Assignment A: Analysis of Transactional Website

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Assignment A: Analysis of Transactional Website

ProSport is an online internet sports shop (), it prides itself on it's commitment to sports people and supplying them with specialist equipment to perform and enjoy their sport to the maximum. There aim is to make shopping a pleasant and secure experience. ProSport has been in operation since 1986, it was started by Richard Sutton an ex-professional footballer with Norwich City and an England Youth International whose career was cut short by injury.

Structure and Navigation

The structure and navigation of the site is relatively easy to use and is well set out. The webpage has numerous navigation tools and links to other parts of the website, that all seem to work. The overall page has a good flow and has a good combination of text and picture that accompany each other well without clashing with each other.

From the home page you will find eight sections containing all of the products. Once inside a section you will see a list of product groups on the left hand side. Once you have clicked a product group you are sent to another page, when inside click the picture of the product you are interested in, this will take you to an individual product page where you can make colour or size selection and add it to your basket. To go back at any point within a section use the list on the left hand side or the links in the grey bar near the top. To go from one section to another you will need to go back to the homepage by either clicking the home link or the proSport logo.

The webpage has good navigation and is easy to control; the navigation bar on the left is the main navigation tool on the site. There are several different navigation tools, this include a search box and a specific sports search. The drop down menu is about specific sports and allows the uses to pick specific sports and items to do with that sport.  

There is another Navigation bar on the main page (right) is used to link the user to specific sports related page. The tool bar also has the company’s logo to remind the company where they are and what site they are on.

Once the user has clicked on a specific sport on the navigation bar it takes the user to the sports homepage within the site its self (right). The page is then divided into sections within the sport i.e. accessories, footwear and equipment. The page also has pictures and deals of latest offers and new products. These attract the user and because they have a picture of the item it allows the user to sample the product.

Also at the top of the page it has a navigation link, for this page is ‘Home > Football Kit’. If the user wants to go back to the page before or link from the page they were on before then they can click on the link.  

The search box searches within the website its self to find similar and specific items related sport, phrase or keyword. Once the user has searched for something, i.e. football, then the site takes the user to a search page that is related to the keyword, sport or phrase searched for.

The only problem when searching like that is that it brings up to many hits which means that it is hard to find a specific item, but is good for a wide range of products relating to a certain sport.  

Type and range of goods on offer

ProSport is an online internet sports shop that sells a wide range of specialist equipment to perform and enjoy their sport to the maximum.  They sell a wide range of sports goods that includes badminton, basketball, boxing, cricket, fitness, football, golf, hockey, netball, rugby, snooker, pool, tennis, table tennis, and squash. (To the left is the list of sporting equipment the cater for)

The company has quite a good stock system, what happens is when a product is out of stock. They wait until they receive your order, then they will make sure to see if it is in stock before your credit card is charged. They will contact you and let you know how long it will take to arrive and if there are any alternatives that may be suitable for the customer. The only problem with that is that it can take a long time to check stock and then contact the customer. Also the might take the money before checking stock, which could lead the customer to think that the money has been stolen. This could show that the company only order products when they get an order to save warehouse space and reduce costs.

Product information provided

Once you have found the product you are looking for on the website and then once inside click the picture of the product you are interested in, this will take you to an individual product page. On this page it gives information on the product. It gives the product name, price and if it’s in stock along the top. Then just below it gives the options, these very depending on the product, but on this product we can choose size and colour. Below this is the picture of the item and the item in other colours, the problem with this is that there in no possible way the view the item from behind and that the colour mite varies depending on the photo. At the bottom there is a written description of the product, including size information and what it’s made of.  

Join now!

Sometimes when browsing products no page or picture comes up which can be annoying, the company says this is because “We are constantly adding new products to our site and have tried our best to offer specialist sports equipment that covers many sports. However it is our mission to help all sports people find the equipment they need. Please contact us. It is most likely that we will be able to find and special order most requests”. I believe that this good because they personally will try and help improve your order or find a replacement.

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Summary This piece of work offers a considerable amount of detail into the website being reviewed and also goes into a fair amount of depth about how the company use their site to try and build up their business. Importantly, there are some real observations about the things that could be made better with some suggestions for improvement. In order to improve this piece of work the student needs to... 1) Give greater consideration to the structure of the report. This is particularly lacking in the first half of the document when there is extensive use of and reference to images from the website. There is improvement towards the end but greater use of headings/sub-headings would help bring out the ideas in a coherent way. This would also help the student achieve clarity with their explanations. 2) Improved use of subject specific vocabulary where possible. Generally, students should look in the award specification to see the words that the awarding body use in their own text. Using these words will help focus written content on what is relevant and also what is expected. 3) The QOWC and Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar sways from inadequate to good and there needs to be consistency in both of these. All students should give their work a careful read through to make sure that what they have written makes perfect sense and it is valid. Often a good way to do this is to read it out loud to someone else or get someone to check it for you. Overall this is a 3 star piece of work but in places it is clearly higher. With some attention to detail and the points above it would easily achieve 4 stars.