I’ve been using the internet now for around 12 years, and there are certain tasks that I think still haven’t improved significantly since then. For instance, I’ve bought just about everything under the sun online from a stepladder to a car, but I’ve only purchased maybe two items of clothing in 12 years.
I just find it too risky to buy clothing online, and I find that most fashion sites spend too much time making fancy flashy sites, rather than sites that are easy to navigate and have good images. A lot of real estate sites suffer from this problem – why do they load up such poor quality images?
Another sector that hasn’t improved enough online for me is travel. Although it’s possible to find flight times online, I’ve never successfully used a travel comparison tool to find the cheapest flight and to also make the booking. I’ve found that whenever a flight price is displayed, I always end up having to call someone to see if the flight is still available, which kind of defeats the point of booking a flight online. In fact, for my last couple of holidays I haven’t even bothered searching online for the cheapest price, and instead I’ve used specialist travel agents like Wexas to make my arrangements.
Booking hotels though has worked out quite well for me, and I’ve used services like hotels.com and Hotels Combined to find the best hotel deals. For instance, I’m in Rome at the moment for my wife’s birthday and we got a very good deal on a hotel near the Vatican City. I compared the prices we got versus the published price for the hotel, and we’re paying around 30% of the full price.
What are your favourite travel sites? What sectors online do you think aren’t covered very well?
