Views > website review


Focusing on Warehouse Express


By Mark Bolitho


Lots of nice features, but the photographic


I


equipment retailer’s website lacks a strong call to action.


t’s difficult to think of a more competitive, skinny-margined sector than online photographic retail. As such, anyone operating here needs to pull out all the stops to steal a march over competitors.


At Lost Ferret, we like to talk about basics and state the obvious a lot. It seems that too many websites try and either be too clever and forget about the basic experience—simple navigation, good images, good copy and simple checkout—or just feel their brand or offer is strong enough not to have to bother with boring stuff like that. Another issue is, conversely, that some


businesses only focus on the bullet points, and forget that within these there are complex processes that visitors go through in order to become customers. Some may find my review a little nit-picky, but detail is important so I make no apologies for that—there are many tiny details that shape an experience and make it easy or difficult, enjoyable or not. We also like to speak about two distinct steps: getting people to the checkout, and getting people through the checkout—persuasion and then assurance. In order to do this there needs to be a clear


understanding of the buying cycle, how to create momentum between each stage, and how to collect the money that someone wants to give you with the least fuss and drama. There’s inevitably an interplay between


brand, website and the offer itself, but this review must necessarily focus entirely on the website aspect—is it good, bad, or ugly when weighed up against the points set out above?


Filtering down It’s quite likely that a significant number of visitors won’t begin their journey on the homepage, but ours will. Have you ever walked


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into a shop and been surrounded by four assistants, all wanting your attention, talking at the same time? It never happens like that, and rightly so—likelihood is that you’d leave the shop immediately. It never ceases to amaze me how many


websites recreate that horrendous scenario perfectly; as does this site. The homepage is way too busy: trying to


make everything stand out ultimately means nothing does. This is poor use of space; a homepage should simply assure potential customers they are in the right place, the company is professional, credible and trustworthy, and allow them to get to any section of the site easily. It’s a good place for the odd special, but


a homepage is not best used as a product, category or listings page—that’s what those respective pages are for. It may also serve to confuse by having identical top and side navigation. It would be better all round to do away with the side nav, which includes subcategories, allowing more to show above the fold. I wonder why they’ve not used drop downs from the top primary nav as they have JavaScript used widely throughout the website; certain features like the compare functionality are dependent on it, but more on that later.


This point is further illustrated when


undertaking a product search from either the top or side nav. I clicked on Cameras and Lenses in the top nav. While I thought I was in the desired product selection, I quickly realised I was only looking at best sellers for the whole of that parent category. The side nav is still present,


but doesn’t turn into filtering until the child category is reached. I tried a “quicker” search


via the side nav: clicking on Cameras still took me to best sellers with further subcategories to plough through.


More consistency is needed on the product page, especially when it comes to special offers and bundling.


Direct Commerce Catalogue e-business www.catalog-biz.com


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