Indigo’s Fall Site Release: Kind of Major

New Site

The first thing you notice, less emphasis on books… but the biggest change is blog.indigo.ca. Community is still there (and still broken) but they are now attempting to engage directly with customers via the regular-old-internet, senior people too and noticeably the staff are named — and Heather’s editorializing is no where in site sight.

Other things I noticed…

A smaller home page (their SEO/ page rank is going to take a big hit next week)
More personalization (a big blank space on the main page for your cookie’d recos)
Expanded inventory selection
Presumably a new CMS
Tiled photos for browsing
Page side-scrolling (annoying)
Item-page facebook like button
No mobile redirect on iPhone (and no flash page elements hooray!)
Everything is softer — from the palette to the scripted NYT Bestseller headband to the stitches in %-off badge. (It is going to be a big challenge to keep this fresh after a season or two.)

Old Homepage

Overall I like it, but it reminds me of the GlobeandMail redesign. A new person in charge inevitably leads to a change in the look and feel but it is not aggressive enough. No video editorial, no the61-style spectacle, no change to the shopping paradigm, less personality, and still no update to the availability status of out-of-stock items.

But good for them for spending the money. I was getting worried they were going to throw the whole operation under the bus.

My eyes are on the blog platform — I hope they add an events blog, and video, and pithy voices, and customer service… in other words I hope they come out from behind the corporate facade to really love and champion books.

Congratulations to all involved. It must have been hard work pulling this off. To the pub!

Did I mention video? http://tv.indigo.ca? Bueller?

6 thoughts on “Indigo’s Fall Site Release: Kind of Major”

So I guess we’re not going to talk about the shitty markup, which is all you get from a Toronto developer anyway.

comment // mb on October 5, 2010 at 12:54 pm said:

I didn't even think to look. Good point.

I'm quite glad there's no 'video editorial'. I am so, so sick of everything moving to video online, especially as bandwidth restrictions at the isp level are getting more restrictive rather than less. I absolutely do not want or need to turn off my music or the thing I was already watching so I can get a sales pitch disguised as a 'review' or something from some chirpy talking head who has no experience in front of a camera and say "umm" a lot just because I decided to buy or learn about a book online rather than at a store.

comment // mb on October 7, 2010 at 3:30 am said:

But the alternative is they are just a dumb pipe, There is no value in that. They need to start doing some 'programming' to stay relevant — hopefully non-annoying non-intrusive programming.
- August on October 7, 2010 at 12:03 pm said:
  
  For an online bookstore I much prefer a dumb pipe; there's plenty of value in that, it's just not the kind of value that assumes spending more time on an e-commerce site is the same as having a good experience, or the kind that assumes increased 'social' interaction is always positive. Make your data accurate and complete, and then get out of my way. My best online shopping experiences have always been my shortest and have involved the least hassle, and the least contact with the retailer (which is actually much the same with most of my bricks and mortar shopping experiences; unless I have questions, go away).
  
  Also, cynical though it may sound, content created by a marketing team is always going to be the least interesting and trustworthy to me. I used to listen to the Borders podcast where they interviewed authors, until I realized it wasn't actually about interviewing authors, it was about getting them to plug their books in the broadest and most benign manner possible (but because we could actually hear the author's voice, it was assumed–and presented–as though they were a real, thoughtful interviews, which they absolutely were not). It's actually part of why I started shying away from a lot of the CBC's book coverage; they do the very same thing half the time.
  
  Talk to me like a person, or get out of my way entirely. Anything else just pisses me off.
  - comment // mb on October 8, 2010 at 8:22 pm said:
    
    Hmm. You are arguing for a good experience, so I can't find fault in anything you say, but I will add I have had good book store experiences where I am surprised and delighted by their curation, merchandising, and customer experience. I think there is room for that in ecommerce space too.

Joe Clark on October 5, 2010 at 12:39 am said:

So I guess we’re not going to talk about the shitty markup, which is all you get from a Toronto developer anyway.
- comment // mb on October 5, 2010 at 12:54 pm said:
  
  I didn't even think to look. Good point.
August on October 6, 2010 at 4:47 pm said:

I'm quite glad there's no 'video editorial'. I am so, so sick of everything moving to video online, especially as bandwidth restrictions at the isp level are getting more restrictive rather than less. I absolutely do not want or need to turn off my music or the thing I was already watching so I can get a sales pitch disguised as a 'review' or something from some chirpy talking head who has no experience in front of a camera and say "umm" a lot just because I decided to buy or learn about a book online rather than at a store.
- comment // mb on October 7, 2010 at 3:30 am said:
  
  But the alternative is they are just a dumb pipe, There is no value in that. They need to start doing some 'programming' to stay relevant — hopefully non-annoying non-intrusive programming.
  - August on October 7, 2010 at 12:03 pm said:
    
    For an online bookstore I much prefer a dumb pipe; there's plenty of value in that, it's just not the kind of value that assumes spending more time on an e-commerce site is the same as having a good experience, or the kind that assumes increased 'social' interaction is always positive. Make your data accurate and complete, and then get out of my way. My best online shopping experiences have always been my shortest and have involved the least hassle, and the least contact with the retailer (which is actually much the same with most of my bricks and mortar shopping experiences; unless I have questions, go away).
    
    Also, cynical though it may sound, content created by a marketing team is always going to be the least interesting and trustworthy to me. I used to listen to the Borders podcast where they interviewed authors, until I realized it wasn't actually about interviewing authors, it was about getting them to plug their books in the broadest and most benign manner possible (but because we could actually hear the author's voice, it was assumed–and presented–as though they were a real, thoughtful interviews, which they absolutely were not). It's actually part of why I started shying away from a lot of the CBC's book coverage; they do the very same thing half the time.
    
    Talk to me like a person, or get out of my way entirely. Anything else just pisses me off.
    - comment // mb on October 8, 2010 at 8:22 pm said:
      
      Hmm. You are arguing for a good experience, so I can't find fault in anything you say, but I will add I have had good book store experiences where I am surprised and delighted by their curation, merchandising, and customer experience. I think there is room for that in ecommerce space too.