Introduction

Waitrose a high end supermarket in connection with the John Lewis Partnership, it sells a variety of products online whether its groceries, entertainment, cellar, florist, garden, pet and gifts. The website itself is  user friendly, making it easy for customers to place orders and it also promotes it’s brand. The website has contact details and help and support if customers need any queries regarding to orders, setting up accounts and any problems regarding of their products. The layout of the website is clear, there are some pictures which promote deals for offers such as dinner for two for £15 and a video which shows how to make tortilla pizzas.

The Website

By examining the online hierachy of needs it states three elements in a website design, these are: Functional convenience, Represensational delight and Structural firmness, stated by (Valacich.S et al 2007)  Out of the three elements, functional convenience seems to be more focused  than the others with the waitrose website.  The website is easy to navigate, has one click ordering like amazon, has an order tracking system so customers can trace their orders and their is a variety of different cards which can be used for payment. Waitrose also offer free next day delivery when a customer spends £60, free click and collect when customers spend £40 accoridng to waitrose (2017). Waitrose obides by the rules and regulations, it has a section detailing the terms of service making it a secure website so customer details and payment transactions are safe and secure when purchasing orders online.  The information about its products are clear and gives customers confidence in the prudcts they are purchasing. There are many hyperlinks which help customers and interest customers  with buying their products such as offers, favourites, Christmas, Inspiration, Recipes and Tv.

Recommendations

By looking at the website, the layout is portrait and it does not utilise the space well. By making it landscape, Waitrose could provide more pictures of its products and promote more of its deals to its customers. There does not seem to be a link for customers using mobile devices or other devices such as tablets, if a link was created and made easy to see this could attract more customers and encourage further sales. There only seems to be one video, if waitrose can create more videos on its products, rather than showing customers how to make products this could create more awareness and promote its brand more.

References

Valacich, J.S., Parboteeah, D.V. and Wells, J.D., 2007. The online consumer’s hierarchy of needs. Communications of the ACM, 50(9), pp.84-90

http://www.waitrose.com ‘waitrose website’ (2017) [online] [accessed on 25th of October 2017]