Dell UK – www.dell.co.uk – Web Store Review

by Bill H.

By Paul Lang, Editor, Sell It!
March 1998

Overall
There is no questioning the quality of Dell’s products or their overall business model that has been adapted successfully to incorporate the Web. Daily Web revenue now exceeds $6 million.

Whilst there are many positive aspects to their Web store, particularly the detailed product information available, it is fundamentally a poorly constructed Web site in desperate need of a major overhaul.

A quick look through Dell’s US Web store shows that many of the problems highlighted in this review have been resolved there. Hopefully Dell will soon revamp their European Web stores to match the US site.

Construction
As you would expect from such a large organization, the initial impression of the Dell home page is good. The absence of plug-ins and Java applets combined with small graphic file sizes allows a reasonably fast download. Navigation choices are clear and all key links are available from the home page including a site search function. However, the page is frames based and there is no frameless or text only option available.

The site passes the “three clicks to an order” test starting with a clear “Buy a Dell” button on the home page that leads to a listing of base models. Selecting one of these models brings up a configuration page where options are selected through drop down boxes.

This page has some flaws. It does not fit in even an 800×600 window and thus the horizontal scroll bars have to be used to see all the detail. Frustratingly, available options within a particular category can only be displayed by clicking on the drop down boxes, but in many cases there are no options to display. And the use of frames makes navigation back to the base model selection page very difficult. The sole redeeming feature is the use of JavaScript to re-calculate the selling price, including sales tax and delivery.

Once options have been selected, a final click leads to an order form that details exactly what has been selected, what the complete cost is and what the expected delivery lead-time is. This page is not secured even though the customer is expected to enter credit card details. From a technical perspective this is correct as it is only the transmission of the credit card details that needs to be encrypted. However, many customers will not feel comfortable with entering credit card details on a page that does not include a closed lock icon in the corner.

The site makes extensive use of JavaScript; unforgivably for such a major site, both Navigator 3 and 4 and Explorer 4 produced several JavaScript errors whilst navigating through it.

Selling
One thing the site does well is to sell.

Right from the outset the site’s purpose is clear with the largest icon by far on the home page being an exhortation to “buy a Dell”. Other links from the home page lead to pages that clearly detail the specifications of the products and the benefits that buying them from Dell will bring.

Extensive use is made of traditional marketing techniques with competitions, special offers and other promotions. And a large degree of personalisation is available as the customer can configure their systems as required.

Some opportunities are missed though. For example, there is no opportunity presented to the customer to purchase peripherals such as a scanner or printer once they completed configuration of their system.

Order processing
Once the system has been fully configured and the order form completed, the customer is given the option of either entering their credit card details on-line or of having a Dell customer service representative call them. Either way, they are rewarded with a screen stating that the order will be acknowledged with a firm delivery within one working day.

In reality, acknowledgment takes considerably longer than one day as, bizarrely, even though the provision of an e-mail address is mandatory on the order form, Dell chose to acknowledge all orders by snail-mail.

On-line order tracking is available but is of limited use, as the information needed to use this facility is part of the snail-mail acknowledgment.

And finally, no e-mail notification is provided once the goods have been despatched.

Support
The Web site contains a wealth of pre-sales support detailing the specification of each product and mapping out the ordering process. There are clear links for requesting further information by e-mail. Responses to e-mails are promised within one working day: we sent two e-mails spread two weeks apart and neither was responded to.

Post sales support information is also provided on the site with further support being provided by e-mail or telephone. We tried the telephone support and had to wait over 20 minutes to speak to a customer service representative.

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