Best Buy UX & Post Purchase Experience Review

The Perfect Product Page Template™

This free template will help you engineer the ultimate product page to increase conversion & revenue while minimizing future returns!

Desktop

Mobile

Desktop

Mobile

Page	Page Speed (Time to Interactive)			Accessibility
Page		Desktop	Mobile	Desktop	Mobile
Homepage	2.3 (sec)	9.5 (sec)	95	97
Search Result Page	6.5 (sec)	15.2 (sec)	94	94
Category Page	2.9 (sec)	11.2 (sec)	86	88
Product Page	3.4 (sec)	17.6 (sec)	89	87
Cart Page	3.3 (sec)	14.7 (sec)	87	81
Checkout (each step)	3.9 (sec)	12.8 (sec)	87	82
Order List	3.5 (sec)	9.1 (sec)	85	88
Order View	3.2 (sec)	10.7 (sec)	96	95
Staples.com Speed and Accessibility data provided by Lighthouse

Transcript

Hey, what’s up, guys? Let’s make some purchases today from Staples. This is a store that has physical locations basically everywhere and they do Curbside and it’s a major retailer. So let’s see how they do everything.

Okay, so this is the website, right here in the Header I can set my own store. I’m not going to set it quite yet and they are offering one-hour pickup on most items. Cool. Let’s see, what else are they doing?

On the Homepage they are advertising free delivery, no minimum. Most delivered next day. And curbside available, so let’s see what they do with it. Available in most locations. Free delivery, no minimum, curbside, and in-store pickup. Available in most stores. Now. I’m curious when they say available in most stores, what do they actually mean? Like, can I see which store has it available? Anyways. And you know, this is really good, healthy goods, people are wearing it in the store, like facemask. Really nice.

Let’s set our store. And I’m going to select this one just because this one is downtown, and it’s going to be really hard. Pickup in store. Okay, so this allows pickup in-store, but does it allow curbside. Again, this is on 15 Chestnut, it’s a very busy street, I doubt I can stop with my car there to do curbside and to demonstrate. I wish they would have told me if this store accepts curbside or not. This one is in a street mall. So for sure, they can do curbside, but if they don’t show it, I can just imagine that both locations either do accept curbside or none of them does.

So I would have preferred if the guys from Staples would have mentioned here that accepts curbside or something like that. I’m going to make this one my store. Really nice because it shows me where it is. Location, hours. That’s good. I guess that’s it. Okay, really nice.

Let’s start shopping. I need to buy some notebooks. I really like that here, even on the Search, I can basically select whatever I want to show me in my location. So all these are available in the store. So I can basically shop the store, this is really good. And buy online and pick up in-store.

I would like to filter on the type, I want like a graph ruled, notebook type. Number of sheets. I would really like if you can basically filter here by the type of ruling, how is that, like squares or? Anyways. Ruled notebook, meeting notebook. Let’s buy two of these. And I can get this product delivered today. Free delivery, February 5th, today is the 3rd. So basically the one-day delivery doesn’t work. I like that I have free returns. That’s cool. Let’s see what they do here. Maybe because it’s late, 4 p.m. Anyways, would have been cool to say like I have X amount of time. Maybe they do if you’re prior to 4 p.m., however, too late.

And I can get it one-hour pickup, available South Columbus, okay. Let’s see if I can change my store. Yeah, I can change the store and I can see all the stores that have it available. How many and can I do like five? No. Good. Can I do four and two? How many they added? What do you guys think? Chestnut Street? Two, okay.

Let me buy some of these. So I’m going to select two from this store and the other two I doubt they’re going to be able to deliver them there. Although they don’t say it’s impossible to stop the car downtown. So I doubt. I added this product, so if we view the cart, I cannot get one half of it here, half there. Okay, quite disappointing.

Let’s say pens. Let’s get these basic pens. I’m going to pick these up at a different location. Let’s do this. Chestnut place. Okay, can I do this, ship it to that store or pick it up in a different location? Yeah, this is Chestnut. This is South Columbus. Okay, so two different stores.

