The 5 minute million pound fix?….
by Jared on November 21, 2012
Wow with a headline like that it would seem like this article is going to be making millionaires all over the UK, with a simple 5 minute fix on their websites.
Unfortunately this isn’t the case for everyone but it may be correct for one of the UK’s leading retailers Jack Wills. The figure is purely based on educated guess work at the percentage of customers that would abandon a cart due to this type of issue against the traffic stats from Alexa.
I recently went to purchase a new jacket for my wife from the site, as a Google Chrome user I just typed in jackwills.com into the address bar and away I went, greeted with the Jack Wills home page.
I navigated to the product page, added it to my basket all very slick and well-engineered, then I landed on the shopping basket page, I checked the product was the right one and clicked the checkout button only to be faced with the following screen.
Now imagine that I am the parent of a 12 – 16 year old child who is desperate to get the latest Jack Wills joggers or their new Hoody, but as the owner of the card that is going to pay for these purchases this could be very scary and indeed lead to a cart abandonment as the customer doesn’t feel safe putting their card details into this site for fear of fraud, card cloning etc.
As a courtesy I tweeted @JackWills_Help to let them know the error that I had received so that it could get sorted out, I received a standard sales reply with the option to call and complete my order.
Unfortunately 10 days later the error still exists. Now your average parent isn’t going to let customer support know that they have received this error, they are simply going to click off the page and either wait to go and buy the products in store or maybe visit a rival site such as Hollister and purchase similar products from there.
I was telling one of the web developers I know and he couldn’t replicate the error so I went over to his machine and sat down and relived the process the way I had done it when I first went to purchase, that’s when it became clear what the issue was.
And here it is:
Tell me what the difference is between these two images and you are halfway to solving the problem……
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
You get it?
Well if you did congratulations, if you didn’t then that’s fine that’s what this articles for, the difference is the one version of the site is on the sub domain of www. and the other version isn’t.
This is a usability issue, if somebody visits the non www. version of the Jack Wills site, then tries to buy, the “checkout” button points to the non www. version of the cart for which the SSL certificate is not registered for. If they initially visit the www. version of the site, they will have no issues.
The error message in Firefox explains the issue in a more technical way:
The certificate is only valid for *.jackwills.com
(Error code: ssl_error_bad_cert_domain)
In short the SSL certificate is only valid for sub domains of jackwills.com such as www.jackwills.com or cart.jackwills.com for example.
http://www.jackwills.com/en-gb/checkout/delivery?flow=basket_checkout – Redirects to login/register page
http://jackwills.com/en-gb/checkout/delivery?flow=basket_checkout – takes you to error page
The fix:
This issue could be resolved for example with a simple 301 redirect in the sites .htaccess file with Apache.
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.jackwills\.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.jackwills.com/$1 [R=301,L]
So in future anytime a user tries to access the Jack Wills website like so jackwills.com they will instantly be redirected to www.jackwills.com.
So there it is the simple 5 minute fix that could make a massive difference to conversions to Jack Wills, it might have a large impact it might only be minor but I felt it made a good little case study and also show’s that even the biggest online companies can make mistakes sometimes so we don’t have to beat ourselves up about it.
Thanks to Andy at ajfmedia for the 301 fix code.
*Update* 19 December 2012
It appears that Jack Wills have fixed the issue on their site now, and having seen that the Senior Front-End Web Developer recently viewed my Linkedin profile I can only presume they used the article as the basis for fixing the issue, all in all a win for the customer.
Cheers
Jared
Blackburn Hawks Summer Teambuilding
by Jared on July 12, 2012
Just a little response to today’s Hawks news being reported and I guess an overview for you fans of what is happening this summer from my viewpoint as coach. With regards the statement of ‘Arena’s failure to sufficiently support the team’ I can only say that Mark and Des have been nothing but 100% supportive of what we are doing with the team this year, in both financial commitment and logistical support for me and Dangie that hasn’t in previous years been available, the one thing they can’t do is move the arena!(A point I’ll delve into further later on!). I think it’s a very easy target to say the Arena are the problem and offer no support, that couldn’t be further from the truth, it’s important to remember they as an organisation have been burnt before and there is an element of trust needing to be built, me and Dangie have done that over the previous two seasons and so more opportunities have opened up for us as a result.
There is always going to be speculation but I can say there is only ever Me, Dangie and the Arena management in our meetings so I’m not sure how sources can claim to know the content of our discussions, this is not a slight on Michael Black he is just reporting the information his sources feed him ‘good or bad’ as he is entitled to do, but I just doubt the validity and the motives of some of his sources from the meetings and conversations I have been involved in with the Arena.
