Last week I went online to buy a gift voucher for my son's Math's tutor.  She has been amazing, so supportive and has given my son a real enjoyment of Maths.  I didn't know what to get her so I got my son to ask her what she would like.

Cunning, huh?

I found the site and proceeded to try to buy directly from the site.  But there was something that made me nervous about parting with my money.

• Was it that there were no pictures of the shop or the people who worked there?
• Was it the use of stock images that put me off?
• Was it the "Book Now" call to action that obscured the cookie pop-up and prevented me from opting out of 3rd party cookies?
• Was it the 2 different external websites that I got redirected to in order to purchase anything?

Well, yes these things did put me off but they were not the showstopper. I had a question, the shop was shut at that hour so I thought that I would use their contact form. But when I got to the form, I already felt that I was wasting my time; I had no reassurance that the form would actually work. I filled in the form, there was no acknowledgement that I had submitted it, no confirmation email, nothing.

Make Sure your Contact Form Works!

If I hadn't already decided that I needed to buy from that shop, I would have left the site well before searching for the contact form.  The site was cheap and didn't inspire any confidence in me, I certainly wasn't going to risk putting my card details anywhere on it.

The upshot was that I popped into the shop in person and spoke to the very helpful and welcoming staff. They hadn't received my message from their website, in fact that hadn't received any emails for some time.

A Cheap Website Can do More Harm than Good.

In summary, a cheap website will give you an online presence but it can do more harm than good.

How many people were put off by the site? How many people tried to get in contact but heard nothing back?