

Ask HN: Help me solve a UX issue- ecommerce for a very niche product - ipomedorov

The setup:<p>Our product is subscriptions to libraries of information, readable through either our online or desktop doc manager.<p>I’ve been given a project to design a ecommerce product where new and existing subscribers can browse our libraries and order subscriptions.  The site will get very little traffic and will generate very little buys; a dozen sales a day would be good.  The only way people will hit the site is if they belong to our niche industry and know the products/services we provide and come either to check our prices or to add libraries to their existing subscriptions.<p>The problem:<p>It is very important for us to differentiate between existing and new subscribers (due to pricing, the need to explain why they should pay a premium for online access, fear of duplicate subscriptions, etc.).  The easiest thing to do would be to ask a question before users can even access our product that would ID them as either an existing or new Sub.  Coming from a startup/Web 2.0 culture, every bone in my body screams against forcing users to go through 1 or 2 extra pages (or God forbid, log-in!) before they browse our product offering.<p>Am I looking at this the wrong way?  Is it OK to force users through a few extra steps in our very specific situation?  Or should I try a different work around (ID their status at checkout, etc)?<p>Thanks! 
(using a throwaway for this post)
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pbreit
I don't totally understand the issue but here are two thoughts:

1) You can set a cookie for subscribers and show pricing based on that

2) I would think for people who are going to buy you can have an optional (or
not) registration before, during or after the checkout which would be a
convenience feature for repeat buyers.

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ipomedorov
Thanks for your thoughts.

The issue is that I don't want to force people to click through a series of
pages before actually browsing our libraries.

The cookie could work, but would still require me to have a backup ID method
in case a user clears their cookies.