Now let’s get something more complex that I need to ship to the store. So let’s take a label printer. Okay, something that’s not available there. Something more complex. Label Maker, maybe. Label Maker. There you go. Let’s get this one. I feel like this one is complex. So if I order it, it’s interesting. This product, I can order it within one hour and I’m going to get it tomorrow. So yeah, one-day delivery on most products, not all products. It’s just stupid, like this product, which looks more complex they can ship it tomorrow, deliver it by tomorrow, but a notebook, it takes longer.

I like it that they say order now, within one hour and four minutes. Okay, so 5:20 to get it tomorrow for next-day delivery. Really cool. But I’m going to ship this to the store because I want to see if they allow for that. Okay, so I’m gonna do that. Why do I have to do this? I already have my store pickup set up. Yes, that one. I think it’s an extra step. They should just allow me to add it to the cart. Anyways. Yes, this is the one.

Let’s view the cart. So what I have so far, one product that’s going to be shipped to the store, one product for pickup in-store, another product for pickup in-store, and we need something to be delivered. Come on hand sanitizer takes longer than a label maker. It’s fine. Okay, so this one is going to be delivered. So one delivery, one ship to store, one pickup in-store, Chestnut location, another product pickup in-store, South Columbus. Cool. Let’s do this.

Okay, let’s checkout. What? Staples only allows for items to be shipped to one location, please select a delivery option for these items. I cannot place an order that has shipped to home and a ship to store for pickup. That’s really backward. So now I have to place two orders, one for ship to store and the other one. Okay, ship to store and another one to ship to home. Now I only want this one to be shipped, this is completely backward. This is not a good idea. It’s a little bit confusing now, to be quite honest.

So all items in the cart. In-store pickup in one hour, good. So I cannot even ship it to the two locations. I cannot place one order with combined shipped to store with pickup at a different location or two different locations or ship to home with pickup. They only allow one way, either ship everything for one location or you ship everything home. You cannot place one order with multiple options, home, plus in-store, plus multiple stores. You know, maybe on my way, I can just stop by two stores, right? Like, I can just stop by one store, pick up the first item, stop by the second store, pick up the second item because they don’t have it available.

Now I have to place multiple orders for each product and if I want to buy something to be shipped to me, because they don’t have it at the store, now I have to ship another order. Okay, this is just not good. Just think about it. I buy multiple products. One, they don’t have it anywhere in the city, I can just ship it home, right, it’s easy. The other product they have it at one store and this other product into another store, so I should be able to place one order ship to home, pickup, pickup, or ship to home, pickup, pickup, ship to another store for another day or something like that.

Anyways, they only allow one way, that it is what it is. Everything is going to be picked up from there. And you know what I’m going to do? I place this order and after that, I placed another order for ship to home, just so I can see how everything works. I don’t need this one anymore, then. This is going to be shipped to the store. Cool. For in-store pickup, first name, last name. And I need to add the phone number. Okay, I add the phone number. Okay, continue. Yep, it’s all good.

Okay, and I can do credit card, other methods, click to pay, gift cards, and more. I like that you cannot reserve inventory. And you say like, I go to the store and pay there. You have to pay first and when you get to the store you pick it up, makes total sense. I really don’t understand companies that allow you to reserve online, because now I can reserve all this inventory. And who knows when I show up. That’s just completely backward as you as a store can miss out on the opportunity to actually sell that product because one kid tries to play around, reserves all the inventory online, and never goes into the store to pick it up. So that’s completely backward. Anyway, I’m going to add my credit card, and I’m going to check out and I’m going to review how everything looks. And we’d go from there. So I’ll be back in a minute. Take care.

I placed the order. This is the Order Confirmation page. And here I can already sign up for a HelloFresh, I can get $90. Okay, pretty cool. Not right now. Okay, for better pricing, honey. What is this? Powered by. Okay, no thanks, serious. Come on. Is this necessary? I don’t really care about these. No, show time, no. I really like that they allow me to get informed with text messages. The phone number is automatically completed, really cool, so I can subscribe. You will receive a text message shortly with instructions to complete your subscription. And I just received it. There you go. Really cool. I can sign up for the membership. Okay, and here’s all the information.

