WHSmiths Vs WaterstonesOnline Booksellers Web Usability

Comparative Study(extract)

london | germany | bangalore

Every Online Retail website has two types of pages

The Ones that sell

These are called product

pages

All Others

These are called product

pages

This is the homepage

These are category pages

These are Misc pages

•Your customers buy only from the product pages.

Fact

•You only make money from your product pages

•Your customers buy only from the product pages.

Fact

•You only make money from your product pages

Therefore

Your product pages are the most important part of your website.

We will look at some of these points over the next few pages , comparing whsmith and waterstones to find out whos’s doing better and what can be improved.

Lets look at how the home page and the product pages compare on search engine rankings,

between the two retailers

Search Engine Rankings Comparison

Question : Are you more likely to be a customer if you were searching for a ‘books’ or if you were searching for ‘Brisinger” ?

Question : Are you more likely to be a customer if you were searching for a ‘books’ or if you were searching for ‘Brisinger” ?

Answer : A generic keyword ‘books’ means the person is a browser or looking for information whereas he will be more likely to buy if he was searching for a specific book like say ‘Brisingr”

*Brisinger (Brisingr) is the latest bestseller by Paolini

Books

Brisingr

Home Page

Product Page

Home PageWHSmith on first page !!

Waterstones not there in the first five pages !!

Waterstones on first page !!

WHSmith not there in the first five pages !!

Product Page

Waterstones product pages rank higher than WHsmithAcross most popular keyword searches.WHSmith seems to be

Paying for PPC linkages for paid listings in most cases.(Reasons will become more clearer as we move forward in the ppt !! )

Search Engine Rankings Score

5 3

Technical ComparisonLets look at how the page source codes compare,

for the home page and the product pageBetween the two retailers

*This can be viewed simply by going to the page source option from your browsers view tab.

title> Books, Stationery, Magazines, DVDs, Music | WHSmith </title><meta name="TitleText" content="Books, audio books, stationery, magazines, DVDs, CDs, Gaming, Gifts, Cards and more delivered FREE to stores" /><meta name="description" content="FREE Delivery and Great offers on a huge selection of Books, including Fiction, Children’s, Education, Stationery, Magazines, DVDs, Music, Gaming & Gifts." /><meta name="keywords" content="Whsmith, books, book, bookshop, fiction, children’s books, childrens, education, revision guides, harry potter, stationery, files, folders, pens, diary, diaries, magazines, gifts, cheap, discount, buy, special offers, whsmiths, smiths" /><meta name="DeptDescription" content="Buy from over 1 million Books including titles in Fiction, Adventure, Romance, Science, Thrillers and many many MORE." /> <title>Welcome to Waterstones.com</title> <meta name="description" content="Waterstones.com - the UK's leading bookseller, with millions of books covering every subject. Free UK delivery on everything!" /> <meta name="keywords" content="books, novels, biography, sci-fi, computing books, childrens books, book blog, find Waterstone's stores, Waterstone's booksellers, art and photography books, audio books, books on cd, business books, finance, books, graphic novels, crime novels, true crime, educational books, textbooks, dictionaries, recipe books, food and drink books, fiction, stories, short stories, fairy tales, health books, diet books, pregnancy guides, history books, gardening books, diy books, humour books, little books, joke books, mbs, mind body spirit, tv tie-ins, film adaptations, pet books, dog books, cat books, children's books, childrens picture books, board books, bath books, cloth books, books on tape, poetry books, belle letters, quiz books, crossword books, crossword dictionaries, reference books, encyclopaedias, romance, scientific text books, medical books, almanacs, football books, cricket books, tennis books, diaries, travel guides, phrase books, students books, manga titles, celebrity chefs, golf books, sailing books, paperbacks, hardbacks, first editions, signed copies, limited editions, ebooks, maps, atlases, chicklit, hmv group, ottakars, ottakers, high street book shop, uk book shops, book sellers, books online, book signings, readings, book clubs, print on demand, study guides, cheat cards, revision books, exam guides, cheat books, strategy guides, erotica, war stories, gift books, gift editions, christening bibles, bibles, Koran, torah, politics books, economics books, gay and lesbian literature, mysteries, detective fiction, literary criticism, money guides, financial guides, mba guides, good study guides, bedtime stories"/>

