Warning! This post may seem like a rant, but there is a method to my madness!
Yesterday, I needed to find out some information about a certain mango and chilli salad dressing which is a regular feature in my household. Off I went to the superstore’s website, tapped in the details and clicked search.
My search yielded no results even resembling a delicious bottle of a fruity but piquant dressing. I thought perhaps I had not used the right search options. So I checked and searched ag
ain. My hits were as follows:
- Walkers Baked Mango and Chilli Crisps
- A recipe involving some sort of spicy mango glaze
But no dressing for my bland green salad leaves!
I actually had to do a manual search. I spent at least 90 seconds (equivalent to 15 minutes in cyber-time), trawling through categories and sub-categories of groceries before I could find my golden bottle of saucy goodness… only to be confronted with one of my ultimate pet peeves: a needless spelling mistake!
Now, I know that typos are a given – even the most adept typist – and I can handle the odd spelling mistake, but for some reason, this one really rankled!
Behold! Even the mighty super chain store with its crack team of net savvy content writers, designers and editors had missed the second ‘l’ in chilli. To make matters worse, the misspelling had been replicated in big, bold, red letters; but oddly, not under its description, where in small black lettering, the correct spelling was given.
Although this seems inconsequential, if a mistake as small as a misspelling could prevent me from finding what I wanted, could this ‘simple’ error be driving customers to other competitors and ultimately cost a company money?
Companies spend millions encouraging us to spend money with them. And usually, we comply. But, if I’m spending ‘X’ amount of thousands of pounds a year, is it too much to ask that they spell their own products properly?
After all, we are consumers. We buy and buy and buy, devouring product after product.
According to a recent newspaper article, research carried out by Kelkoo revealed that Britons spend the most money online compared to the rest of Europe. In 2006, PayPal estimated that by 2010, Britain’s online spending would reach £6.25 billion on groceries alone. All of that money we part with year after year should at least buy us the right to correctly spelt web content.
As a consumer (with great taste in condiments), I will still buy the salad dressing. It is, after all, a favourite of mine! But as a professional, I can’t help but feel disappointed by that missing ‘l’.
Aaaah that Chilli dressing. But yes, that’s a pretty big error to get through the cracks.
When I used to work in parliamentary relations, you wouldn’t believe the hysterics I would have in written letters, emails and briefings that we received that managed to misspell ‘Colombia’ as ‘Columbia’. That was wrong in so many ways.
a) We’re talking about a frickin’ COUNTRY here. Not a U.S. state, it’s just plain lazy and disrespectful spelling the name of a country you are writing about (i.e. not just in passing) wrong.
b) These were POLITICIANS! ok so most of us have lost what faith we had in MPs abilities in the last 12 months anyway, but they’re still… generally, believed to be intelligent people…. right?
I estimate they’d get it wrong in at least 40% of cases – unbelievable.
LOL why am I not surprised that politicians cannot spell very well? mmmmh let’s ponder… 😉