I can see here again that these items are going to be ready for pick up and this product is going to be shipped to the store, and I can also purchase. An order confirmation will be sent. Good. Please don’t go to the store yet. They should make this message bigger. We’ll send you an email, that’s really good. I really like that they say that because for sure there are people who are just going to head to the store, expecting that it’s ready when it’s not ready. Anyways they say one hour, so that should be quite fast.

Now let’s check out the Order Confirmation. This is the order confirmation, thank you for your order, due to whatever COVID, where is going to be picked up, items for pickup, it’s not the time to go yet. I like this stands out, ready for pick up in one hour. And you know whatever it’s going to be sent and all that looks good. Cool. I like this so far. Really nice.

Let me see what this does. View Order. This is the View Order. View Order page looks quite good. I can reorder this, it’s really nice. And I can see the status of each item, really nice. Order placed, order placed and ready for pick up, picked up, really cool.

Let’s see this, My Orders. I like that, it’s really close. This just doesn’t make any sense. Come on. Okay, there you go. This is so backward. So if I click on this, My Orders, like this just doesn’t make any sense. If I just go to My Account, which is there, or My Profile, no. Account Overview. Yeah, I have to go to Account Overview to see my orders. But if I hit View All, it doesn’t work. That’s so bad. Oh, that’s so bad. Anyways, let’s get back. Okay, okay.

I like this FAQ section here. Pretty good. Cool. I can see here all my items. But I cannot open the order. Oh my God, guys, this is bad. So I need to get this order number, check this out. View order and ZIP code. My ZIP code? No. So whose ZIP code do I have to put? This is so bad. Check this out. You need to enter the ZIP code of the store. My God, come on. Yes. You have to enter the ZIP code of the store to be able to access your order. Who is going to figure this out? Nobody. Guys this is really backward. Like really bad.

Let me place another order. Limited quantities This is cheaper. Okay, deliver it home. Yes, blue, it doesn’t matter. Just double-check. Yep. Little squares. I love the little squares. 100 sheets, 70 sheets. Let’s get the bigger one so we don’t exchange too much. 12 pack, let’s get the 12 back. It’s always good to have 50 bucks. So wait, if I get one product I get it Friday, if I get a bunch of 12 I get it faster. This is a funny website guys, it’s a funny website.

Let’s view the cart one more time. Yes. Ship it home, arrives tomorrow, checkout. That’s my shipping address. Let’s say that’s the shipping address, that’s fine. Continue. Good. Place order, your order is processing. Okay, again it’s nonsense. No, no. My goodness. So what is this? If you guys want this, you guys can sign up. Cool. So payment method, all that is good, shipping address that is good. I really like how they basically tell you when the product is going to arrive. Like that all fashion shipped in two to three days, that’s complete nonsense. Nobody wants that, customers hate that stuff. Just say it exactly how it is. You know it’s going to be shipped, delivered actually by tomorrow. So that’s good.

Let’s check out the order confirmation, order confirmation looks good. I like it that it’s marked up. And all that looks good. Good, good. Good. Let me check this, in-store saving coupons, find a local store, order confirmation Okay, so what happens now? My orders, oh my God, guys, this is bad. This is really bad. Let’s just pretend this, I can’t figure out that that order is for that ZIP code, I have multiple orders. View All. I can already imagine how many where’s my order-type questions they have. This is for sure a disaster. Like I’m not kidding. This is not good. This is bad. I can click this and it’s going to open it, which is good. But if I go there and let’s say I cannot find that email, I think it’s bad. Like really bad. Like next-level bad. That’s just not good.

What I like here is that I can cancel these items and I can reorder, so cancel items. I hope they have like a confirmation, good. Choose cancel, reason, choose an appropriate reason for cancellation. Confirm cancellation, cancel item. Please select at least one item to cancel. Okay, reason, good, confirm. Okay, I don’t really want to cancel this order yet. But yeah, that’s good because they give you the option.

Now how do I go back? Oh my God, so if I don’t have a back button like this I cannot go back. Because if I click on this nothing happens, My Orders takes me to this nonsense. Anyways, I think this My Order page is completely disastrous and I’m going to wait for my email that my order is ready for pickup, and then I’m going to head to the store and pick this product up. So I’ll be back.

