So in follow up to this now, they have been sending me copies of their Next catalogue (I think I have had 3 so far in as many months!) along with my account details.  When buying the item from them at Christmas time, all I wanted to do was exactly that.  However, it would now appear that I have some sort of credit account with them, with a limit of £300. 

To me, this is absolutely ridiculous.  Not once did I ask for a credit agreement to be put in place, and I certainly didn’t sign anything for this.  And they have had the cheek to charge me something like £4.00 a pop for the catalogue to be sent to me.  Obviously, every time I have received a letter from them I have instantly binned it thinking it to be DM.  Yesterday though, I actually read it and realised what was going on.

Anyway, one phone call later, a complaint made and I think my account has been removed.  Probably meaning that I will have to sign up to a new account when I want to buy online again…

Please Next, sort your act out.  And please get rid of the terrible tunes on your homepage.

During the tough times that we face ahead, it seems pretty obviously that every marketing department is going to have to look closely at their digital strategy and see where there can be improvements made that will impact on ROI.   There may even be a web build project on the horizon and you need to know that you choose the correct agency in place to be able to complete the task.

You may be worrying about your job, the whole economy and your targets.  So this is your time to act.  Strategy is the key here.  You need to look for an agency who will be able to look at your digital spend as a whole and can add value to every angle.  A full service agency will not only be able to assist you in spending in the corrects areas, but more importantly where not to burn your budget.

Every company will be putting aside a budget for promoting their site through search in order to drive effective, quality traffic.  Anyone can drive traffic by spending big on PPC and SEO.   But spending big is not always necessary.

If you don’t have a good platform to convert your traffic into customers that buy then you are facing an uphill task.  Great creative and a customer journey that encourages the purchase, not think about buying, is a must.

Recently, I tried purchasing a few items from the Next site.  The site is beautifully presented and offered no problems finding the items I was searching for.  However, once I got to making the transaction, a few things bothered me:

(i) It took ages to tell me whether an item was sold out or not.  Generally after I had added it to my bag and proceeded to the checkout.

(ii) I had to register with them – there is no direct-to-checkout option

(iii) Once I had entered my address, there was no option for a delivery address (this was an imperative as I would rarely buy anything from Next and my girlfriend would know exactly what her present would be after seeing a Next bag arriving in the post for me).   Further to this, there is no option to ammend my address which added to the frustration. 

To some people these may seem like minor things, but I got frustrated very quickly and ended up phoning the consumer helpline.  An additional cost to both myself and Next. 

My apologies must go to Next here as I know there are many, many similar online stores out there, but this is a real-life personal moment as experienced by myself only the other day.  The point I am trying to make here is that this is completely unneccessary – with a little more strategising and focussing on the functionality of their site, they could have made my experience a lot simpler.  And that would encourage me to come back to the site and buy again.  However, I am now going to go to Brent Cross to find the items and use in-store ordering instead. 

I suppose what I am trying to say is that a lot of retailers need to get their websites Spring cleaned.  A bit early perhaps, but Spring is only just around the corner and with the financial crisis upon us, then why don’t you make the first move and contact the agency who are capable of putting together your strategy that will deliver all your dreams.  Strong words, but it is Christmas time, and I am feeling in the festive spirit. 

Still feeling the pressure?   We will handle it with you.