Two weeks ago I mentioned MyWetStuff.com, a new service for travelers that allows them to order personal care items online (the stuff that you can’t bring in a carry-on any more) and have those items delivered directly to their hotel. The site was giving out the first $1,000,000 worth of items for free (with a limit of $15 per customer). I decided to try it out and here’s my review:
I had signed up in advance and finally received an e-mail with a link letting me that the service was up and running. The first 12-hours worth of attempts to get into the system failed as the site seemed to have crashed. (Unfortunately, I didn’t get any screenshots of that.) Finally that evening the site was working again and I was asked to sign up for an account. Quickly I realized that I was going to end up reviewing their site’s usability as much, if not more, than the service as I had originally intended.
While registering for my account I was asked to enter a password. As I typed in the password I wanted to use for the first time, an alert window informed me that I had “exceeded the maximum number of characters allowed.”
My typical password length is ten characters but since I was typing it quickly, I had no idea how many over the limit I had gone. Besides, there was nothing on the screen indicating that there was a limit. So, I backspaced to the clear the field, and this time typed slowly and counted my keystrokes. Turns out that the ninth keystroke triggered the alert so eight characters was the limit. I completed the form with my new, less secure password and clicked the button to submit my account information. I received the following response: “passwords must be between 6 and 8 digits long and must include at least one numeric digit”
At this point there are several problems the least of which is the lack of any capitalization or punctuation in this message. Next up the scale is the fact that I’m wondering what a non-numeric digit is. Most importantly, why wasn’t I given this information on the previous page? Had I know this, I wouldn’t have to repeat the process or even get the alert I’d received on the previous page. (In my defense, the eight character password I’d selected included a “$” which didn’t seem to be good enough for this system.)
I chose a password for the third time and finally had my account and could finally start shopping.
The selection at this time is minimal but there were enough of the basics in the system for me to be able to choose some toothpaste, hair gel, and deodorant. (I’m a guy, shopping for this stuff is not all that difficult or time consuming.)
I added all three items to my shopping cart (grand total of $0.00 since I had a free $15 and the total was a very reasonable $3.40) and headed for checkout. Next I’m asked for the address of my hotel so the items can be shipped to the correct location and arrive on the same day I do.
Then I’m asked for my credit card information.
For a moment I’m confused. Isn’t this going to be free? The screen doesn’t say why the need the information (shouldn’t it?) but I guess that the shipping’s not free so I go ahead and fill in my information.
I’m right, shipping’s not free but how much could it possibly cost to pack and ship three trial-sized personal care items? Turns out it’ll cost me $13.50! What, are they using FedEx overnight to ship this stuff? Wouldn’t the postal service work just fine? This stuff isn’t going to go bad in the few days it’ll take. Needless to say, I didn’t complete the order. I’ll check my bag.
