On November 8, 1999, I decided to give Quixtar shopping another try. I had attempted to enroll as a "guest" in mid-September, once it was possible to gain access to the site. I registered my name, e-mail address, etc., and then received a message telling me I needed to complete the registration process by making a phone call.

Since e-commerce is supposed to be just that - electronic - I decided to pass on the phone call. So last night I tried again to go shopping on Quixtar.

The front page of the site has changed, probably in response to ZDNet's rating of the Quixtar site as one of the "Ten Worst E-Commerce Sites." Quixtar has been in the "Worst Ten" now for seven weeks, although they have moved from the number four spot to the number six spot.

First of all, the visitor is not allowed to even navigate through the site unless browser cookies are turned on. Most other e-commerce sites do not have this requirement.

Second, while the places for "Members" and "IBOs" to log in were clearly marked, in a 30-minute search I was unable to find a way to register as a "client" or "guest." (And I'm pretty web-literate, and do a lot of shopping on the internet.)

The one promising link I found, with a sentence that began "Shop til you drop. . ." generated an error message when I tried it. In fact, during my half hour visit, I encountered error messages approximately every third mouseclick. One error message told me I was not authorized to return to the home page at www.quixtar.com! I was never able to find a way to register as a client, and without registering, you can't shop. This is also unlike most e-commerce sites, where you are able to browse and shop to your heart's content, only registering (if at all!) when you're ready to place an order.

Just a month ago, on October 15, Amway/Quixtar VP Ken McDonald sent a message to IBOs. He talked about a great meeting they had just finished where the IBOA Board and the Women's Advisory Millennium Council had discussed "how we can make the QUIXTAR site even better for everyone - for Clients and Members and IBOs and prospects, particularly in regard to the shopping experience." Is this their idea of an improvement?

Later in that same message, McDonald stated:

"There's somebody out there on the Web . . . I don't know, ZDNet or somebody . . . who has rated Quixtar as a less-than-great consumer Web site. And when we followed up with them, the primary reason for our low rating is because of what they called the complexity of the shopping process when you have to enter this IBO number that they talked about. Well you know what, if that's why they rated us low, we take that as a badge of honor, because what the media doesn't understand is this business model. "

I was a distributor for a long time, and I don't understand a business model that is supposed to be for internet-based commerce that requires shoppers to register ahead of time, and then won't provide a way to do it. I don't understand the business model that requires those who wish to shop at an internet site to call a phone number to register and/or place orders. In fact, I would call such a "business model" just plain screwed up. But then, what can you expect from a guy like McDonald who refers to his employer, the Amway Corp., as "the mother ship"?

Perhaps ZDNet was being kind when they ranked Quixtar as "one of" the worst ten, instead of "the worst."