Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Garnet Hill (Clothing and Home Decoration)

http://www.garnethill.com/jump.jsp?itemID=0&itemType=HOME_PAGE

Intended Audience
Mostly women, from 25 yrs old around to baby boomer generation. They love simple fashion, natural fiber clothing, and / or quality-oriented clothing. Some of them want to coordinate their interior fabric (bedding, curtains, and rugs) with the same fashion taste of them. Also they include moms who do not like their kids wear “fancy” or “cartoon character “children's wear.

Usefulness of Content
Useful for the targeted audience, except for someone look for men’s (perhaps because of less potential of the sales). Garnet Hill (GH) website also includes “Glossary and Guides” for fibers, bedding, and rugs, should be attractive and useful for the target.
[I have no idea, however, why I cannot reach it unless clicking “customer service”. It may be better to make an independent section as well as “Feature Stories (introducing GH product lines),” also can be reached only via “customer service”. ]

Consistency of Design
Generally well except for the home page. Quite “busy” looking. It may not match GH's brand image. It may be better if they have “View All” function (it shows only four or five merchandises at a time). Customers must continue to click if they want to see all. It is annoying.

Ease of Navigation
Generally OK. Navigating Customer Service section may not be so user- friendly, however. There is no listing page to cover all the ways to reach GH. They offer customer assistance via phone, e-mail, physical mail, and live chat. Except for physical mailing address, each way has each sign (click point) to reach the phone number / address. But it may be better to have “at-a-glance” page for the contact information. In addition, they also accept fax-order but most customers would never know unless clicking “contact GH”.

No comments: