Rickis.com
Ricki’s sells women’s clothing and accessories. They have a great website for online shopping or research before heading to the store. The layout and feel of the website is clean, yet has all the key information you need such as detailed photos, customer ratings, and links to social media. Even with all the information, the site never feels disorganized or cluttered but is very easy to navigate. A new great feature is “drop a hint”, which lets you email a photo of the product you like (to your spouse for example), including your size and colour. There is nothing I dislike on this website.
The search function is easy, although simplistic. For example you cannot search for a “black sweater”, but only “sweater”, and then narrow down your results. However, narrowing down the search results is very easy with categories such as colour, size and price.
Adding items to a shopping cart is as easy as it can be, and any discounts are calculated immediately, so I know right away how much I am paying. The online store is also connected to actual stores, as I can check availability, and pick up or exchange my online orders at a store.
Ann Taylor.com
Ann Taylor also sells women’s clothing and accessories. Overall this website is excellent with easy navigation and great photos of each product. The search function is easy and is more advanced than on the Ricki’s website: I can search for blue pants or short skirts, for example. It is also easy to narrow down the search results by categories such as size and colour. It is very easy to add items to the cart; all you have to do is select your size.
This site is great for online shopping, and integrates the physical aspect by including a “find in store” function. Other helpful features include suggestions for other items I might like.
A huge drawback to this site is that you have to check-out before you know the shipping costs, which can be substantial to Canada, and has made me to abandon my cart a couple of times.
Toys R Us
Toys R Us sells toys, games, bikes, baby accessories etc. This is an example of a website I would not use if there was another toy store with these prices and selection. The search function is cumbersome as there is too much detail. This may work well if you know exactly what you are looking for, but not if you are browsing for options. For example, to narrow the search by price, I have to choose from categories such as “$10 - $14” or “$15 - $19” (and I cannot choose both at once). Additionally, items that are sold out are still prominent in search results, which can make adding items to cart a bit annoying, as you notice on the product detail page that it is not even available.
Toys R Us is a great example of how a company has not integrated the online and store shopping. I tried to order a doll house for a store pick-up, but could not as that store did not have the item in stock (shouldn’t this item be shipped from a warehouse to the store?) Overall, this website is too cluttered and browsing is very difficult.
Hotels.ca
I use hotels.ca to book my hotel accommodations. The search function is quite easy with categories such as amenities and neighbourhood, but I do not like how I have to pick exact dates for my stay and cannot browse for best deals by dates. I like how I can pick the price range from any values I want, and not specific ranges like on the Toys R Us website. Seeing all the hotels on a map is a very helpful feature, as is easily accessing all the guest ratings for the hotel.
Adding to a cart/reserving a room is not difficult, but could be even more straightforward by eliminating a few clicks to confirm the booking. I do not like how I have to have an account specifically for this website, but at least I get every tenth night free.
Amazon.ca
Amazon sells anything from books and DVDs to toys and appliances. Considering Amazon’s roots, this website is surprisingly bad. I find myself on this site quite often as their selection is so wide, but do not end up buying a lot, as the experience is horrible.
Searching for products is not that easy, and I find the search brings up irrelevant items. I cannot narrow down the search for example by price, and the multiple product departments are just confusing. For example candles are listed under 28 different departments.
The shopping cart is very user friendly and provides all the necessary information such as discounts before the check-out.
There are some excellent features on this site, however, including knowing right away when you could receive the product. Overall, this website is just too cluttered for me to browse and stay for longer periods of time.
