I thought that online shopping was supposed to herald a new era of consumer-supplier interaction. The promise of being able to purchase from any supplier, regardless of their geographic location, has only partly come to fruition and the reason for this partial success is a combination of closely linked technical and social issues. I’m only going to speak about the social issues.

In 1995, Amazon.com and eBay were founded and this seems to have heralded the beginning of 24-hour online shopping. Amazon has grown into a massive online store where you can purchase almost anything you want at any time of day, perhaps it could be considered as a Web equivalent of Wal*Mart… eBay has developed into an online auction center where you can probably buy or sell almost anything you desire.

But lets consider the following, over simplified, scenario of buying a music album.

I read a review for the latest Animal Collective album, Merriweather Post Pavillion, on my favourite music review website, and based on hearing some samples on their MySpace player, I decide that I want to purchase the album.

Scenario A: Bricks and mortar
I walk into town to check our the prices and packages available in the record stores. The album is priced at £8.99 in HMV, a major retailer, £9.99 in Fopp, a national retailer, and £9.99 in Avalanche Records, a local and independent retailer. I decide to purchase the album at the local and independent retailer for £9.99 and pay using my Visa Debit card. I take a copy of the album to the cashier, hand it over, provide my payment method and PIN when asked, and leave with the album.

Scenario B: Online shopping
I open up my Web browser and visit a some online music retailers selling both physical albums and digital downloads: 7digitial.com MP3 Store, eMusic.com MP3 Store, iTunes AAC Store, Amazon.com physical and MP3 Store, Play.com physical and MP3 Store, HMV physical and MP3 Store, to name a few in the sea of choices. I decide to purchase an electronic copy of the album and find that a store I don’t usually use can provide it in the quality / drm-free / price category that interests me. The expectation seems to be that I will create a new account with a username, that I most likely cannot have so I get stuck with something like desmond1832, and yet another password and I need to yet again enter my payment card and address details. After entering all these details, I can download the album but I might need to install a piece of software to help me with my download. What?

In the Bricks & Mortar scenario, there is no cognitive friction involved in making a purchase. I can pay using cash or using a card; in the case that I use a card, the Chip & Pin system means I only need to remember four digits before I can leave the store.

In the Online Shopping scenario, I am almost certain to feel frustrated by the experience if I want to purchase from a retailer I have not used in the past. The repetition of typing the same details into Site X that I’ve already typed into Site Y is enough to drive you to distraction.

There are a few promising attempts to simplify this problem. Amazon Marketplace allows retailers to sell their goods through the Amazon.com website, it feels like a Flea Market; eBay Stores offers almost exactly the same thing; Google Checkout lets retailers use the Google payment system to process their transactions; and Paypal Business offers a similar system to Google Checkout.

Perhaps one of the reasons for none of these systems becoming the defacto standard is that they are all instrinsically linked to a business. Amazon Marketplace and Amazon.com, eBay Stores and eBay, Paypal and eBay. From a consumer and retailer perspective, it doesn’t feel like Visa Debit is linked to HMV or Mastercard is linked to Tesco, and maybe that helps retailers to trust that processing Visa Debit or Mastercard payments is less likely to cause them problems at any time in the future.