Nov
16th
Tue
16th
Myth #20: If it works for Amazon, it will work for you
Although Amazon has features that are both excellent and well-proven, they won’t necessarily work on any e-commerce website. Let’s take their customer reviews for example. Target.com bought Amazon’s customer review software. Jared Spool demonstrates that, despite using the same exact software and interface, Target.com doesn’t receive any reviews at all: in the first month after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out, Amazon got 1 805 reviews, whereas Target received only 3 (both retailers sold about 2 million copies).
It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t copy the design of others - by all means do. But make sure you also understand why it worked for them and how it will work for your company and your users.
