Editor’s Take: Improve Customers’ Experience

Many catalogers effectively are transforming their print books into support vehicles for their Web sites and stores. But there’s plenty more they can do to engage, entertain and retain shoppers.

“I look at many shopping sites and ask, ‘Why would anybody make it hard to check out, to search?’” said Bill Bass, CEO of the Fair Indigo catalog, when I interviewed him for this month’s cover story. It’s not hard, he said, to build better Web sites that can provide a better shopping experience — and at an affordable cost. But they’re still hard to come by.