My name is Lola Rose, for my AS ICT report I’m going to cover hmv.co.uk.

My first impressions of the website www.hmv.co.uk are that it is a very busy website. There are a lot of animated advertisements that slow the page loading time down considerably. The house style is quite consistent and the colours are recognisable and not too over the top.

The transactional website im going to cover for my report is www.hmv.co.uk. The company, HMV sell CD’s, Downloads, DVD’s, Gaming Products and Personal music players. For my report, I’m going to cover the music and film section of the website. The products the website sells are aimed at teens and adults; there is quite a wide age range this website is aimed at. The website is very useful to the consumer as some consumers may not be able to access the shops on the high street, also they can download music for use on personal music players and PC’s. This is an extremely useful service as customers can buy single songs without having to buy the whole album. It is also an instant purchase so the song can be instantly placed onto your personal music player.

The purpose of the site is to sell and reserve both digital music, CD’s and DVD’s for teens and adults. The website offers a ‘perfect partners’ service where customers are encouraged to purchase other items similar to those they browse. This service offers them a deal on their chosen product and a similar one. It helps to promote the companies products so in turn they get more revenue. Also another purpose of the site is to inform you of stores nearby. Upon entering my postcode a list of stores close to my location came up, there are details of the distance to the store. If you click on a specific store in the list you see a closer map so it is easier to locate. It also gives the mailing address of the store the contact number and the opening times.

Another service this website offers is a review service, were customers who have bought the product you are searching write a paragraph saying whether they are happy with the product and what they think about it. This is a beneficial purpose as it promotes the store and gives customers an opportunity to find out more about the product.
Hmv.co.uk also widely promotes its ‘PureHMV’ service. These are where customers can sign up to a reward scheme and get free concert tickets and premier tickets etc. They collect points every time they make a purchase instore or online. This service helps to promote loyalty for the site which encourages customers to keep buying there products.
On the website there are also links to social networking sites such as www.facebook.com or www.twitter.com were consumers can follow the store which also helps to promote their products.
Another purpose of the website is to recruit employers. They website gives a link to a page were interested job seekers can find information on available jobs and what they involve. I think this is a good part of the website but it is hard to navigate to as it is at the very bottom of the page in quite small writing so it’s harder to access.

The structure of the site is quite organised but there are some flaws in the design. The site as a whole is far too big for the immediate viewing page. You have to scroll down allot to view the whole page. This is a major downside as customers cannot see the whole site and possibly miss important or useful information. The company HMV are possible loosing out on business because of this downside.

The navigation system takes quite a while as it doesn’t drop down, you have to click and wait for it to load before you go into deeper searches. I feel that this is a part of the site that needs improving so that people can navigate allot quicker. The amount of images on the site, also contribute to the slow moving around the site. The massive amount of images slows loading and takes allot more time to load, although