That’s it! I’m completely done with Chapters

I was on chapters.ca the other day looking for a book. For those of you tuning in from outside of Canada, Chapters is our version of Barnes & Noble, or any other big book seller. There are physical Chapters stores, but the one is Lethbridge is so limited in selection that it’s just not worth shopping there for anything other than the New York Times bestseller list, or Oprah’s book club.

Let me get on with my real complaint though. I’m on their e-commerce web site, trying to buy products from them, and I run a search. Low and behold, mixed in with the search results from their catalogue are “sponsored links”. The visual cues provided are insufficient to separate third party sponsored links from the actual search results I’m looking for.

Let me tackle this two ways. First, from the retailer’s perspective, why on earth would I want to lead somebody away from my own catalogue of goods to a third party web site while that person is “in the sales funnel”? In the example above, I’m searching for a book on Windows Vista to see how easy it will be for me/if it’s worth my while to upgrade (this is a hypothetical search, of course). Third link presented is to Microsoft’s web site so that I can check my PC’s compatibility… and I’m off. Forget about finding a book.

Oh, but hey, clicking that link probably netted Chapters a cool $1.25 (at most). That so makes up for the lost sale of a book with a 30% margin on it.

Now the customer’s perspective: when I get search results back, I scan the titles. I’m going this route, the first result is about security (not what I’m looking for) second result is “New perspectives” (huh? Not what I’m looking for) third result is “Upgrade to Windows Vista” — hey, that’s bang on. Let’s click that… wait, what? I’m not looking at a book listing on Chapter’s web site, how did that happen?

So far, I’ve only seen the sponsored links appear when I “Search All” (that is search all areas of the web site, not just books). Google’s Adwords let you exclude certain advertisers, but I can’t wait until that small, independent book reseller opens up shop online and runs Adwords along the lines of “Buy from me, cheaper than Chapters!” and that gets included in the Chapters search results.

Is this the modern day version of Grandpa Simpson who writes letters complaining about little things? I can’t wait until I’m old enough to sit out in a rocking chair and shake my cane at kids walking by.