Kmart online: Check out cheapie? - News - Business

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Kmart online: Check out cheapie?

By Byron Kaye, 0
March 01, 2001
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/business/soa/Kmart-online-Check-out-cheapie-/0,139023166,120206128,00.htm

The Internet presence of established retailer Kmart has copped a public flogging from an independent etail industry research group.

The department store was held up as an example of the traditional retail industry's generally poor grasp on effective e-commerce practices at the launch of Melbourne-based market researcher GlobalReviews.

-They (Kmart) have to look around. They have to get a telephone number on their site. They have to get a wider range of products (online) and make it easier to navigate around (the site)," GlobalReviews cofounder Dr Adir Shiffman said. -Their lack of phone number has cost them dearly."

-They've got some serious work to do."

According to company research conducted as recently as this month, the etailers most compliant with the criteria were Internet pureplays in almost every instance.

Kmart was joined by other traditional retailers, such as budget department store Target and electronic goods retailer Harvey Norman, as etailers that did not provide sufficient customer service facilities on their Web sites, had sites that were difficult to navigate or did little to boost customer confidence in online security measures.

Meanwhile, pureplays GreenGrocer.com.au, Wine Planet, ShopFast and wishlist.com.au were named as the Internet retailers with the most effective overall online strategy.

GlobalReviews conducts purely quantitative research on the etail industry by anonymously purchasing goods online and assessing individual etailers' success at matching up to a set of around 260 prescribed criteria.

The company allows users to access research results online via remotely hosted statistical software.

A Kmart spokesperson said the company did not list all its products on the Kmart site because some offerings were included in the online catalogue of its parent company, Coles Myer.

"The products that are there are the products we believe Kmart customers want to purchase online," the spokesperson said.

Kmart "questioned the wisdom" of suggestions that the department store should include all Kmart products on its Internet catalogue, they said. "We've tailored the site specifically to our customers."