Image by Zoran

I was quite chuffed, this morning, to have a short article on web usability published in The Journal. Much of what I wrote is, or at least should be, common sense: essentially, the need to understand what information your customers are looking for, and to give it to them in a way that is clear and engaging. Though the examples I used in the article related to tourism websites, the same principles apply across the board, including to retailers.

To be fair, many of those retailers with ecommerce sites have become increasingly adept at offering an easy and stress-free user experience. On the pure etail side, for example, Play.com’s clean, uncluttered interface makes it a pleasure to use – sometimes, it has to be said, more so than the increasingly complex Amazon.co.uk. Similarly, in more niche markets, many of the sites submitted to my Home Interiors Directory and Garden & Landscape Directory manage to combine a user-friendly online shop with a quirky and distinctive tone of voice.

Among those retailers that straddle both bricks and clicks, JohnLewis.com is particularly effective at conveying those brand values of space, quality and attention to detail that are similarly prominent within its stores. In contrast, I tend to find the Ikea website confusing to use, and normally end up heading to the physical store at MetroCentre instead.

Generally, though, I often find that it’s those retailers with simpler sites – providing basic information about the business, rather than e-commerce functionality – that would benefit most from an online revamp. So, using the example of department stores, how about some candidates for those retailers that I think are most or least effective at managing their basic online presence?

Fenwick website

One retailer whose website has always disappointed me is Newcastle-based chain Fenwick. Though the site’s content has been beefed up of late, and now provides core information about the company and its stores, its imagery and overall appearance is somehow cold and aloof; certainly, there’s no sense of the retail theatre that you get when paying a visit to its Newcastle flagship.

Williams & Griffin website

In contrast, the website for Williams & Griffin – a department store that Fenwick acquired in 2008 - conveys a much warmer and more engaging feel through its purple palette and use of colour photographs. Coverage of individual departments within the store is also more comprehensive than on its parent company’s site. Instead, Willie Gee’s main oversight is failing to tell us, anywhere on its home page or ‘about us’ section, where the store actually is. Thankfully, the ‘contact us’ page reveals that we can find Williams & Griffin in Colchester.

Bentalls website

Over to another Fenwick acquisition – this time Bentalls, in Kingston-upon-Thames and Bracknell – and yet another different set of brand imagery. The layout and content of the site is functional, but the overall look is cheaper and less slick than you might expect for a quality department store brand. Generic smiling women stock photos, an unreadable scrolling ticker, and – worst of all – an @btconnect.com email address (should you fancy the advertised cookery classes) all convey a less than professional image. Equally, the ‘copyright 2006′ tag and lack of any news stories give the impression of a site that is not lovingly maintained.

Beales website

If the Bentalls site conveys an image that seems at odds with its brand, Beales’ problem is that its site struggles to convey much of a personality at all. The home page is dominated – overwhelmed, even – by an enormous offers banner, yet the site gives only a limited feel for what it’s like to shop at a Beales store. Even the ‘about us’ page links to a ‘corporate statement’, its talk about ‘entry price points’, ‘trading policy’ and ‘assortments’ squarely aimed at shareholders rather than customers. Shoppers are unlikely to be wooed by the revelation that “value, at all levels of the market, plays an increasingly important part for our customers [sic] shopping basket”.

Encouragingly, we are promised a ‘new website’, ‘coming soon’ in autumn 2009; there’s even a countdown timer, helpfully informing us that the ’time until launch’ is ’34 days, 2 hours, 10 minutes and 26 seconds’. That’s undoubtedly good news, but it’s always a risky ploy to make such a big deal of an upcoming website revamp – not only are you building customers’ expectations about what they can expect in 34 days’ time (which is fine, assuming that the new site meets or exceeds those expectations), but you’re also effectively saying to shoppers that “we realise our current site isn’t very good”.

Lewis's website

One site that is too new to require a Beales-style makeover is that for the iconic Liverpool-based department store Lewis’s.  The Lewis’s site is largely effective, speaking with a distinctly local voice that successfully conveys the retailer’s independence and uniqueness. The site also celebrates the store’s heritage – with historic photos, and visitors invited to ‘submit their memories’ – at the same time as providing plenty of information about current and planned developments. If you were to pick fault, you might argue that the site sometimes has too much going on – for example, it might benefit from a little more white space, and less content disappearing off ‘below the fold’.

Rutherford & Co website

After so many niggles, we should probably end on a more positive note. One site that I particularly like is that for Rutherford & Co, an independent, family-owned department (or ‘lifestyle’) store based in Morpeth, in Northumberland. Where the Fenwick site fails to do the physical store justice, Rutherford & Co has packed its site with beautiful photographs that effectively convey the rich and quirky instore experience. “Welcome to the sumptuous world of Rutherfords”, the site’s home page declares, and – for once – it really does deliver on its promise.

Thank you to Zoran for making available the image used at the top of this post.

Iceland continues to pick up more Woolies stores - this one in Hexham was acquired in January

It looks like the pace of Woolworths stores finding new occupants may be picking up, with more than twenty new announcements since I last blogged on the issue – at this rate I won’t be able to keep up!