Okay, so almost an hour passed and I received the email. I was expecting to be an email saying that the order is ready for pickup. But that’s not the case. So on the flip side, basically I received an email that none of the items are ready for pickup because none of them are in stock. And here I’m not really purchasing anything crazy. It’s like a simple gel pen and a simple notebook.

I really want to check this out, how it works. So I’m going to give it another try. I’ll place an order for something even more basic. I’m not sure what’s even more basic, but let’s see. Some paper. Paper it is, pickup in one hour. Not available. Okay, consider similar products. So let’s do this one more time. Office supplies and available. Good. Okay, this was not available, although it says it’s available. 23 available. I really don’t need those. I don’t like those pens. Okay, this is a very common product. Pickup in one hour, seven available, so there are seven available. These should be in stock. Pickup in one hour. Yes. Add to Cart. Yes, checkout. Yes, place the order. So I’m going to type in here all my information and I’m going to place the order. But yeah. This is crazy. I was not expecting this. So I’m gonna place this order and in one hour, I’m gonna check if this is ready for pickup, because it’s quite frustrating.

Okay, I’m back. I placed an order, a new order for another product. It’s like a very common product. You know, some uniball pens, whatever. I place this order at 5:40 p.m., with expectations of being ready for pickup in one hour and curbside pickup, right. As we know, on the website, there’s basically zero confirmation that this order can be picked up curbside, although it’s available in most stores. And when you look here nothing says that it has curbside or not. So I’m assuming all of the stores have or none of the stores have. But I assume most of the stores have because it’s available in most locations, right?

So I placed the order at 5:40, one hour. Now, it was ready at 7:20 p.m., so more than an hour and I received this email. Okay, this email doesn’t look really appropriate, but my order is finally ready for pickup. Now the problem is that I cannot pickup this order curbside, so there is no instruction. And basically, the instruction says, bring your order to the in-store on online pickup counter ahead of your arrival, and I have to bring my ID and this email. And I have to look up for this sign online pickup. So there’s clearly no option for me to pick this up curbside.

I was like, okay, maybe they are communicating this wrongly. Why would they’ve put this button I’m on my way? Well, the first time I clicked it, first of all, the button didn’t work and it took me to a page and the page basically errored out. So I click it again and let’s see what happens. This is what happened the first time. Still waiting. Yeah, this page doesn’t load. It’s gonna load. It’s gonna give a big error message. Check this out. There you go. This is what I got the first time. No, I tried it multiple times. So at the end actually opened. Let’s try one more time. You see, it opens now.

It thinks that I’m in Boston for some reason, so definitely the location detection is the worst so far. All the other websites basically guessed it quite right where I’m located based on my IP. I allow them to pick up my location. Okay, this just doesn’t make any sense. I’m not sure why they think I’m in Boston, or whatever. I have no idea what this has to do with Boston. Store address. There’s nothing there. And here it says my community is Philadelphia. Oh, this is here instead of there. So it’s broken, basically. Staples, this is not good. Okay, so now let’s say I notify them. It loses. Okay, this doesn’t make any sense. So I’m on my way. Why would I open this nonsense? Where was it? I don’t know, whatever, Staples. This doesn’t make any sense.

Anyways, I think it’s a really horrible experience. So now, I’m not going to go there and pickup some pens, honestly. Maybe I’m going to go and buy some products in a few days when my other product is going to be shipped to this location. And then I’m going to pickup some products for myself, plus the product that’s going to be sent home. But this is a really bad experience.

So let’s try to modify this order. Cancel an order. Okay, I like this. Okay, this works. Finally. I like that I can pull up online orders as well as store orders. So if this works, does this work? Yeah, now it works. Okay, let’s see this. So if I hit here View All, now it works. This website is really interesting. I can search by order number, by date range, by total. This is interesting. I’m not sure if. This is the one that it’s ready for pickup. Oh, I have to click that. That’s confusing. Okay, cool. So ready for pickup, I like this timeline, you know, ready for pickup, one item in the box. This item is not eligible for returns. That makes sense. There’s no Cancel button here. Right? Yep. Okay, so I cannot cancel it.

