Dear Anthropologie,
Hey it’s me. Roxy! You know, the one who logs into her account about 1,000,000 times a day and has more items on her wishlist then there are currently available to buy. (You never know — popbacks and such! A girl can hope.)
I was hoping we could chat a bit about your website. I have thoroughly enjoyed the redesign. There were a few kinks right after it launched but there always are. Every suggestion I was going to make, you ended up making the change all on your own. Rock on, I thought! But now there are a few issues. These are mostly quibbles to what is mostly a fantastic website. So take them as polite suggestions knowing that overall I think this is a functional, well-designed site conducive to buying.
My biggest complaint is with your “you may also like” upsells. On the old site these upsells were almost always items that coordinated with whatever product you happened to be looking at. But these days it’s just a list of other items in the category. For example when I’m on the Longing-For-Yellow Dress ($158) product page I would expect to see that “you may also like” the Blooms Revealed Cardigan ($128) and the Chantilly Oxfords ($218). Instead I just see other dresses…not much help there.
Another issue I have is with your shopping cart. All of a sudden I have to sign in to see it. I suppose this helps because once you’ve cookied me my cart follows me from computer to computer (i.e., work to home to even my iPhone). But once I sign in you force me into your rich html cart and it’s not as functional as the old simple one.
The thing that annoys me the most? If an item is out-of-stock and in your cart the ONLY option is to delete it. The Save it For Later option is greyed out and so is the Add to Wishlist, so if you didn’t do either of those you’re screwed. It used to be that items Saved for Later were expanded like the items in your cart, but now they’re reduced to just pictures which is not very helpful for seeing it an item is in-stock, on sale or even what it’s called. Not liking it.
Anthro I hate to be a bee in your bonnet but there’s one more thing and it’s a big one. What is up with suddenly redirecting to the homepage when an item sells out??? This is such a pain on so many levels!
- You no longer know the style # if you try to call customer service to do a store search.
- If the item comes back into stock but isn’t on your wishlist you have no idea.
- When people write me asking about an old item I can no longer confirm its identity.
- If you want to read reviews of an item that’s sold out online but still in stores you can’t.
- Who hates a redirect? Search engines hate a redirect.
Please reconsider this decision. Every Anthro lover out there has to look up an old item every now and then. An archive would be such a great feature to have but until that’s in place we at least need to be able to see product pages from the current release, in-stock or not.
Anyway, thanks for listening Anthro!
Love always,
roxy
PS – I am missing my anthro card. Is my replacement on the way?!? UPDATE: It’s here!!!! Hooray anthro card.
I totally agree!! Those were also my gripes about the website.
Roxy: thanks alot for your letter/rant to Anthro. I wholeheartedly agree especially about the items that are no longer available on the website, BUT are still on sale in the stores in order but you can't read the reviews or try and do a CS search. Boo Hiss 🙁 Getting that dreaded rerouting back to the main page sucks also. Also, you've covered the other issues I noted as well. Thank you so much for your blog, if I haven't mentioned recently. I look forward to reading it each day and several times per day!
if you click on the saved for later item image it expands to show you the necessary info. it's still really obnoxious though because you can only look at 1 at a time!
Seconded. Thank you. I've been annoyed by this for a few weeks now, but the redirect is just the latest unhappy addition. Everything worked so well before. 🙁
Totally agree, especially about the sold out items redirecting to the home page. Happened to me with that darling little Cotillion slip, which I am still crying tears over missing out on.
Ohh I have been so PISSED when I try to look up an item that's sold out and it takes me to the homepage. Grrrr.I too also hate how you can only delete an item from your shopping cart that's out of stock. What if I want to stalk for later? Bad Anthro, bad!
Ugh, I am peeved by everything you mentioned. The saved for later option is annoying, but the redirecting kills me. I absolutely hate it.
i must add a gripe of my own, but this is for browsing the in-store sale section. picture the scene:i move along (trying not to get whapped by a handbag and trying not to whap anyone with my handbag–nyc stores get BUSY) and i spot a fantastic dress/skirt/blouse/sweater that i have been waiting to go on sale. and then. THEN i look at the price tag and find out the price has been reduced to…errr, ten dollars less than full price.ARGH! like i'm going to say, "yes! ten bucks less! now i'm buying!"blargh.