Once again, the list of incoming retailers is as eclectic as we have come to expect:

• Blairgowrie: The Original Factory Shop (still tbc, subject to building issues) – full story
• Bristol (Hartcliffe): What Stores Ltd (family-owned DIY and variety store – I can’t find a website, buy you can read people’s reviews of the Cardiff superstore here) – full story
• Cannock: Poundland – full story
• Christchurch: 99p Stores – full story
• Colchester: QD Stores (independent discount retailer in the east of England) – full story
• Elgin: Poundland – full story
• Hawick: Farmfoods – full story
• Kingston-upon-Thames: Clas Ohlson – full story
• Leigh: Tesco Express - full story
• Nottingham: Poundworld – full story
• Peterhead: Iceland – full story
• Reading: Clas Ohlson (tbc – planning permission applied for) - full story
• Rotherham: B&M Bargains – full story
• Rustington: The Original Factory Shop – full story
• Stourbridge: Home Bargains – full story
• Thurso: Ethel Austin^{[broken link removed]} – full story
• Uckfield: WHSmith – full story
• Waltham Cross: British Heart Foundation (tbc – planning application submitted) – full story^{[broken link removed]}
• Wick: Ethel Austin – full story
• Worksop: B&M Bargains (tbc) – full story
• Wymondham: The Co-operative Food – full story^{[broken link removed]}

Meanwhile, the old Woolies in Rye looks set to become the town’s new library. This is positive in the short term in so far as it brings an empty building back into use. In the longer term, I’m not sure whether the viability of town centres is best served by taking over prime retail units for non-retail functions…

Co-op Department Store, Great Yarmouth, prior to Vergo Retail's takeover. Photograph by Stephen McKay

In the last couple of weeks, one interesting news story that has been easy to miss is the takeover of the East of England Co-op’s department store business by Vergo Retail.

Vergo Retail, as you may be aware, is the Liverpool-based operation headed by David Thompson that, in 2007, rescued Lewis’s of Liverpool, Joplings of Sunderland and Robbs of Hexham from the brink of closure after Owen Owen, the previous owner, had gone into administration.

Reports suggest that Vergo Retail has been doing rather well since then. Certainly, the business has been performing well enough to snap up the non-food operation of the Plymouth & South West Co-operative Society^{[broken link removed]} (PSWCS) in February this year, including the Derrys department store in Plymouth and four additional Homemaker stores in Devon and Cornwall; and well enough to double the size of the business again, just a couple of weeks ago, with the acquisition of twelve East of England Co-op shops. This latest acquisition includes department stores in Norwich, Ipswich, Colchester, Clacton-on-Sea and Great Yarmouth, as well as six home stores in Felixstowe, Stowmarket, Clacton, Stanway, Dovercourt and Witham, and a standalone jewellery store in Colchester.

These developments are notable for various reasons, not least in being illustrative of the extent to which the UK’s consumer co-operative movement as a whole has recently been seeking to exit the non-food sector. A critical milestone in this respect was the Co-operative Group’s decision, in 2005, to close or sell its 36 department stores; here in the North East, this resulted in the closure of landmark stores in Gateshead, Newcastle, Chester-le-Street and elsewhere, while a few others – including Bishop Auckland, Blyth and (briefly) Berwick-upon-Tweed – became part of Anglia Regional Co-operative Society’s Westgate Department Stores business.

Co-op department store, Tamworth

The impact of the Co-operative Group’s exit from department stores has been significant. First, it has created challenges for those (dwindling number of) independent co-operative societies that remain – such as East of England and, in my parents’ home town, Tamworth Co-op – requiring them to source new suppliers and renogotiate with existing ones, while having to work increasingly hard to maintain gross margins. Second, it has meant that for any societies seeking to merge with the larger Co-operative Group – such as United Co-op in 2007, and PSWCS in 2009 – prior disposal or closure of their department stores has essentially been a prerequisite.

Vergo Retail’s recent moves are therefore significant in that they seem to offer unloved and unwanted Co-op department stores a lifeline - as non-Co-op department stores. In the east of England, there can be little doubt that many of the now-saved stores would have closed had Vergo not stepped in - yet they are all shops that have a loyal clientele; that perform an important function within their respective communities; and that, with some dynamic management and a little investment, could once again be highly successful. Indeed, as Vergo expands its empire, its ability to secure improved supplier terms – and offer better deals to customers – will be enhanced; the very opposite situation to that faced by the few remaining co-operatives with non-food interests.

What is interesting, from a historical point of view, is that I can think of no precedent where Co-op department stores have been acquired, as going concerns, by a non-co-operative retailer; rather, if you were to go back to the 1950s and earlier you would see the process happening in reverse, with independent department stores - such as Newcastle’s Henry A Murton’s in Grainger Street^{[broken link removed]} – being acquired by local co-ops.

Vergo Retail's established Robbs of Hexham store

Going forward, much will depend of course on whether Vergo can successfully turn around the mostly loss-making stores that it has acquired; however, the company’s apparent success in reinvigorating Lewis’s, Joplings and Robbs (no-one can forget the sad, plundered interior of Robbs in the days leading up to its aborted closure) bodes well. For me, though, the burning question – and one that I cannot find either asked or answered anywhere else – is how will Vergo rebrand its newly acquired stores in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex? After all, a store that is no longer a co-operative can barely be called a ‘Co-op Department Store’.

It will be interesting to see whether Vergo comes up with some locally-inspired names, or whether – in House of Fraser style – it seeks to bring some brand consistency to its growing portfolio. Lewis’s of Clacton, anyone?

Thank you to Stephen McKay for the use of the photograph of Great Yarmouth’s Co-op (now Vergo) department store, which is © Copyright Stephen McKay and licensed for re-use under the Creative Commons Licence.