Website Analysis - Wynsors Part Two

Having looked at the SEO, Design and Marketing presentation of the Wynsors site in part one of this analysis, I wanted to dig into the customer experience.

So, as I have an 8 year old who is constantly kicking out the toes of his school shoes, I decided to take a look at Wynsor's offering in this area.

On Site Search

I began by searching for the cheapest pair of shoes on the site that would fit my son, a size 1. 

I also checked the mobile site, and found different results from exactly the same search - the two cheapest options weren't available on mobile.

The search engine also had some notable flaws - if you mistyped the product you received an error message, there was no redirecting to similar results.

Checkout

However, it's at the checkout that Wynsors really fell down. Although the site claims it's a 3 step process to checkout, it's actually 10 - something which totally killed off the experience for me, and I believe is the single biggest reason that this site isn't doing very well.

I won't bore you with all ten steps, but suffice to say that several could be combined onto a single screen, and using the site on anything less than a 2Mb connection would be an awful experience.

Customer Experience Issues

Other customer experience issues I experienced on the site included

• Delivery & Return costs. Although wynsors is a budget experience, it's charges in these areas are greater than my local discount store, Brantano as well as those at the premium brand Clarks. When you're shopping for an £8 pair of shoes, being presented with two different shipping options, without an explanation of the different service levels, is just confusing.
• Guest checkout was available with Paypal only. Although the benefits to the retailer of guest checkout are great, and are well explained here, this is diluted if you can't use your normal methods of payment.

• Delivery address finder exists only on the mobile site, not on the main site. This is another barrier to the user checking out quickly.

Recommendations

So after reviewing the Wynsors site, these were my recommendations

1. Redesign the site to a cleaner look and feel, with larger text
2. Clarify the target audience and establish a clear marketing strategy to those potential customers
3. Invest in a search strategy
4. Invest in google shopping and an ebay shop to support the main site
5. Invest in the search function to improve functionality on site and ensure that results are the same across mobile and desktop platforms.
6. Simplify and shorten the checkout process, including an address finder on the main website.
7. Open up guest checkout to all payment methods
8. Address the delivery and return charges, and ensure they are at least competitive with similar websites.

Wynsors Revisited

Looking at the Wynsors site again, the homepage and checkout have undergone some redesign. The homepage retains the company branding at the top, but the framing is now white, lifting the image and product placement. The bright images for the womens, mens and kids styles compliment the page and give a fresh new feel to the user experience.

The checkout process retains elements of the original system, but is shorter, simpler and cleaner. However, the search function still has it's old issues, so this remains a site which is work in progress.

Further reading

If you are interested in learning more about ecommerce design, checkout processes or user experience then these two articles are full of useful pointers.

10 Essential Things Your Ecommerce Site Should Have - really good article with lots of illustrative images

Fundamental Guidelines of E-Commerce Checkout Design - focused on reducing abandonment rates

Consulting

If, after reading these blogs, you'd like me to take a look at your site, please email me or visit my website, as I'm available on a consultancy basis to analyse and support businesses in improving their websites.

Website Analysis - Wynsors Part One

I was recently asked to analyse wynsors.com, a shoe site and chain of stores based in the north west of England, and recommend improvements that they could make to their site.

SEO

On checking alexa.com and woorank.com I discovered that 55% of their search traffic was generated simply by a search for Wynsors. The traffic pattern also suggested that search funding was simply not present.

Importantly it confirmed that the visitors to the website were more likely to be female.

Look & Feel

I'm not a designer, but there were three key points I needed to make about the layout of the homepage.

1. It's in a black frame. Dark web design can be used to striking effect, but most users prefer light to dark pages. On a retail site you need to be very careful before using dark backgrounds so that you don't alienate potential clients at the first impression.
2. The text size is very small - less than the 12 point that I would consider the minimum for a retail site.
3. The welcome message (shown below) is virtually unreadable, and appears to be there solely to boost the text to image ratio - useful for the search rankings.

From a content perspective, there seems to be some confusion about the intended audience. The aspirational image shown in the main banner spot targets young women in the 18-35 age group.

However, it's placed next to two images of slippers, products usually aimed at a much older audience. The next three rotational banners are all variations on men's canvass shoes.

This confused messaging is a scattergun approach to the customer, as if Wynsors are hoping that if you throw enough promotional material at a potential customer, some will appeal to them. There's no attempt to create a story or message for the user. I'm a firm believer in a focused marketing plan - a clear story for the user, and a clear message for the sales team and tools.

In the second part of this blog I'll explore the user experience.