Gap blocks users

at 16:42 on 17 November 2005, beth wrote:

this is old news, their banana republic site is non-safari as well. i used to work for this company, and i can say they definitely have on blinders when it comes to their customer base.

at 17:12 on 17 November 2005, G3 wrote:

Yeah, but the linux issue may not be as well known. Even using supported browsers or changing the id to an accepted browser will not help. No Linux at all. 17% of the market! Wow!

at 17:16 on 17 November 2005, beth wrote:

i guess what i find ironic is, their target consumer for banana is the consumer most likely to be using a powerbook.

at 18:00 on 17 November 2005, Darren wrote:

yeah, interesting point beth!

at 18:09 on 17 November 2005, Ryan wrote:

I think 20% is an example of embellishing the numbers; even 10% or 5% would be over zealous. I can't wait for the next post: "OMG! Boycot domain.com, they don't validate!"

at 18:36 on 17 November 2005, G3 wrote:

http://www.business-linux.at/idc/linux.marketshare.html

I am actually understating the numbers. Add 17% of linux with 8-9% of os x and the number is closer to 26%.

No one is talking about validating here, just basic access.

Read the post.

at 19:44 on 17 November 2005, Carl wrote:

I don't care what the business-linux.at article says G3... I know cold hard stats for sites I am involved with.

An ecommerce site I run did 5.3 million page views in the last 7 days.

Of those visits... 2% were MAC users and a whopping 0.2% were LINUX users.

Those are straight from my server log files.

26% my ass.

at 20:03 on 17 November 2005, beth wrote:

Carl, you're forgetting that Banana Republic (and to a lesser extent, Gap) is marketed as luxury. While I can't speak for Linux, a definite large portion of the people buying luxury commodities are going to be using high-end Mac computers. It fits with the image. You'll notice in any Gap, Banana, or Target ad showing a computer, the computer is almost always a Mac. They're excluding their target consumer group, which is outrageous. That's like slamming the door in the face of a customer at your storefront.

at 20:24 on 17 November 2005, G3 wrote:

Wow, thats some hostility Carl.

As you might have read, the article was originally found on CNET.com. I think they are a pretty credible source. Any google search for "linux market share" will yield similar results.

So the stats at your site might not reflect linux users, so what! Who is the target market of that site?

I have seen similar numbers where I work.

My point is- why automatically cut off a growing number of people who use linux and macs? Especially after making the site more accessible? It simply doesn't make sense!

at 21:32 on 17 November 2005, Ryan Latham wrote:

What I find the most interesting to this day is still the fact that people have the ability to hide from and blind themselves from what they don't know. We live in a Windows world, there is no denying that. However, just because the majority of the population is Windows users does not mean that Linux and OS X users do not exist.

With the way things are going more universities and public facilities are providing an open source alternative or replacement. Now you're not likely to need to visit Gap's site while doing research at a library or university. And there are people that use Linux out there, more than you think.

UMS is a fairly high traffic site and though it does not see the numbers claimed here, they are awfully close with 9.94% being Mac Users and 5.40% being Linux. But I might as well just forget them, because Windows still claims the top of the totem pole.

It's funny that you see their target market being alienated. But hey, iBooks look better in ads than t

at 06:21 on 18 November 2005, David wrote:

What i dont understand is why you guys are getting so hot under the collor about a muti million dollar company who probaly only have a web presence

1. just to say they have one keep up with 'current trends'

2. to add a few percentage points to their bottom line, knowing most of their money is from in store sales.

"OMG! Boycot domain.com, they don't validate(ignore certain users)!"

thats pretty fricken funny. but hey by the 15+ post in here that corner might not be that far away.

at 12:48 on 18 November 2005, Derek wrote:

It's just a sign of a lazy development team.

Perhaps there really are some pages that won't work in Opera or Safari. Fine, have a message on the affected page, or provide a "let me in anyway" link.

But don't lock people out of the site completely just for using a browser other than the ones on their list.

That's just unprofessional.

at 12:57 on 18 November 2005, G3 wrote:

I didn't mean to start an OS war here.

I just can't fathom why a commany would automatically exempt a whole chunk of users. How long has GAP been in the red?

Firefox Mac and IE good, but not on linux?

Opera pretending to be IE, still not allowed?

Just because it's linux? Like Derek said "don't lock people out of the site completely just for using a browser other than the ones on their list.

That's just unprofessional."

at 19:27 on 18 November 2005, David wrote:

"That's just unprofessional."

on hind sight an on a visit to thier site, I totally agree with you. from what i could see they where not doing anything especially wonderful with their shopping cart or any other visual coding that should stop them from being viewed on all browsers.

wonder who has the final say on that sort of thing in their company. my guess would not be the designers/developers.

having worked in the corporate world for atime I could just see the conversation

"upper management- "What's taking so long with the completion of this project?"

developers- "We can't seem to fix this bug that shows up on linux browsers Opera and Mac Safari, It'll take another 2 weeks to figure out and fix."

upper management- "does it work onWin IE XP?"

developers-"Yes, but th(interupted)"

uppper management-" thats good enough, We'll ljust market harder to that group""

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