1/15/08

An Exceptional Online Shopping Experience

I was recently looking for a knapsack that had a padded pocket for my new laptop, as well as one that could carry my skateboard.

Living downtown Toronto I find the best way to get around the city is on my board, because i can hop off and go anywhere without worrying about whether somebody is stealing my tires. I've -so far- lost one bike and the tire from another, costing me over $200 in repairs and replacements. Being able to strap my deck into my backpack gives me complete freedom from bike-locks, allowing me to supplement public transit to get me where I want to go quickly and efficiently.

Prior to getting my new laptop, Darren had recommended that I look into getting a Dakine knapsack as they cater to my exact needs. Dakine produces many products catering to 'board culture' and winter sports enthusiasts. They carry everything from knapsacks, to gear and tools for whatever sport you're into.









Visiting Dakine's website further cemented my desire to create fully integrated brands and products.I was impressed by both the functionality and the 'experience' that they created for the end user.

The site allowed me to locate the exact bag I was looking for, providing me with multiple pictures illustrating the bag's capabilities, even allowing me to rotate it 360˚. It was especially impressive to be able to search their entire catalog of products, when shopping on websites such as Reebok's I was only able to find 4 or 5 bags which doesn't allow many choices for the consumer.

















The site has a music player with more than enough music to allow me to write this whole blog entry, let alone providing way more time than the average consumer could possibly spend browsing a website.

For me, Designing a site like this would be a blast! Theres so much for the end user to enjoy, you can even get a bio of every band on the player. This is what excites me about web design, when a 2 dimensional medium such as a computer screen display, can become so multifaceted and almost become a 3 dimensional object to be turned over, analyzed and explored.









They have even created a whole sku for the womens aparell section that maintains a similar appeal, showing a consideration for subtle demographical differences.

I hope to be able to design websites like this in the future, ones where people can feel as though they are able to 'shop' as if they weren't sitting in front of a computer.

1 comment:

Scott K said...

Yea its unbelievable how major brands like Adidas and Reebok have horrible websites. I was trying to buy some shoes earlier this year and i couldn't find anything on the Adidas websites. They only showed 5 pairs of shoes, last time i checked Adidas had a few more pairs of shoes than that.