I am officially turning into a grumpy old gyt!!! Ranting about business things which annoy me with alarming frequency. Imagine what I’ll be like when I reach my 30’s….

Today’s subject. Currys. Grrr

Basically I wanted to buy a TV as the one in my bedroom had conked out! Obviously I looked online and found this cheeky little offer giving 5% off all orders over £249. RESULT - the TV I wanted was £249.99.

I logged on to their website and placed the order. As it was Friday night I opted to collect the product on Saturday morning from my local store as there is a Currys about 10 miles away from where I live.

On arriving at the store I had the following debate…

Sales chappie “That’s £249.99 please”.

Me “Not so fast sunshine, I’ve got my 5% discount” I replied

“Sorry sir, that’s only for online orders” he countered

“But I did order it online - here’s my online reference number”

“No Sir, you can’t get the 5% discount because the online store has less costs than us” he claimed

“How? They offer free delivery on all orders, so surely that is going to cost more as they now will no longer have to pay the delivery fee” I responded getting slightly more annoyed….

“Sorry sir, we don’t have the facility to give discount“.

You get the picture!

Now obviously they’ve got different costs attributed to keeping a product in a store, rather than at a warehouse, but surely these costs would have been offset by the fact that they wouldn’t have had to pay the £5 - £10 delivery fee to cover their promise of free delivery.

In the words of Dizzee…. BONKERS! I don’t think I’ll be going there to get my Fathers Day Gift.

Toodle pip.

TBW.

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Hurrah! We’ve recently launched the redesign of Prezzybox.com. Our design/technical team have been working on this for the past few months and we’re really pleased with the results.

We’ve not redesigned the site for the pure intention of making it looking pretty (although we think it does!). We’ve actually worked closely with NLP analytics company 7 Billion People and have employed a bone fide scientist to come and do full time analysis for us, all in the bid to increase our conversion rate.  So what have we done and why…

Home Page

• As more people have bigger monitors now we’ve widened the site to maximise the selling opportunity.
• We’ve really highlighted the fact that we are a ‘gift’ retailer and have added a ‘birthday’ gifts category as well as promoting our top goodies through our ‘top picks’ and ‘top 10 gifts’. We want people who come to Prezzybox to instantly know what we are about.
• All of the important messages - such as ’security’, ‘fast delivery’ and ‘customer testimonials’ are highlighted on the home page. This emphasises we are a legitimate retailer.

Navigation

•  The Navigation Bar now highlights all of the sub categories in the specific category, thus giving more options to find the ideal gift.
• There are 3 clear further ways to find a gift - namely the ’search facility’, ‘browse by price’ and our ‘gift wizard’ again hoping to entice the user to purchase.

Category Page

• The product categories display all of our top selling gifts in the particular category. This has always been the case.
• Alongside this we display our 6 top sub categories pictorially at the top and then all of the sub categories alphabetically on the left hand side. If users are looking for a specific type of product they can drill down in to the sub category.
• ‘See more like this’ is a really nice feature, as it shows which sub category the product is in and then allows the user to see more products which are similar. We feel this will greater emphasis the huge range we have at Prezzybox.

Product Page

• Really nice functionality this and will hopefully increase conversion rate considerably. We now notify people that the ‘item has been added to the cart’ and highlight where the shopping cart actually is so it’s easier for them to find.

Call to Action Box

• Displaying all of the necessary information. Shows the price, that the item is in stock, how quickly it will be dispatched and where you can click to find similar gifts. Again - simplicity is the key.

Shopping Cart

• We have made the shopping cart ’simples’. It highlights the products you want to buy as well as the security protection we have in place, the delivery options as well as the alternative methods of pay. We wanted to keep it simple so as not to confuse people and put them off entering the checkout.

Checkout

• Really simple design focusing purely on checking out. Hey once people are there that’s what they want to do.
• Emphasis on 100% security highlighted at both the top and bottom of the checkout again to re instill the fact that the company the user are passing their money over to are a legitimate one.
• ‘You are here’ type checklist to highlight that only one simple page  needs to be completed to checkout.
• No need to log in to purchase, which makes the process as quick as possible (although soon we will have the ability to log in if the user wants to retrieve their stored information).

So there you have it folks. We’ve really worked hard to improve the site both functionally and aesthetically whilst trying to ensure that the key statistic - ‘conversion rate’ moves in the right direction. We only launched the new design a couple of days ago so it’s too early to say either way, but I’ll definitely keep you posted.

Toodle pip.

TBW

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There’s an old wives tale which goes “never cross a man in a pink Bandana” which I’ve strictly adhered to throughout my adult life. So - when Doug approached me donning the aforementioned shocking pink headpiece proclaiming “if you don’t blog about promotions.co.uk I’ll nick all your washing”, I thought I’d best comply.

Mad bandana man

So, what is promotions.co.uk I hear you ask.

Well, its basically a plug and play voucher code system. In short you  get a website, or it can bolt on to your existing website or you can have it as a sub domain and basically it’s a fully managed voucher codes system. It costs you nowt, and then you get to keep ALL the commission.

Too good to be true?

Don’t take it from me, check out promotions.co.uk and see for yourself.

Toodle pip.

TBW

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