E-Commerce Takes a New Turn With Amazon Windowshop
Until recently, e-commerce was synonymous to innumerable links and tomes of reviews with flickering flash ads and other pop-ups once every minute. Not anymore. As more and more e-commerce sites embrace RIAs, shopping online is increasingly becoming a viable alternative to daring the heavy traffic and pollution. Amazon Windowshop makes this an even smoother experience.
Amazon Windowshop is a Flash-based website launced recently. It is still in its beta, but I don’t know why, unless because it is updated only every Tuesday or because only top music, books, movies, and games are sold through it.
There is a column each for top-selling music, books, movies, and games. Because only top-selling ones are displayed in the showcase (what else would be seen while window-shopping anyway?) there are only about ten items in each column. As one scrolls down, the rank of the showcased piece falls and as one browses towards right, the list ages.
The mouse allows zooming in and out to get the right view of the showcase. Navigation using arrow keys takes you across grids (columns or rows) from one showcase piece to another. When a music album or book is selected, an audio preview or review is played accordingly. Similarly, a trailer is played when a movie or a game is selected.
My only complaint is that jumping from one column to another using the arrow keys always scrolls to the top of the column because, understandably the top-most selling piece sells the most.
Every piece has a direct link to Amazon.com.
The idea of window-shopping has been essentially captured through Amazon Windowshop. A gallery of top-selling items with review/preview options, and no text! By making the navigation seamless, one gets a feeling of lightness. Online shopping has never been such fun.
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