Why don’t retailers care about customer experience?

Call me a cranky usability person tonight – I don’t care. My gripe is about the tiniest of customer experience issues: the icky, sticky, price stickers often found in the most unusable positions on tangible goods like kitchen appliances and gifts such as photo frames.

I purchased a wonderful new steaming pot to serve my husband fresh vegetables, with summer and the beckon of farm-fresh veggies found at roadside stands and farmers markets. Visions of perfectly steamed broccoli, cauliflower and asparagus being served on gleaming china on a beautiful candlelit table are the fantasies of Suzy Homemakers everywhere, right? So I bring my perfect pot home, only to discover that there are rudely affixed price stickers on all of the items in this single purchase. On the bottom of the pan, there are two stickers, one with two pieces of gooey tape attached. Now, it doesn’t take a usability genius to figure out one should not put paper, stickers and tape directly onto a stovetop burner, does it? Then there was the sticker on the steaming portion, which got down into the little holes. Then the sticker on the lid, plus the sticker on the inside of the pot, telling me to wash it before use. Wow… so glad someone was looking out for me there!!!

By the time I got to the lid, attempting to lift the corner of the fourth sticker with my $50 manicure, I was cursing up a storm, and I wondered…. who makes these idiotic decisions? I have wondered this many times, because it seems like these precious price stickers are always, I repeat, always, placed in just the precise spot of most inconvenience for a customer who actually wants to purchase the item and take it home.

Take for example, a lovely photo frame. People purchase these all the time, especially for weddings, and you envision the bride’s delight over the perfect silver or crystal frame surrounding her pretty wedding photo. Where is the sticker of doom usually attached? The left or right hand corner, and when you remove it, there is a big pile of goo on the glass. Once again, very little brainpower is required when making the decision about where to place the price sticker to help the customer, who should be the object in mind when designing packaging, or pricing items, or placing any kind of note, memo, label, instructions, etc. on anything someone is going to buy.

So why is the pooch screwed at the point of purchase? I have no idea, but my annoyed and highly agitated mind would sure love to know the psychological process of how some people arrive at the inverse decision of what is helpful to the customer.

Apparently I’m not the only one with this problem. If you need to know how to remove irritating stickers, here are some tips. Good luck!

And if you’re a retailer and just can’t figure out on your own, the optimal placement for a price sticker, label, etc., please feel free to give me a call. I would be most happy to save others from this ridiculously unnecessary annoyance!