Office Shoes online - good for when you can't leave the house because you have no shoes (office.co.uk)

Member Name: hulahoop

Product:	office.co.uk
Date:	20/12/00 (9381 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well designed website, easy to use, great shoes

Disadvantages: expensive P&P, the usual hassles of online shops

The Office website has been around for a while, with the people behind Office obviously understanding the benefits of online shopping. Office itself is a UK chain that sells very fashionable shoes at a relatively low price. It has a definite style of its own, and is bright and attractive for High Street trendies. It is, however, limited to London shoppers, and a few other towns such as Brighton. Because not everybody can get to these shops regularly, it makes sense to have an online shop.

With the easy-to-remember address of www.office.co.uk (try not to type orifice.co.uk - tempting I know, but it just brings up a picture of a scantily clad woman, which is obviously not what the internet is intended for ;O{o ) you get a bright page with the ‘Office’ logo and the ‘Offspring’ logo, the ‘Office’ link taking you into the every day shoes section, ‘Offspring’ taking you into their sports shoes section.

OFFICE
The Office link provides you with a well laid out page, welcoming you to the Office website, and the choice between looking at the different categories of shoes that they sell, or other information. You can go to NEWS, HISTORY, LOCATIONS, MENS COLLECTION, LADIES COLLECTION, OFFSPRING SPORTS and HELP!. This page is enclosed in a box which stays the same as you browse through the site, and has the above links on it too, as well as a navigation bar, so you definitely won’t get lost!! This is very helpful.

The NEWS link is still under construction, and currently holds nothing. The HISTORY link has a lot of information, from contact addresses to a glimpse into, what you would expect, their history. Locations gives you a Uk map with little Office or Offspring icons in their appropriate locations, of which you can click on to find their exact addresses.There are about 8 Office/Offspring shops in London, and 4 in the rest of the UK. It also has a link so that you can find out about London
tube stations appropriate to the sites. This is very useful to people like me who only vaguely know their way around London, let alone where the shops are.

Of course those are only for when you want to make the effort to get to the shops. If like me, however, you don’t particularly want to get off your backside and do some shopping while fiddling around on Dooyoo, you can look at the MENS COLLECTION, LADIES COLLECTION and OFFSPRING SPORTS links.

The men can choose from Classic, Casual, Sandal, Contemporary or Rugged/Outdoor styles. Each of these categories has an average of 6 different shoes, obviously varying from season to season. You click on the category and it comes up with small but
descriptive photos, which you can click on for a larger photo, additional product information, and to place an order. This tells you the sizes available, which you can
select for your order, the different colours or materials, again which you click on either to browse or change for your order, the price, and any other information they want to tell you. The site is updated pretty regularly and displays an ‘On Sale’ sticker alongside the photo if it appropriate.

Prices tend to vary from £30 to £130, obviously completely depending upon the shoe
you order.

The ladies shoes come in the categories of Ankle boots, Low Heels, Mid Heels, Sandals, Office Wedding, High Heels, Hand bags and Knee boots. At the moment choice in handbags is limited, with only one available in two colours, but it is on sale if that makes up for it!!

There are many very attractive and modern shoes available under the other categories, except for sandals, which only has 2 choices, due to it being winter. I am usually tempted to buy so many of these shoes because they are beautifully designed, well made and look different from usual high street shoes. You can see a wide selection of styles from the average to the, quite frankly, weird!!


OFFSPRING

I was quite surprised at the amount of sport shoe brands this site had - I’ve only ever really heard of Nike, Adidas, Ellesse, Asics etc. This has all that and more, from the ubiquitous Nike to the contemporary Tsubo. Ranges include Acupuncture, Adidas, Converse, Merrell, Nike, Puma, Reebok, New Balance, Roller Skates, Royal Elastic, Salomon, Tsubo and Walsh, all available for men and women. There is not a huge range of shoes for each brand, but the overall range is very good.

ORDERING etc

The layout of the Office website is simple enough to be completely self-explanatory. There are constant links for all of the important things, and one remains throughout for you to view your ‘shoe box’. This is Office’s own shopping trolley. You can order
things that show up in this when you click on its link, and you can go straight back to your shopping after you have viewed it. It is easy to use, and clearly tells you all appropriate details. Once you have decided on your purchases you can click on the ‘Go To Order form’ link, but if you click on it by accident it doesn’t matter because you don't give any personal details until the last moment.

Prices are reasonable for the quality and style you get, but it is a little cheaper to buy from the actual shop. I bought some shoes from the site which cost £54.99, but in the shop in Neal Street, London, two days previously were £49.99.

On top of this you get a rather hefty P&P cost of £6.50 if you live in the UK. I thought this was rather extravagant, but when I ordered some shoes a couple of months ago they arrived within the week, and I had no complaints about the service.

The ordering form is simple to fill out - just your name and address - no questionnaires, except the expected ‘where did you hear about this site’, which is optional. It also gives you a chance to write any comments about the se
rvice on the form, which would be enormously helpful if there were any special requirements or complaints about previous orders. A separate browser pops up when you come to give your credit card details, which is secure. Any information given is encrypted and no credit card details are held on the site.


As I have said, the order generally comes quickly, and the website is very helpful and easy to use. This is the best online shop I have ever used, and to my knowledge is reliable, as well as aesthetically effective. Sometimes I window shop on this site because I just love looking at the beautiful pictures of nicely designed shoes.

It is definitely worth looking at, if not ordering shoes, if you enjoy them and cannot get to the shops. If there are Office shops local to you I would advise using them first
because styles will be updated first, and there will be an even greater range of shoes in there. Also it should be cheaper, and there are likely to be more items on sale.

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