Sears site review: the good, the bad and the ugly
I've been taking a look at the Sears website from a user experience perspective to see what the retailer does well online, and where it can improve.
I've highlighted some excellent features on the site that other online retailers could learn from, some relatively minor irritations that would annoy users, and problems that may make users abandon the site.
Overall, the site performs well and contains some excellent features, such as proactive use of live chat.
However, even with the best sites, there is always room for improvement...
Site review: Four Seasons $18m redesign
Four Seasons unveiled its new website earlier this month, with many eyebrows raised as a result of the reported $18m pricetag.
While this seems like a lot of money for a site relaunch, it is an international brand, and the $18m may cover more than just a redesign.
The important point is whether or not this website will help it achieve its aim of improving its online revenues, which currently stand at 12% of overall sales.
With the help of some user testing videos (kindly provided by whatusersdo), I've been looking at the user experience on the new Four Seasons site.
While the site contains some great imagery and content, there is plenty of room for improvement, and it's a big fail on accessibility...
House of Fraser: site review
House of Fraser unveiled an updated version of its website recently.
Online sales rose by 110% in the first 24 weeks of the year, and House of Fraser aims to continue this growth with the redesigned website.
The previous incarnation, as reviewed here by Paul Rouke in 2007, was a good site, but the new version provides a more up to date, streamlined look.
How does the new Republic mobile site shape up?
Republic launched its first mobile commerce site this week, becoming the latest fashion retailer to do so.
From the various mobile site and app reviews I've written, consumer surveys and more I've compiled a checklist of key points to create a usable mobile site. (Please suggest any others I may have missed out).
I've been comparing the new Republic site against this checklist...
F-commerce review: Lyle & Scott
Clothing brand Lyle and Scott is the latest retailer to begin selling on Facebook, with the launch of a store on the site yesterday.
The Lyle and Scott Facebook store is basically a version of the mobile website, which was released last year. It's an interesting solution to the problem, and any retailers that already have a mobile site could follow this example.
Mothercare launches a mobile commerce site
Retailer Mothercare launched its first mobile commerce site this week.
The user interface was designed in-house, while the site was developed by Usablenet, which has also worked on mobile sites for John Lewis and M&S.
H&M redesigns its website, but is it any better?
Having been one of the last big brands to begin selling online in the UK, H&M's e-commerce launch last year was a major disappointment.
Among the problems were a lack of attention to SEO, too much Flash, and generally poor usability.
Yesterday I had an email from H&M telling me that it has launched a new website. In the interests of fairness, I've been seeing what improvements have been made...
Ten best practices from the new Lakeland website
Homeware retailer Lakeland launched its redesigned website recently, and the result is a good looking and usable site.
I've picked out things that etailers could do better online in the past, but for a change, I've listed ten e-commerce best practices from the new site, as well as a couple of potential improvements...
Site review: Brandosa's UK launch
Brandosa, an online shoe retailer which operates in Europe as brandos.com, launched its UK e-commerce site this week.
Since launching in 2006, the retailer has sold 350,000 pairs of shoes to customers in Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, and the Netherlands.
I've been having a look at the new site...
Best of 2010: 33 websites reviewed
It's been a busy year for site reviews, with several high profile e-commerce and mobile launches from the likes of H&M, Selfridges, M&S and John Lewis.
I've compiled the 33 website and mobile site reviews from 2010...
