Attitude Clothing Web Site

Features

On the web site http://www.attitude.uk.com/ you can search by band, brand or product or type in a search criteria in order to find an item you want to buy. All of the products matching this then appear on the screen. There is a picture of each product with information about the product beneath them including the price, product code, the name of the product and the brand. If there are lots of products matching your criteria they appear over several pages, to view the next page you have to click 'next' at the top of the screen or select a page number to skip pages you do not want to see. You can click on the pictures of the products to find out more information about them. Below the product picture is a drop down menu which allows you to choose a size (if the size is not available it does not appear on the list of options). Once a size is selected you can click the 'buy' button which will add it to the 'cart'. From the cart you can either pay for the product or continue shopping.

Down the left hand side of the web page are different types of clothing to choose from - another method of searching for a product, for example, 'Punk Clothing', 'Streetware', 'Footware' and 'Accessories'. When you hover over one of these categories a list of brands that make clothes for that type appears to choose from.

On the home page there are large pictures advertising some of the brands in stock. These links then take you to the page designated to that brand.

To buy items on the site you must be a member. The option to register appears automatically if you try to buy an item without logging in. In order to register you must think of a username and password and give your full name and address. Once an account is created you can buy items. When you continue to the checkout to purchase the items in your cart it asks for additional information including daytime phone number of delivery address and details of the card you are using to pay.

The web site also has a news section which gives information such as when bands are touring with links to merchandise below.

Another feature of the web site is a 'quick shop' option. This is for if you already know what you want to buy. It allows you to give the product ID, item size and quantity and then add it straight to the cart. This could save a lot of time looking through endless pages trying to find the right item.

Positive Things

This site has many useful features, the 'quick shop' option is very useful for customers who do not have much time and already know the product they want to buy. Also the navigation on the site makes it easy to use because it is very clear so you can find your way around easily. However in some ways the navigation is not particularly good, for example on the column down the left hand side where you hover over the type of clothes it is difficult to then select a brand without it disappearing.

The search tool is very useful because it helps customers who do not know exactly what they are looking for find something to suit their needs quickly and easily. It is also very useful that there are so many differnet categories to search by.

The web site does not store users' card details along with other details that it saves such as address; although this can be a nuisance because it slows down the checkout proccess it makes using the web site much safer because it is more difficult for your details to get into the wrong hands.

The web site uses special offers to attract customers. For example, on the home page there is a message at the top of the screen saying 'Free UK standard delivery when you spend over £50 online!'. This encourages customers to spend more money on the site.

Negative Things

A negative aspect of the web site is that you cannot filter out either male or female clothing (whichever you do not want), this makes finding an item a very long process because there are so many items to look at, whereas if you could filter out clothing for one gender this time would be roughtly halved. However it could be quite difficult to do this as some items could be considdered unisex, for example certain shoes and accessories.

Another negative point is the way the items are displayed accross several pages. This can be irritating and it would be much easier for the user to just scroll down to view an item rather than having to click next to go onto a new page. This also slows you down because the pages usually take quite a long time to load.

Attitude do not have an ordinary store, it is entirely internet and catelogue based. This is good in a way because having the web site makes it easy for people to buy items from them, however it would probably be better if there was a store as well as a web site and catelogue because not everybody has the internet and it is sometimes difficult to tell whether or not you like an item if all you see is a picture of it on a computer screen. For example you cannot try things on so it is virtually impossible to tell if they will fit you or not (this is made more difficult where sizes are only given as 'small' 'medium' or 'large' and not as specific sizes), this could make the company lose money because people will find it easier to buy clothes from a high street shop where they can try them on and will not have the hassle of having to return them if they do not fit.

Attitude does not have a very good method of advertising, it does not advertise on the Internet as far as I am aware, neither does it use media such as television or radio to advertise. However it does advertise by giving away free 'Attitude' catelogues with music magazines such as 'Kerrang!'.

Overall

Overall the Attitude web site is very good, the navigation is quite good and so is the layout, however it does have some annoying features.