Pick ‘n Pay Home Shopping
Posted by Grant Brewer on 29 Nov 2007
I decided to register for home shopping at Pick 'n Pay today. I've been a regular user of Woolworths' home shopping site site for many years, but needed to buy things that Woolworths don't stock. So I pointed my browser at http://homeshopping.picknpay.co.za/ expecting things to go smoothly. Well it wasn't to be.
Some disclosure -- I'm a Mac user and an experienced Internet user. Yes, I know the differences between different browsers and also have Windows running on my Mac. I've bought things online for years. My first purchase at Amazon was in the mid-nineties. So I have some expectations of online shopping based on experiences at a wide range of sites.
The first thing I noticed on opening the Pick 'n Pay site is that it immediately redirects you to https://prod.hs.pnp.co.za/pnp/web/main/A3-4-a.jsp. Now that is a memorable URL! It even has the default Apache web server favicon (that little icon next to the URL in the address bar). Whilst breaking other usability rules for the web, it is also poor security practice. Phishing sites get their way by taking you to sites that don't match the URL you intended to visit. And they use the words "Online shopping with people you trust" on the site.
So then I go to register. As expected, I have to choose where I live. It turns out that Pick 'n Pay believe that only Microsoft Internet Explorer is worth supporting. Never mind Safari, not even Firefox works. The error message:
*Error*: parent.window.frames.item is not a function
*Source File*: https://www.logicslink.co.za/pnpregister/iframe_page_new.asp?parentrec=1826740&childrec=&parentframe=-1&populateChildCombo=true&childframe=2&dwellingType=1&Status=new&ShowSearch=False
Line: 61
This is even more concerning from a security point and usability point of view because it uses frames and the contents of the frames are running off logicslinks.co.za. Logicslinks is "a web enabled distribution and fulfilment planning and optimisation system" that clearly delivers the Pick 'n Pay shopping systems.
So, without using Internet Explorer there is no way to shop at Pick 'n Pay online. It really frustrates me when I read articles in the press about how buy or selling online in South Africa isn't effective because the Internet population is too small or because Telkom has expensive bandwidth, when despite these issues companies literally destroy their own online presence by not complying with common Internet and usability standards that would optimise their site's reach.
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woolworths (1) | user experience (1) | pick 'n pay (1) | home shopping (1)
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