How Fab.com Just Stupidly Blew a Sale

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Was on Facebook today, saw an ad from Fab.com, and immediately felt the need to make an impulse buy.

I saw this:

For me? Total no-brainer. I love t-shirts, I love funny little things, so I clicked on the ad. Went over to Fab.com, figured I’d buy that T-Rex shirt. It amused me.

I get there, the site loads, and there’s the T-Rex shirt, ready to buy.

Except I couldn’t buy it, because a pop-up appeared, asking me to either create an account, log-in, or connect with Facebook. BEFORE I EVEN BOUGHT ANYTHING.

There was no way to close it. There was no way to get around it. I clicked on the shirt and nothing happened, because I hadn’t logged in to fab.com yet, or created an account, or connected with Facebook.

Why would a company possibly do that? Can you imagine my walking into your store to buy something, but before I go in, I have to give you my name, address, and phone number before you’ll even let me in the store?

Companies: Take a lesson from this – DON’T MAKE IT HARDER FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS TO BUY THAN IT ALREADY IS. Make it EASIER! They don’t want to create an account? Don’t make them. That’s what the guest feature is for. Force me to do something I don’t want to do? No sale.

Can you imagine how horrible that would have looked on a mobile device? Come on, Fab.com, why would you stack the odds of a purchase against yourself? That’s not helpful to anyone.

Lesson learned, I hope. Lose the required login, Fab, and perhaps I’ll come back. In the meantime, do any other companies sell that T-REX shirt? I still totally want one.

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