We have had open dialogue on a day to day basis with the arena about players, pre-season, links with junior development and they are keen for the team to succeed and trust me and Dangie to deliver that. In terms of the direction the club is heading in, they leave all player recruitment and on ice issues to me in my role of coach, it’s been the same since day 1 when Gary Rogers brought us in and that wasn’t ever going to change, GM or not. So I guess it’s the right time for me to explain the direction we are going in this season.
We are going through more of a revolution this season compared to last season’s evolution with the team building (shamelessly stolen and amended from Billingham fan Craig Simpsons blog – check it out it’s a good article). This is for a few reasons:
- The evolution process didn’t quite get us to where we wanted last season, the team had an excellent chance to win both the league and the playoffs and came up short in both, that’s not me playing down our achievement last year but there’s a feeling it could of been better. (Before I get all the Billingham fans tweeting me again about pies and best team in the league, that wasn’t my comment and to be the best team in the league you need to have the most points at the end of the season, the Stars did and were deserving winners of both titles!). So we had a decision to make tinker a little bit more with the current squad or look to rebuild a team we think gives us a better chance to win, we’ve gone with option 2!
- This philosophy was further justified to us when we knew for certain Ric Hughes was leaving, we knew it was a possibility before even the season ended and as I said to him face to face I fully support his decision and wish him all the best next season. Obviously since then a number of last year’s team have joined him and signed for other teams. It is also the case that a core of our team from last year travelled together with Ric so him being a coach with another team means he’s going to look at approaching these players, that’s fine and I’m in no position to comment if the guys are being offered anything for making the drop to ENL 2 as I do not know any details about the Deeside setup, and it would be unfair for me to try and say that this was the reason for them leaving. The harsh reality of this is that out of all the players who have signed elsewhere we had only spoken to two and stated our desire to bring them back this year as we knew we needed to bring in fresh faces and have a new style and direction this upcoming season.
Now this is the awkward bit with our player recruiting, Our location, we are not blessed with being located in a hockey hotbed, so we have to rely on attracting players from surrounding areas, Manchester, Bradford, Sheffield etc. We have an excellent setup here for an ENL team and we are very well supported with a great fan base, it’s a great place to play but all of the players have work or college and the commuting to training and games can become a burden on playing this sport.
Our location is a negative factor when looking to recruit players, this isn’t something that the arena can do anything about but they are 100% supportive in looking at helping with fuel expenses where possible and were lucky that with the support we get and the backing from the arena, but it doesn’t change that were competing at a level where guys have to get up on a Friday morning after a 23:45 training finish and an hour’s drive home on a Thursday night to go to work so all these factors play a part in peoples decisions.
With regards two players who won’t be returning next season, Sami Narkia was always only going to be a one year deal, he was studying in Wolverhampton for the year could travel with me and Dangie and was always going back to Finland to live with his girlfriend who he had just got an apartment with, we knew from day 1 he wasn’t going to be back this coming season but we were thankful for the contribution he made last year.
The other player is Jordan Bannon, now Jordan knows I would love to have him back and he loved playing for the Hawks last season but he is due to finish his apprenticeship with Jaguar Landrover and will become a service engineer working shifts, now he has told me that he doesn’t want to commit to playing if he cannot train and play all the games. This is extremely honest of him and as much as I would like him in the team, it’s not my place to affect his future career and work life; he knows the door is open whenever he wants to come back.
So on to next season’s team, Me and Dangie have spoken to lots and lots of players and have been approached by a number of players who are all keen to join the Hawks and be part of what were building, we think we will have an exciting squad and we 100% believe that the sum of all the parts will equal a better team than last season’s, but only time will tell. I don’t agree in dropping names of people we have spoken to as I don’t think it’s something that should be done especially as players will be coming in from other teams. If summer hockey is any indication then the level of young talent that has been coming along is a very positive sign, we’ve had some fans present and I’m sure they can confirm that the level has been very good especially for summer hockey and the fact that we’ve been able to bring in younger players who are part of the Great Britain setup is a really positive sign and shows us we’re moving in the right direction.
I know it gets frustrating as fans when all that they ever seem to see is doom and gloom but me and Dangie believe we will have an excellent team this upcoming season and there’s still a few surprises to come yet.
Sorry for the essay but it makes more sense than trying to answer every part individually!
Cheers
Jared
