Sports Direct: check out those calls to action!

Sports Direct is brilliant. Ok, it had some problems last year as its reputation took a blow thanks to the retailer’s use of zero hour contracts, but on the sales front, it’s flying along.

New stores are opening, other sports retailers are being battered into submission and 2,000 staff members are to receive a cool £100k bonus after profits climbed by 40% to £200m last year.

With 12 languages and 10 currency options, the Sports Direct website should continue to aid the company’s growing profits.

The website has been praised in many quarters. It’s certainly easy to use and strongly conveys the brand’s identity.

Visiting the site I was struck by just how good its calls to action are, and how easy it is to get around (unlike their stores). I thought I’d round up a few of the best bits.

Enjoy them in all their enormous garish glory. I think they’re part of a growing lust for simplicity that is driving web design forward.

By Ben Davis January 16th 2014 16:08

Full monty product pages

Reviews and ratings, discounts, pop-out sizing chart, zoomable images, sale marker and savings indicator, scrollable product info, delivery and returns info box, ‘people also viewed’ sidebar, ‘you might also like’.

Wonderfully done.

No guesswork

Below there’s a screenshot of me hovering over the Men’s category in the top menu. Look at the drop down menu. I’m not just given five subcategories (Footwear, clothing, fashion outlet, accessories, clearance), I’m given all the categories within, too.

So if I want to find gilets, I can do so directly from the homepage. The best navigation works like this.

No nesting

If I actually click on the Men’s category, again there’s no hiding what I want to find, the category page has every Men’s sub category on it, in a great big list.

There are few websites I can think of where I’m so sure of where I am on site.

Vanilla filters

When I take the plunge and select a specific category page that sits at the bottom of the merchandising hierarchy, I am served the items in ascending price order as befits the brand.

I can also filter by price, colour, size and category (as some items sit in more than one category e.g. hi tops and boots).

Sale products are clear as day, stickered with a red and yellow sale badge and popular products are still surfaced in a panel at the bottom of the product selection.

There are some pages that don’t have these standard filters and these seem to be for particularly important categories such as football boots. Sports Direct is a go-to destination for football boots and has obviously prioritised this category.

The football boot category page is more of a landing page, however, as once the user selects a particular style or brand of boot, they are directed to a filtered list once again.