This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
News


Tactics Views


This is an additional, unnecessary layer of nav


that could be done away with via drop downs from the top nav. The filtering sidebar is good when eventually


reached, although it’s not possible to make multiple selections, it could benefit from a tick box allowing customers to select Fuji and Nikon, in chrome and gold—a very useful and timesaving option to have. This company has understood the


importance of one element of the homepage, however. The on-site search is very good—pretty bulletproof for all the misspelled searches I tried. I would imagine this is highly used with this product and so top marks for identifying this and spending time getting it right. I was baffled by the choice of “list view” by


default. If this has been tested and deemed the most effective for this product then great, but I get the feeling that this is just guesswork. Interestingly, in grid view, the customer “star rating” is not shown. Whilst the Compare feature itself is very


good, allowing users to contrast shortlisted products side by side, the implementation leaves something to be desired. It would be more usable if there was a Compare button at the foot of page as currently there’s a need to scroll up again from the bottom of the page to hit the Compare button, which I found annoying.


A closer view In general, I found the product page unpersuasive. For example, free shipping is mentioned on the product listings page, but not on the product page. The main product image is too small and


not clickable. Other images are available but all additional product-related info is below the fold for anyone on a small screen where the copy is long. Further, long copy means that the reviews are pushed down below the fold. On the whole though, Warehouse Express has placed emphasis on good product copy, so well done for this. Then there’s the left-hand nav taking up space again. Also, the live chat wasn’t available when I looked so why not hide it until it is?


When you look at the price, there’s no emphasis on it being a


saving, even where there is one. Sometimes a red banner appears in the top right of the page, nowhere near the price; sometimes it’s clickable, sometimes it’s not. There are also inconsistencies with the “perfect partner” feature, leading the viewer to assume that there isn’t one for some products. Warehouse Express is missing a trick by not making savings and bundling more obvious and uniform.


The photo finish Cross-selling at basket stage is contentious, but it’s handled intelligently here: choose a memory card from the many memory card options and they all then disappear. That said, I was a little blind to the accessories on the left as my eyes are drawn to the Checkout button on the opposite side of the page. Also, why upsell “top products”, “new releases” and “preorder


products” at basket stage? This could well cause doubt or confusion and may contribute to abandonment.


Now, here’s a biggy, like walking into a brick


wall: for whatever reason, there’s an insistence that I register to check out and buy, and there are no reasons given as to why I should, or why this is beneficial to me. This in itself will cause abandonment; it’s quite possible that the user will have another site open on another tab ready to go, and it’s at times like this that he’ll switch. A further source of annoyance came when


entering a password. There’s no guidance or in-line validation when completing this box, and after having typed it into two fields my password was in the wrong format and had to be reentered. I also found stage three of checking out confusing. Delivery address, is apparently optional, but there’s an implication that if I am paying with a 3D-secure card I would need to provide one—do I tick this box? Then what? Error messages are poor: these are shown one at a time, even when more than one error is made. Sometimes there is no error message. The postcode is case sensitive in stage 3: asked me to enter a valid postcode when I had already done so, but in lower case, then it corrected it to caps after my 3rd attempt to submit. Why not either just tell me to do it in capitals, or correct it straight away? Remember, it’s crucial not to annoy or confuse people in the slightest at this stage. To conclude then: despite all the negative


points and areas where I feel improvements could and should be made, this is not that bad a website. It’s not a really good one either though: it’s generally unpersuasive with very little incentive to buy, add a review, or to register, for example, and the checkout is short but not handled brilliantly. That, in a nutshell, spells it out—lots of nice


features but poorly implemented, and that’s a problem most websites have because companies are fixated on, and consequently buy, features. When businesses begin to understand that


List view is the default option, while grid view hides product ratings.


the contextual implementation of available features is more important than the feature itself then they will begin to reap the benefits.


Mark Bolitho is sales director at Lost Ferret, an ecommerce design and build agency.


A word on SEO


Warehouse Express has the right information for meta keywords and 240,000 internal links, but appears on page 2 for the product searches we tried, using its exact description.


The site is geared for SEO work, but something is preventing it from achieving top rankings.


If product descriptions are direct from manufacturers then this may be a result of Google’s Panda update. If so, Warehouse Express is doing the right thing by trying to generate new content via user reviews, and by generating inbound links through the “Share” button.—MB


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52