There is something that most online retailers have really missed and it’s the reason that 97.3% of browsers who enter e-commerce sites don’t buy anything and the reason that of those who do put things in their shopping carts, 61% will abandon the cart without purchase. That reason?
Buying stuff on most e-commerce websites, including Amazon and eBay, is a real pain. It’s a multi-multi-step process and it’s easy to get lost or lose faith in your purchase and just walk away. Most of the shopping experiences online are similar to walking into Kmart and seeing no isles and no shelving, just piles of stuff with little signs on them. Then when you go to checkout, you have to wade through a clerk who checks your ID, another who checks your card number, and another who verifies your address, and finally one who tells you that your stuff will ship “within 3 business days.”
Not so with Glyde.com. This has got to be one of the most sleek, simple, and easy-to-buy-from websites I’ve ever used. Ever.
Glyde was created by Simon Rothman in 2006 and is built on his experience at one of the worst shopping portals on the planet.. eBay Motors.
Glyde deals only in DVDs, CDs, games and books (media, basically) and is basically, at its core, a Google search screen with nice, easy to see, purchasable products. If you want to get a copy of Old Yeller on the cheap, you just search for “Old Yeller movie” (or similar) and sure enough, that’s about all that pops up.
The search is about as good as it can get and the process of buying? One lick to BUY NOW, three fields of information, and you’ve made a purchase. That’s it.
Selling on the site, which is still in beta, is almost as easy and definitely made with the hobby seller in mind. No fancy gimmicks, add-ons, or anything like that. Just find your item in their catalog, list it, choose a price (which is limited by current market values), and post it. Glyde gets paid when you do and even sends you a post-paid, pre-addressed envelope to ship it in.
This is definitely a site worth checking out and using. Rarely am I this impressed with a new site.
