! Had they thought it through?, did they know what would happen?, had they tested what if?. My curiosity got the best of me, I ceased shopping and typed my zip code in the store locator at the upper left of my screen. To my disappointment, the answer to each question was no they hadn’t. The search returned two possible stores neither of which was the store whose web site I had been visiting, the web site from which I started. While I am sure their reporting will tell them what the referring site was, I was not directed back. Additionally the two recommended stores were just slightly further away.
Both web sites were useful, both well done, both were designed to help the furniture shopper, both want to sell furniture, both might appear to the casual observer to have the same purpose. They do not. In this case one partner has to be neutral in recommending a store, and has certain rules in place for picking those retailers. Did the furniture store owner understand that when he linked his site to that of his national name brand supplier? Did he understand that others are promoting a sale? Now I need to drive south and check that out. When a retailer heavily invests in building a store he doesn’t install a sign that says “hey you can also buy this product here and here.” Why does his allow his web site to do that?
This week’s proverb
Your most loyal partner has his own interests, they are not wrong; they are just different than yours. You should fully understand that difference at every point, you should ask “what if?” before a potential customer does.
David
