Tuesday’s Rant: Target’s web site, Part Deux

On Tuesdays I usually take the opportunity to rant about something I do NOT like about Target …because although I love them to death, they certainly ain’t perfect. Now last Tuesday I ranted about Target.com’s search functionality… or lack therof. I thought I would keep the rant going after reader “Lola” wrote in with this comment: “I have a similar complaint… I don't like how on Target.com each color or pattern variation of an item is listed as a seperate item. If you're looking at a black shirt, you may not know that the same shirt also exists in red, blue, and white. It takes a little searching to find the other variations, which may or may not show up as related items on the first item's listing page.”

So true, Lola! This frustrates me as well. Why can’t they just show the items ONCE, and have the multiple colors available in a drop-down menu?

Likewise, reader "OysterGirl" commented on my recent Miss Trish post that “I just checked the Target site and the Miss Trish shoes are (already) listed and all of them say they are out of stock!?! How is this possible?”

I told her that my guess was that Target pre-posted all the links/pages to the Miss Trish sandals ahead of time, tagging them as "out of stock" until they actually ARE in stock and available for ordering on the site. Now I chalk this up to "lazy web site maintenance" on their part. It seems like they tried to do a bunch of the web-page building ahead of time… but if they were really on the ball, there’s a way they could have done this and keep these pages "hidden" from view until Miss Trish officially debuts.

And another thing I HATE – which Target is guilty of – is keeping things on their web site that have sold out, as illustrated by the picture above. I took this screen grab on 3/17. The shirt was already sold out around 3/8 – that’s when I first tried to put it in my shopping cart – and here it is 3/24 and it’s STILL on Target’s site despite being sold out for at least 2 weeks now. Obviously, Target doesn’t update their site that often, because if they did, this wouldn’t happen.

Overall, Target’s web site has PLENTY of room for improvement. Yes, the site is large and I’m sure it’s a handful to manage. But Target is a huge corporation, so you’d think they’d invest more in their web site functionality. Especially since their site is linked to Amazon’s (“Target.com utilizes Amazon.com technology and patented Web site capabilities”) you’d think their site would be better organized and more frequently updated.