News Kogan introduces Internet Explorer 7 'tax'

Australian electronics retailer Kogan has added a 6.8% tax to its site for buyers using Internet Explorer 7.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2012/06/14/kogan-ie7-tax/1

 

I like how there is no link to IE9 haha

 

I can see where they're coming from, having to hack your site to bits to make it play nice in IE 6/7 costs an awful lot in time and resources; I feel sorry for those in the health service etc who are forced by lazy admins to use outdated unsafe terrible internet browsers.

 

Two words: Marketing.stunt.
They PO'ed a small percentage of their users, and in return are getting exposure on News channels, The Register, etc... well played.

 

Reminds me of when the guy who maintains my work's website asked me to setup a Windows XP virtual machine with IE7 installed so he can test the site with it. After telling him we shouldn't be supporting it because any clients still using it are most likely not the sort of people we should be working with I very reluctantly agreed. It was very painful.

 

Haha, that's brilliant.
I'm pretty sure there are no valid reasons for staying with IE7, so I don't feel it's unfair in any way, and as BentAnat said, brilliant marketing ploy

 

I like this - a 0.1% tariff for each month since a browser was superseded. I wonder what happens if you use IE6 or earlier?

 

The middle of the site disappears., he menu appears as a plain bulleted list outside of the main page, you can't add anything to your basket and somewhere in a server room someone looking at the web stats sheds one more tear.

Just guessin'.... but this is generally how it goes down with IE 6

 

Why are you giving this C*CK free advertising Bit-tech?

 

Actually a lot of people are still on IE6 even, let alone 7...so I'd assume it isn't that small an amount. Speaking as a project manager for some web applications in the gov't...our stance is, we just don't support IE7 (let alone 6!) anymore. Don't like it...well sorry. Just like we don't support Opera or Safari or Chrome. We do the latest and greatest (so long as it isn't newer than 6 months old) + last version of Firefox as well as latest and greatest IE (same 6+ month old caveat) + last version of IE. Nothing else.

You've got IE which, between 8 and 9 have one of the biggest install bases (plus most Gov't computers are running Windows with IE8 or 9 installed). Then since Firefox is multi platform, you still have the option of installing that if you are running a Mac or don't want to/can't use IE.

 

Because its hilarious. I'm going to be so amused if someone actually foots up that extra tax, rather than, say, using Opera USB to browse that site.

 

I don't see what the big deal is tbh and hope someone does something about this Kogan and his profiteering.

I have created websites that have worked equally well in ALL modern browsers including going all the way back to IE 5! Yes there were some challenges and a few minor hacks along the way to accommodate the differnces but nothing severe, complicated or expensively time consuming. In most cases it was just a couple of extra lines of CSS.

Shouldn't Bioware be suing him for having a name that sounds far too much like Krogan...

 

His marketing tactics certainly have all the subtlety and finesse of a krogan

 

From my personal experience, Which is limited to what must be one of the most backwards countries in the world in terms of tech (PCs > 7 years old are VERY VERY common here. XP is prevalent everywhere, and mostly pirated, so not updated beyond SP1), I can give you some insight (based on traffic of about 10K unique hits, 90% Namibian a month, increasing by 20% every month, over the last 6 months - target audience is low income class):
IE makes up 60% of web traffic.\
Of that, about 5% is IE7 and below.

I know these stats are not representative of any other aprt of the world, but for a good marketing stunt like that, it's worth telling those 4% of total users (less, actually) to go play in traffic or update their browser, quite frankly.

How many sites/facebook posts/forums linked to them today? How much traffic and awareness do you think they gathered, and how does it affect their SEO?
I am sure that this pays dividents fopr them...

That being said, I could be way off target here, and am not trying to argue any point in particular, save for IE6 and 7 losing traction fast, as Win7, (and soon Win8) sales climb.
There are simply not that many un-upgraded XP machines out there that still work anymore.

 

I'm doing these popups for corporate sites I'm developing for several years allready

Every browser should show the same result and websites should be developed without plugins, applets or hacks required to get there. W3C all the way baby... strictly HTML + CSS. I even despise javascript.

 

Love the typo. Leave it there, it fits him...

 

There are surgical and non-surgical means to pull that stick out of your rectum. Your GP can refer you to the appropriate proctological specialists.

 

I can see their point. Prompt the lazy to upgrade so you don't have to waste development money. People like my dad would still be trying to use Windows 95 and Netscape 4 if people like me didn't do their hardware and software upgrades for them.
I'm no IE fan, but I think they should have put a link to the latest version of IE too.

 

Cleaver attention grabbing marketing or not, its a brilliant idea : )

I run the schools website and the amount of complaints i get from parents saying it docent display properly is staggering. 95% of the time its due to an out of date browser.