The economic logic of some amazingly awful websites

I like this observation, and I would add one other: the site looks cheap ... implying to those target clients that the final product will also be a bargain worth their effort.

Off now to source a previous article on Indian supermarkets and this finding - the owner found cleaning displays less increased sales as customers correlated 'lower care' with 'lower prices'.

[Edit: Alas, it's behind the WSJ paywall - http://www.wsj.com/article_email/SB118651168871890705-lMyQjA...

Here's an OK synopsis http://www.retailcontrarian.com/2007/08/bright-future-f.html]

I worked in the adult industry, which is famous for absolutely awful site design. But the thing is, when we tried doing up to date, clean design, sales went down.

People expected the sites to look gaudy and tasteless and when they weren't, they went elsewhere. They didn't trust the well-designed site.

Great observations.

I’ve seen this with clients competitors, what may look terrible to me as a web site developer looks entirely different to a non-tech customer. Advertising is not 100% science and small businesses are not faced with the same branding constraints big business is.

NB, credit to pointing out Ling's Cars goes to a throwaway HN user:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8641423

Go to the home page and view source. Some pretty intense ASCII art.

A few minutes ago I clicked on a NY Times article and my screen was completely filled with an ad for Sothebys. How awful is Lings Cars, really?