BLACK FRIDAY SALE - up to 57% off memberships for a limited time!

Explore our E-commerce and Retail Digital Marketing Toolkit

A usability review of online appliance retailers

Author's avatar By Susanne Colwyn 18 Jun, 2014
Essential Essential topic

4 online appliance retailers rated for the best overall online experience across 150 mobile and desktop touchpoints on the customer journey

Simple Usablity recently reviewed the UX from 4 leading e-commerce sites (Currys, Argos, Appliances Online and Appliances Direct), to find out how they are focusing on the customer experience.  The companies were assessed across 120 touchpoints along the customer journey from homepage to checkout, and 30 touchpoints to rate their mobile experience.

PET Assessment - Persuasion, Emotion and Trust

Retailers were assessed on this and other criteria including social proof, salience and gamification. Appliances Online ranked the highest on 'Emotion',  Currys on 'Salience' (how they influence what visitors pay attention to and how they interpret the meaningfulness of the information) and Argos on 'Social Proof' (customer reviews and ratings).

PETsimpleusability

Mobile Strategy

All three retailers, except Appliances Online were evaluated across 30 touchpoints for their mobile customer journey. Curry's ranked the highest, for a seamless experience through their responsive design, a simple homepage and one area for improvement was for more interaction with their product pages. Argos seemed to have grasped product interactiion via 'pinch and swipe'.

currys mobile website design

Index Ratings of the Customer Journey from Home to Checkout

Comparison of sites:

appliancesonlineratings

 

Appliances Online review:

  • One page from 'home' to 'basket checkout' for ease of purchase.
  • Distraction with the row of products.

 

 

appliancesdirectratings

 

Appliances Direct review:

  • The navigation is not helpful and difficult to know which part of the site you are in, and some sections do not corespond ie 'Cooking'.

 

currys index ux

 

 

 

Curry's Review:

  • Lack of security symbols, as user is taken to external url for payment.
  • Poor navigation to return to previous page.

curryssite

argosindex

 

Review of Argos's site:

  • Good experience as the visitor filters by category and then in one click, is taken to the selected product.
  • Poor navigation and breadcrumbs, as the visitor doesn't return to the previous page of the listings.

argos navigation

More details are available in the download in the full Appliance Retailer Online Experience Index Report.

Author's avatar

By Susanne Colwyn

Susanne is a Marketing Consultant and Trainer, with over 20 years marketing experience in the public and private sector. She's passionate about supporting companies with practical result driven marketing, to help focus companies on evaluating and driving their marketing forward. Experienced in Integrated Strategic Marketing Planning, Data Segmentation, Customer Relationship Management Systems, Customer Insight and reviewing internal systems, data and processes, to maximise conversion strategies and the customer experience. You can connect with her via her LinkedIn or follow her @Qtymarketing.

Recommended Blog Posts