Addthis Widget for Content / E-commerce site - Good Idea?

[s_EOgi_Bear]

Hi.  I have been using Addthis on our site for quite some time ( 1-2 years )  - it certainly gets a lot of clicks ..  I just wonder if it is too intrusive.

We had one recently person say "I will never buy from you again unless you take these down".

I am having trouble finding some good stats on usability & whether it is a good idea to keep it or not - or maybe there is another plugin I could use.  I don't think it affects speed too much.

Thoughts?

[donford]

Hi there,

Really depends on how it is implemented. A simple share button is so common I think it would be hard to find anybody who thinks it is intrusive. If it is jazzed up and runs as a floating screen, a lay-over, or pop-up taunting a user to click it.. then ya that is mild to very intrusive depending who you ask.

Personally, I have no issues with share buttons they are mostly white noise to me, I generally ignore them without thinking. Now if a site chooses to float its share buttons in my face, or throws me a pop-up every time I take a certain action, I will get annoyed and likely leave the site.

There is no doubt there is benefits that helps your site by using share buttons, I think like all other things they must be used tastefully and with the user's experience in mind. Your first goal is to give the user the best experience possible, if that is good enough the user will find the button on their own.

As for alternatives.. well every social media site has their own sharing tools, you could use the most used ones and add that code directly. Some have much better metrics then others, Addthis just gives you a very nice portal to see all the stats side by side. If you are using floats, layovers, or popups with Addthis, perhaps you try using a simple button instead and see how the engagement goes after the change.

My thoughts,

Don

[MoosaHemani]

I personally believe that Addthis is a decent tool and not only you but many ecommerce websites and blogs are using this to share their content to many different social profiles!

You cannot make all of your customers happy all the time so see if this widget is giving you some extra traffic that is converting and if it is really a good idea to drive traffic to your website from social media and the other way around.

If yes, stick with that if you think that customers are really irritated, just change that. I always prefer using custom code that social websites provide instead of a third part tool.

#Justathought!

[ZoeRigley]

I'd maybe run some A/B tests with and without the plugin on your store, and see what happens to your conversions, including everything you'd want to track- sales, social shares, and any other important metrics. You could use something like Optimizely for this I believe, though I've not used it for testing plugins before.

I'm a big fan of putting usability at the forefront of all of my marketing efforts, so I'd maybe consider finding out from some of your other customers their opinions, too. Is the share button on all of your website, certain pages, or just your checkout page? Is there a way to make it less intrusive, or easier to close/get away from, for customers who struggle? Have you conducted thorough browser testing to ensure the plugin isn't causing extra issues for those using certain browsers? I've had issues in certain browsers with other similar plugins before so it might be worth checking.

Hope this helps, good luck! 
Zoe