Now let me see something else. Okay, so this was the order, right? Thank you for your order, order ready for pickup, right? So usually, I told you guys I really like when they say like the order is ready, pick up the item and until when I can pick it up, or they cancel my order. So there is no such info here. So I’m not sure how many days I have left until I can actually pick this up. It’s like are they going to hold my order for three days? Or four? Or one day? Or they just hold this order forever? I’m not sure. Really not sure.

Okay, directions. This work. This takes me here again. Get directions. Okay, that’s good. I cannot pickup this order, honestly. Cancel an order. Let’s see if this works. No. Okay, so I’m not going to pickup this order any more. Or maybe I just leave it there. But the thing is that I’m going to wait it out to see for how long are they going to hold this. I’m not gonna probably make this video that long. Now I’m gonna guys let you know after that.

So far Staples has the worst experience, this does not feel like a company of its size. It’s just a really bad experience. Anyways, as soon as I receive the next product, ready for pickup, hopefully for all those I can go pick them up, and the other order that I ship to home. We’ll update you guys on how to do that. I can return it. This is just stupid. Select an item. Okay, anyway, I’m gonna come back when I have the rest of my order. And at that point, I’m going to show you guys how the entire order tracking works with them, and how I can return an item. But until then, so far, this is by far the worst experience. I can barely call this curbside. They just put up the curbside thing because apparently they have it, but they don’t do curbside. Because you cannot actually have it curbside. Really bad. See you guys soon.

Finally, my product was shipped out. And apparently, it’s expected to be delivered today. Right? That’s how they marked it up, expected by Friday 5th, right? That’s all there. Now, I received this order update two hours ago and when I received it, I actually opened this email and I clicked on the button to track my order. However, at that point, the order was not able to be pulled out. Basically, it errored out. Long story short, it gave me a big error message. I don’t have a screenshot of that screen. But believe me.

So now, I checked again and this order actually pulls up. That’s good, no more error messages. That’s really good. I like it. It shows me all the products that are unavailable, similar to this. It’s really nice and expected in-store today. Let’s hope. I’m wondering if they shipped it out. Track your order. And it’s going to arrive at the store. Can I check the status? No, not really.

I placed another order if you guys remember for the other item. Not this one, sorry, but for this one. So let’s see how this works. This one, expected Friday again, the markup, I don’t know if I’m gonna receive it today. But let’s hope. It’s just got shipped. This is not gonna arrive. Where are they? New York, Delaware? Maybe, let’s see. Let’s see, actually. I really hope it’s gonna arrive today. I like that they offer all the information right here. I don’t have to go to a third-party website to check on it, to figure out UPS, USPS, SurePost, that’s complete nonsense.

So overall, it’s good. But this is not good. So this says it’s out for delivery today. Right? So basically, this status should be out for delivery, right. But here it is still shipped. So it’s not out for delivery. They didn’t update it. Let’s see if I refresh maybe because this website is strange. Come on. Okay, now it worked. My God, Staples. Good concept, really bad implementation from my perspective, like nothing works as expected, you know? Anyways, it’s out for delivery. We’ll see. As soon as I receive it, I’m going to show it to you guys. And then I’m going to go and return this product. Hopefully, that works much better. Although they have the button there. Okay, I’m gonna wait it out. Just to make sure everything is okay. So I’ll be back.

Okay, guys, so I’m going to return these items basically. Return, good, available for return. What I don’t like is that they don’t really tell you how much time you have left to return these items. And you have to read through the entire return reasons, which is very inconvenient, like where is it, here somewhere, have to understand which product it is, how it applies.

Anyways, I will have to select a reason. Ordered wrong item, continue. This should be prefilled with one as it’s just confusing for many people. Okay. Continue. So I’m not sure what happened. The return experience is actually really bad. So return, good. The item has been already returned. So what now? And eligibility. So this is the most confusing thing ever. Did you guys see that I submitted it, and it didn’t confirm anything. It just pushed me back to the Homepage. Like, wow, this is bad. I don’t even know what to do next. So how do I return this product? Receipt? Okay, I have this. I just don’t get it, I swear. I clearly cannot return it because it was already marked as returned.

