Could do better ‘C+’ (whsmith.co.uk)

Member Name: loulou6

Product:	whsmith.co.uk
Date:	28/05/01 (68 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: large amount of books to choose from

Disadvantages: postage charges, pop-up ads!

I love shopping anywhere but on the Internet it’s even better. No need to get dressed or stress that the shops will shut in 30 minutes and you can even save vast amounts of cash. If you’re like me and don’t have much money to throw around (two credit cards to bring up) you’ll also need to spend your money wisely. WH Smith helps you get a good product for a relatively cheap price (but watch that p&p).

The website is quite attractive to look at and it loads pretty quickly, although they have pop-up ads, which I abhor! It’s not too ‘busy’ to look at and navigation around the site is made by the orange tabs at the top of the page, these are Books, Music, DVD & Video, Games, Magazines, Stationery, Our Stores and Today on the Net.

Once you select which department you want, the sub-menu arrives at the side of the page allowing you to delve deeper into the vaults of WHSmith. However, the pages they launch at you are quite ugly, I reckon that if they had a line in between each listing it would make it easier to read. Although once you’ve found your choice it is a little easier on the eyes.

Their search facility is quite good, I tried with Terry Pratchett (well he has written over 26 books!) and it came back with quite a large return. They also show how much money you’re saving as well as if it’s in stock. Although it didn’t show the p&p charges and at £2.24 with .50p per book, this seems a little steep. It would be a good idea if you could pick up your order from the local WHSmith store for free, like Waterstones offer.

You can opt to be alerted by E-mail when a new book comes out by a certain author, but I would rather visit another site for this information. Yes, there are some good bargains like the 3 for 2 offer on DVDs at the moment (you get the cheapest one free). But as they usually charge around £19.99 for most DVDs, that would be £39.98 before you put t
he postage on, when you work it out, it’s not much of a bargain.

They do have a secure server for your purchase, but I couldn’t see any ‘Which Webtrader’ or other online site awards saying how secure they were. This doesn’t worry me too much, because the little padlock came up when I went through to my shopping basket, but for online shopping virgins it would be nice to see.

The packaging was very secure and delivery was quite prompt, although waiting over a week for a softback copy of ‘Guards, Guards, Guards’ by Terry Pratchett did seem a little slow, especially when Amazon would have got it here quicker (and cheaper).

You also still receive your WHSmith loyalty points, which I like, but I would rather have the items a little cheaper. Although I still use Amazon, I’ll definitely visit once in a while to see what bargains they have to offer me. I’ll just try to remember that it’s not whsmith’S’, I tried typing this in as a URL 4 or 5 times (didn’t know it was WHSmith without the S) – duh!

Summary: