Last month, online discount retailer Overstock.com released a new version of its iPhone app, with a feature called "Lott-O," which serves up a daily discount code via a scratch-card interface. Sadly, that feature might be the app's strongest point.
Lott-O is undeniably fun: Each day, users are presented with a full screen of the familiar gray found on scratch-off lottery tickets. Rubbing your finger across the screen rubs the gray off, revealing a discount code underneath. Come back to Lott-O later on the same day and the same code will still be there, with your finger marks still in place.
But beyond the novelty of a virtual scratch-off card, there's not much about the Overstock app that will bring any but the most devoted back day after day. The app's shortcomings are those of the site itself: odd and unbalanced inventory, poor categorization and navigation, and prices that frankly aren't that much of a discount in most cases.
On startup, the app shows ads for several special collections. Below that is a spartan menu that offers a "Shop" link, the Lott-O link, a link to the shopping cart and ... that's it. So, for the most part, any activity on the part of the user will take place through the Shop link, which itself only leads to two choices: a search box and a "Shop By Store" feature which breaks the inventory down into nine categories.
That latter choice leads to another one of the apps biggest shortcomings: the unusual and often downright inaccurate categorization of products. Browsing to the section for role-playing games gives you romance novels; "Gifts & Flowers" inexplicably offers up Fender guitars.
And then there are the prices themselves, which are uneven to say the least. At press time, "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" is listed for $20 more on the Overstock app than on Amazon; a Garmin Oregon 550 portable navigator is $6 more on Overstock than Amazon.
This is not to imply that everything is a battle with Amazon, but if Overstock wants to challenge the de facto leader of online shopping, it will need to bring more to the fight than what is essentially a novelty coupon app. It will need a user experience that is a thrill in and of itself to use, rather than a hindrance.