And then I got this label maker which I was hoping I can return easily. But I cannot return that either because it has like a 14-day return policy and you have to view the eligibility requirements, read through this, and understand for which product it qualifies. You know, like, is it office supply or technology? I guess it’s technology. That’s why it doesn’t work anymore. 14 days since when? So 14 days since I get the product or? Okay, I don’t know. It’s just really confusing. And I have no idea what to do next. So that was the order. It doesn’t tell me anything like how should I make this return? So not sure what to do next. Maybe if I click on the order? We have received your return and are processing it. So I don’t have to return the product. They basically just issue a refund to my credit card or something. Now, this is really confusing. Let me check my email and see what the email says. And I’ll be back. Give me a second.

This is the order that I need the return confirmation. Okay, you do not need to return these items. Good. I can keep it, donate it, discard it, I got it. Okay, that worked. You know, it’s great. But the experience was horrible. As soon as you submitted it, it takes you to the Homepage, that makes absolutely no sense. And you have to figure out that you have to come actually here, you go to orders and then you have to click on the order because this shows you what’s the status here. But if you just hit return, this does not show you anything like that. So that is really confusing. I’m going to keep this product.

I’m going to probably need to deliver maybe the second return. Let’s try this one. Okay, select the reason, wrong item. Good. If I put that zero is not gonna work, check this out. Of course, it doesn’t work. Let’s see. Do they actually send me to Homepage again? Yes. That’s unbelievably bad. Like, come on. Like what am I supposed to do? Okay, so this is the confirmation. Item being returned, original packing slip. So where is this? This is really, really confusing I have to say. So I’m not sure where is the actual label, view the instructions. Okay, so I will receive an email from this at one point, when? They’re gonna send me a message. Oh my God, this is a really bad experience. I have to say like, really bad. Let me try one more time. Gmail. No. So when do I receive this? I guess at one point, okay, anyways, really bad experience.

I’m happy that they are sending you a label. But this is just a horrible experience. I have to say like that entire redirect to the Homepage makes no sense, it should take the customer here in the worst-case scenario, but it should tell the customer like a confirmation, what’s the next step, download the label from here, wait about two-three hours. Not like you will receive at one point, like when? A refund will post to your account after the package is received.

I think there’s a lot, a lot, a lot of room for improvement here. This is a really bad experience. I think it has somehow the technology to do what it’s supposed to do. But whoever implemented it, I don’t want to say too much, but this is a really bad customer experience. So anyway, as soon as I receive that label, I’m going to ship back the product. Hopefully, I’m gonna get my money back.

But overall, what I didn’t like in this entire experience is definitely the redirect that makes no sense, the label is going to be sent to me at one point from UPS.com, for sure I’m going to miss it. This entire section doesn’t make any sense. It should tell you how much time you have left because I was not expecting 14 days for the product, 14 days from when? It’s such a narrow window, 14 days, two weeks, especially today when it’s such a busy life. I didn’t even open the box, to be quite honest. Anyways, overall I think it’s a bad experience.

I got the email with the label. So let’s take a look. It took about 13 plus 6, 19 minutes. So within 20 minutes, you get this, clearly, in 20 minutes you’re moving to the next step. And this is not a priority anymore. But anyway, we got it. That’s what’s important. Branding nowhere. Yeah, here, come on. Like, this is just a bad branding experience, you know. Anyways, get the shipping label. Let’s see how this works. Print return label, get mobile code, let’s get the mobile code. And if I hit Print Label, yep. Okay, it’s on my other screen. So this is how it looks like. With all the instructions and the label on the bottom, so yeah. Let me bring it. So this is it. And yeah, I should print this and stick it on the box and send it back.

Really bad experience. This is not anything branded. This experience, I’m gonna miss it out, like, come on, probably I receive 1000 emails from UPS. Who knows where it goes? If I’m not really looking out for this. It’s just, I don’t know. It’s not a good experience.

So, this is Staples. I think Staples is super far away from what any other brand from that level does. Compared to Best Buy, like a million times better. If you compare it to REI, it’s incomparable. They just kill it as well. You know, like, this is no way there. A lot of room for improvement, a lot, a lot, a lot. So hopefully they’re gonna fix this in the future. And you guys can experience it better. But in the meantime, if you buy from Staples, this is what you should expect. 14 days guys, 14 days return policy. Don’t forget about it. Because I forgot and clearly I couldn’t return one of the products. See you soon.

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