This week Selfridges launched their new website. Divya, our resident digital ninjet with a penchant for wellies, took part in the beta testing of the site. Given this and the potential impact for some of our clients, we were quite intrigued to see how it would look and perform.
Selfridges would no doubt like to think of themselves as a 'retailer' in the original sense of the word; a tailor to personal needs and requirements, not just a place where you sell stuff. With that in mind I was expecting glitch free functionality, with some engaging elements thrown in. I thus went online.
The Good
- When I got to the homepage I smiled. There was humour to it and the page was quite clean. My instant reaction was to want to look further.
- I like the fact that the site links to their youtube channel, Twitter (7847 followers) and Facebook (35,145 fans) pages
- They invite you to become mystery shoppers, getting you involved a little
- I like the idea of having 'brand rooms' where the designers can have richer content akin to their own sections in the physical space
From that point on, everything got a little bit disappointing for me though.
The bad
- I didn't like the way the tool bar worked. The drop down menus were unattractive
- It kept crashing evey time I went back
- it seems to jump around from page to page
- There was no video content
- You are supposed to chose a product based on a single image alone
By this point I was getting a little tired of looking at the website, so knowing that mobile and 'mCommerce' is the new battle ground all brands should be mastering, I thought I would finish by seeing what the site looked like on an iPod. The answer...nothing!
And that, when considering their target, is certainly Ugly!
If you would like to know more about mCommerce and mobile marketing, please give us a shout. This is an area of such huge importance going forward, that it is our goal to make sure brands don't miss opportunities, or worse still, make the same mistake!
- Sam