Home Page

Whsmith has better homepage configuration than Waterstones. Metatags are better defined

Which means higher natural search ranking for Whsmith’s home page for keyword like books

Home Page Comparison

Waterstones has a large chunk of keywords inserted which will be truncated by google

</title><meta name="TitleText" content="Books, audio books, stationery, magazines, DVDs, CDs, Gaming, Gifts, Cards and more delivered FREE to stores" /><meta name="description" content="FREE Delivery and Great offers on a huge selection of Books, including Fiction, Children’s, Education, Stationery, Magazines, DVDs, Music, Gaming & Gifts." /><meta name="keywords" content="Whsmith, books, book, bookshop, fiction, children’s books, childrens, education, revision guides, harry potter, stationery, files, folders, pens, diary, diaries, magazines, gifts, cheap, discount, buy, special offers, whsmiths, smiths" /><meta name="DeptDescription" content="Buy from over 1 million Books including titles in [DEPARTMENTNAME]" />

<title>Waterstones.com: Children's: Brisingr - Inheritance Cycle Bk. 3 by Christopher Paolini (2008)</title> <meta name="description" content="Children's: Brisingr - Inheritance Cycle Bk. 3 by Christopher Paolini (2008)"/> <meta name="keywords" content="Brisingr - Inheritance Cycle Bk. 3 Hardback Christopher Paolini Children's Doubleday"/>

Product Page

Both WHSmith and Waterstones have poor Product Page Configuration

WHSmith has the same generic Meta tags copied across all product Pages !

Product Page Comparison

Waterstones has very minimal use of Metatags in its product pages

Technical Comparison

5 3

Product Page Web Usability

Next , lets look at how the web usability of the product pages compares for the two retailers

4

7Confuses the customerWith too much choice

Product Page Web Usability

Score

7 4

*Inverse ratio between scores and UID’s

Offline Store Events

Next , lets look at how these two inform about their offline store events

Prominently DisplayedStore Events

Low profile displaysOf store events

Offline Store Events Score

3 2

*Inverse ratio between scores and UID’s

Influencing the Customer

Next , lets look at how these two try to influence their customers

Cross Selling

Customer Influencing

Customer Informing

Customer Choice

Cross Selling

Customer Informing

Customer Choice

Influencing the Customer Score

5 3

Product page meta tags need to be optimised and modified

Website design needs to be enhanced with more features for

Conversion.

Menus need to be streamlined

Image and description quality need to be improved (In some

cases product images were missing altogether !)

Can benefit from intelligent search.. At the moment the

customer needs to enter the exact spelling of the book or it

doesn't return with a result

1

2

3

4

Some Recommendations- WHSmith

The above modification should result in increased traffic and conversion while

reducing the need for PPC, saving costs.

5

Home page meta tags need to be optimised and modified

Product Descriptions need to be optimized on the product

pages

Can benefit from Price monitoring.. It was found that

Generally waterstones prices are higher than other online

sellers for the same book (including whsmiths prices)

1

2

3

Some Recommendations- Waterstones

The above modification should result in increased traffic and conversion while

reducing the need for PPC, saving costs.

Lastly a look at innovative stuff other book retailers are doing to capture eyeballs

Podcasts

Subscriptions

Book Charts

Blogs and Communities

Games

Loyalty Cards

Need more info?Need Web Usability Studies and Benchmark comparisons done for your sites?

Contact Onida today

london | germany | bangaloreJay SharmaDirector Business Development

Onida Design 56, Henley WoodReading RG6 7EE Mail: jay.sharma@onida.co.ukMb: +44 (0) 7786198839