Observe dell.com.au

Dell's home page, in mid March, 2001, looks looks like a nice boutique. All the emphasis is on looks and is of little use to experienced shoppers. 70% of the PC buyer market are buying their second or subsequent PC. 70% of shoppers know something about the product thew want so this style of page slows down their shopping.

The following image shows Dell's home page mid March, 2001.

I wasted a lot of time trying to find a product at this site. I looked at a Dell notebook used for a presentation and wanted to find that model on Dell's site. The model was not listed in the first two categories on this page. The third category had something similar then I left the site never to shop at dell.com.au again.

Many Dell customers are experienced users just looking for a price yet this page is aimed totally at the ignorant first time buyer. It is mismatched to their market.

Boutique marketing

Kelvin Kline introduced the ultimate in boutique marketing by selling women's clothing through advertising featuring pictures of naked women. The idea is to get people in to the store before revealing how dull the product is, similar to everything else on the market and more expensive.

Boo.com tried to match Kelvin Kline in the rush for sales to vain insecure people. Boo.com spent $200,000,000.00 on a clothing sales site featuring no clothing or usable options to buy clothing. Their sales were zero.

A better page

This page suits repeat buyers. You can jump straight to the product list. This is a time saver site that cuts the cost of shopping. It is the directory you see at the entrance to a Target store. The only problem I had was reading the page on a smaller LCD screen.

Nicely laid out page containing useful information.

Part 2 of the same page suits people who already own and know PCs and just want to buy a current model.

A Dell/Kelvin Kline style page. There is not enough information here to decide between this Compaq model and others in the same range. People will leave this site and drive to Harvey Norman where they will be sold a different brand.