By now, you’d expect that large retailers would be seeing a big part of their revenue come from online sales. But that’s not necessarily the case. For many major players, online sales make up only a tiny fraction of their total sales. Amazon sells more stuff online than its next twelve competitors combined. In part, we may have underestimated how much people enjoy the terrestrial store experience. But there is another big factor at work. Almost all e-commerce sites suck. The buying experience is often terrible. How many times have you seen a product on one site and then searched for it on Amazon because you trusted that the experience would be better? In the early days of the Internet, I never would have guessed that Amazon could defend its position against massive, well-known rivals. The fact that they have is a clear indication of the importance of user experience in the digital age.