What about the absence of the "Fresh Cuts" selection under the Sale category?
Redirecting to the front page is the worst. It's like rubbing salt in my "I can't believe I didn't buy this when it was still available" wound. I think that the "sold out" page with the reviews should stay up indefinitely (or, at least until the item is truly sold out of all stores). I also wish that Anthro would post all of its old catalogs on its website. It would be nice to look up an old purchase and see what it was paired with or see how the model wore it. Sometimes I find Anthro items in my closet that I haven't worn in a while and I can't remember why I fell in love with them, but some old magazine photos might jog my memory…
P.S. Congrats on getting a replacement Anthro card!
Thank you so much for commenting on the redirect to the home page when an item is sold out. That happened to me today and it drives me NUTS!!! I agree with all your anthro issues and I hope they listen.
Yes, the absence of the Fresh Cuts is really annoying. Now you have to go through all the categories to find newly reduced stuff if it isn't on your wish list. Boo Hiss….
what you said–all of it. meanwhile, can i add CS woes to this?! i called them and had them look up a bunch of stuff, none of which were "available." on a whim, i called my local anthropologie… all the items were there in my requested sizes. seriously??
Oh my gosh, thanks for writing this Roxy!! EVERY day I consider writing a post of my own complaining about the dumb things I encounter on Anthro's website, but I wondered if anyone else would care.I HATE the rich cart. Hate hate hate. I think they somewhat A/B test you because I sometimes get it and I sometimes don't, so I hopelessly refresh the page over and over hoping to get the old cart (probably smarter to delete my cookies, huh?). And yet I was searching the other day to see if anyone else had complained about this issue and ran across this, a promotional/informative document touting the benefits of the richcart technology and showing how it was beneficial numberswise. Given I think it was created by the company that designed the new cart, but still, I fear they are going to fully implement it someday.The other thing I really hate is that Anthro, as of the last website redesign, constantly logs me out of its site because the cookies expire too early. Oh my god, I sign in like 5x a day. On a slow day 🙂 Please remember who I am Anthro, for more than 20 minutes, you used to!! Wishlisting items is such a high-friction process now.Oh, and the home page redirects are annoying too, though I only noticed them starting recently — maybe they're a glitch that will be corrected?? One can hope…
Thank you Roxy! I agree with everything you wrote, and that goes double for the redirect to the homepage.And I agree with Krispy. I assume that the Fresh Cuts section is only gone for the holidays, but I found it very useful and I hope it comes back soon.I also want to rant about the backorder system. I ordered the Hedy Platforms as soon as they were restocked, and they were put on backorder (as expected). When the size 6's sold out, I called customer service just to make sure this didn't impact my order. The rep assured me that I had been reserved a pair. Then Saturday (after waiting and waiting for 7 weeks!) I get an e-mail that my order has been cancelled. I'm so upset I almost cried. I know it seems silly, but they're so beautiful. And I really wanted them : (
I agree with Krispy about missing the Fresh Cuts! I used to look at that section all the time.
I am so with you on the redirect thing. My other two quibbles: if you are inactive on the website for even like 5 minutes, it logs you out. Annoying. AND AND AND what happened to the fresh cuts section of the sale? I hate having to look through each category to see if anything is new.
@Robin: I saw a bunch of Cotillion slips at the Durham, NC store last Thursday — not sure of the size, but give them a call!
i agree. most importantly, it would be nice to have pricing consistent with online & in store.
THANK YOU ROXY. I have been annoyed with each and every thing you brought up. I also miss the fresh cuts. And like goldenmeans, my login expires and MUCH too quickly and what is going on with the back and forth with the rich cart??
WELL SAID ROXY! Thank you!I agree with everything you said. I also agree with goldenmeans about the log-in time expiring too quickly. I'll add 1 thing: I wish I didn't have to click "sign in" to bring me to the sign in page. I wish I could enter my email/password on the top of any/every page.
These issues, especially the redirect when an item sells out one raise really good points! I hope they hear you out, Roxy!