As always, picking a winner involved a lot of discussion. What made it hard this time, was that we were very impressed by three stores in particular: Ozbuy, E-Store, and International Software Warehouse. What stood these sites apart from the rest were the features that clearly had the customer in mind (unbelievable though it may sound--so many Web sites still don't seem to get it). But, obviously, if you don't build your site with for your customers, you may as well not bother. Most disappointing however, was the lack of consideration to accessibility. All sites were not compliant with the W3C web accessibility initiative. Discrimination in any form is unacceptable, so consideration of these guidelines should be considered best practice when developing a site.
Ozbuy was the biggest surprise. The site has been updated since we had last entered via the somewhat redundant splash page, but were we in for a shock! The site was full of neat features, such as comparison tables, pop-up picture windows, and great prizes for customer feedback. And clearly this site listens when you speak, because it's very centred around the customer experience. Sure it has some usability issues, but these were easily overcome in favour of the rounded experience that was provided when compared to its peers. As for prices, it seemed not many could better Ozbuy, with all prices below the RRP.
E-Store stood apart from the pack also, with its clean design and easy-to-use navigation system. Special features include the "freight calculator", feedback to customers, and a vast range of payment options (with one clever option: a pay-by-phone service that caters to those who are still a little Web shy when it comes to leaving credit card details). Not only that, E-Store also has a vast supply of goods available for selection.
Another great site was that of International Software Warehouse. This site offers customers a good range of products and is quick and easy to navigate. A great feature of this site is that customers can sort products easily by the criteria of their choice (price, manufacturer, category, etc) making the browsing process compatible with different customer styles. This site offers free stuff with purchases as well as other special and has a great shopping cart. With all this in mind we really had a hard task on our hands to choose the winner, with Ozbuy and E-Store the two main contenders for the title. The jury was out on the decision for two whole days while we deliberated. But at the end of the day we just couldn't go past Ozbuy as the pick of the bunch.
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