A reskinning is not a panacea: Dick Smith

Dick Smith just reskinned their site. Well they have at least since the last time I went there. My summary is that this is nice but will add little to their site statistics. The look has changed slightly but the real work has yet to be done.

Here is the Australian one:

and the NZ one. We get another layer of tabs and a fern. Pretty.

 

So it’s a reskin. But there are still a lot of flaws.

The menus are across two columns and rows. This may be new or ot, but it is bloody confusing.

The phones menu is even more confusing – starting with CB radios, and including the category “new low price”

Searching for “cable” gives you far too many results. These are just the categories. They are a completely unusable mess.

Here’s a lesson in how to handle cables – courtesy of Ascent

The DVD categories could use some artwork

and some products:

 

Adding items to the cart briefly pops up a message. I’m not sure whether I like this or not – it was a long way away from the eye on my big screen.

The checkout message on the top of the screen is nice looking but the wording is strangely subdued. Maybe it is a test but “Visit Checkout” seems to be pretty soft versus, say “Checkout now.”

The cart is pretty ordinary, but functional.


But the next screen is an intimidating screen of online shopping death. You’d think a bit of work on this would see a big uptake in sold carts. Beyond this screen is a payment screen as well. Why not put all three (summary, address, payment) on to one page?

 

3 Responses to “A reskinning is not a panacea: Dick Smith”


  1. 1 Scott November 17, 2009 at 9:20 am

    Actually, the DVD section should be empty and in fact not even exist. Why the hell would anyone go to Dick Smiths for a DVD, especially when most Dick Smith stores are within stones throw of a Warehouse or JB Hifi. Sounds like they’ve got no direction if you ask me.

  2. 2 Mark November 17, 2009 at 10:12 am

    Great analysis there Lance. It probably would have been better all-round if DSE had tested this design off-line with somebody like yourself before going live. Looks like they’ve potentially spent a lot of $$$ on it.

  3. 3 jason November 17, 2009 at 2:18 pm

    think that sites bad, checkout http://www.noelleeming.co.nz for an prime example of online marketing gone wrong. or a site being run by a brand manager who has no idea about onlin conversion.


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