Amazon Wish List Sharing gets it Wrong

Man that really is some awkward copy.

It used to be possible to edit the text, last year at least. Used it again yesterday and sent it out like this only because noone would think that I actually wrote this.

I saw this last week on Amazon.de (Germany). This must be a bug! I wonder why they haven’t figured it out. I sent my wishlist on and followed it up with a personal e-mail.

“Sounds like it was written by someone desperate to make a sale.”

Maybe that’s why they did it. Amazon’s goal is to get people to buy their things. This can be accomplished by getting people to use wish lists and to create their own for others to use. I bet they committeed this copy and decided it would get them more sales than what an average user would write, and maybe that’s even true. An underlying assumption of UX is that what’s good for the user is good for the company, but sometimes it doesn’t quite mesh. Gift-giving is about fostering human relationships, not about buying as much as possible from Amazon.

Michael, I suppose your theory is possible, but I really doubt that Amazon “decided it would get them more sales than what an average user would write”. That would be completely inconsistent with the rest of the site, which leverages social interactions from the people themselves to provide value to others.

Your point about gift-giving is right on. But I would like to hear more about “An underlying assumption of UX is that what’s good for the user is good for the company, but sometimes it doesn’t quite mesh”…

It’s something that they’ve changed in the last three months - you always used to be able to edit the text, but I was really shocked a couple of days when I couldn’t and I wasn’t sure if it was a bug or deliberate. I had to e-mail the URL myself instead!

The text of this email has been locked temporarily for security reasons until we can implement a better solution.
The timing before the holidays is quite unfortunate.

Couldn’t you just send it to yourself and edit thet text and forward along the more critical message details / links?

Re: “what’s good for the user is good for the company… doesn’t quite mesh.” I mean that this may be an example of a conflict between the user’s goals and the company’s goals. The default copy may be good for getting people to use Amazon for gift-buying, but it’s not so good for fostering relationships.

Just the other day I needed to send my wish list to several people. I disliked the copy so much that I emailed the link to myself then just forwarded the link, sans poor message. I looked for a place where I can just copy then paste the link, but didn’t see it anywhere. Probably just missed it, I’d imagine they wouldn’t leave out something so basic yet crucial. You know, the features for the power users that can not only tie their own shoes but also send email.

When I saw their form letter, I guessed immediately that it was for security reasons. Other large web sites have gotten around the security-issue aspect in so many ways.

It isn’t terribly hard to click, “Tell people about this list” to copy and paste the unique url into an email. I tend to prefer this method as it actually comes from my e-mail address. The idea of giving Amazon.com random family/friend e-mail addresses simply to send them a link is a bit excessive and may ruffle their privacy concerns. The bigger issue is defining how we share information, if only there was some sort of uniform resource locator I could give to someone over IM….

Cool idea and your friends dont’t have to ask you “what do you want for you Happy Birthday?” I have only to make this list of your wish

Good point, although most web users have by now learned to ignore the heading copy on emails like these… You assume it’s pre-filled by the site.

Hey Joshua

Chris from boxedup.com here. We’re a start-up in the shopping/wish/gift list space (we’re all about connecting people and the products they love). We’ve got a dual focus on the personal and social utility in tracking, and interacting around, the things that you want to get from anywhere on the web (so it’s basically social bookmarking meets social networking for the stuff you want and are into).

Not going to pretend that we’ve nailed everything yet from an experience perspective, but we’re getting there (we’re pushing improvements out fairly continuously, including iterating the design as we understand more about interaction opportunities and needs - drag and drop to re-order lists coming tomorrow!).

As far as invites are concerned, we’ve got a more minimalist, but still generic, message that goes out right now, so room for improvement here in terms of personalising the message (but that’ll be coming). The standard message performs fairly well in getting the desired result (i.e. people signing up in response), but since it’s a message that often arrives in your inbox out of the blue a generic message doesn’t give the service the all-important personal context (or maximise conversion potential). So thanks for reinforcing this point!

There are obviously lots of sharing and communication opportunities in this type of proposition, whether it’s on-site comments, messaging or content sharing, and it’s certainly something that we think about a lot, and look to embed throughout every level of the service. We’ve definitely found that people love using the communication tools to share thoughts and comments.

Anyway, thanks for the post, and for all the good thought-provoking stuff that you write on Bokardo!

I wish the wishlists had a unique url (visible on the page)that you could forward to people. That way when people ask me what i want for christmas i can include all my wishlists in one email. Also there is a chance that spam filters may put amazon’s mail in the bin, and then I’d cry on christmas day.

The copy seems to assume that the wish list e-mail was unsolicited. I can see how sending one out in that context would be awkward, so any examples (editable!) are good. But looking at a solicited scenario (you just spoke to some family / friends) who asked what’s on your list, it becomes REALLY awkward… there is no reason for that kind of an introduction.

I agree, big mistake. I also had trouble over the holidays finding people’s gift lists online. Before finding the link was clear and easy, but i spent alot of time just trying to find where to lookup my friend’s list. Another usability mistake.