MySupermarket.co.uk - a good idea?
Well, MySupermarket.co.uk launched this week and generated a *lot* of press through all channels.
My first impression was that the idea is a good one. The site lets you shop online for your groceries and then lets you compare prices from Tesco, Sainsburys, Asda and Ocado. However, there are a few problems…
1. The actual design of the site is awful. They are using a terrible colour palette and the design looks like it was bought for $50 from Template Monster. OK, so colour and design is not such a terrible thing, until you consider that….
2. …it looks awful in IE7. The text is all over the place and it is just a mess. Now I can forgive a site looking awful in Firefox, but IE? Come on guys!
3. The site is still full of bugs, try and do a shop and you get 404 error messages all over the place.
4. Obviously, you can’t compare food items that are unique to each supermarket, i.e. I shop at Sainsburys and nowhere else as I like their “taste the difference” range.
5. Each supermarket also has the facility where it saves your favourites, so once you have done 1 shop online it remembers what you buy and then you can just select items from your own shopping list every time. Nice and easy. You can’t do this at MySupermarket.co.uk.
6. Also is there really a market for online grocery shopping online? I think that it is still a bit of a luxury to be honest. I know a lot of people who won’t buy food shopping online because of the delivery charges (up to £7). So what I am saying is if you can “afford” to shop online then you are you really bothered about saving a few pound? Thats assuming you don’t buy any store own label goods at all and all 4 supermarkets carry the same range.
Anyway, time will tell if the site is successful or not. I really hope it is as I don’t like to see online ventures fail. I just can’t help thinking that they should have at least had a bug-free site on launch.
What I’m listening to right now: Hed Kandi - “Back to love 3″ Awesome album, takes me way back!
Affiliate Marketing - Supermarkets
Friday, October 20th, 2006 at 11:34 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Welcome to my blog. My name is Kieron Donoghue and I am the founder of ShareMyPlaylists.com, ContentNow.co.uk and some other businesses. I thought it would be fun to blog, writing about my experiences in Internet Marketing. I'll include some personal stuff too, probably about my other passions, music and cars. Please feel free to post your comments and thoughts too.
Kieron,
I do not agree with comment number 2. Firefox are gaining on IE, and more and more peolpe are realising the benefits of using Firefox.
I notice UKOffer does not work so well in FF, so is this the reason behind comment no. 2?
I cannot see why people do not tweak their CSS files for Firefox users. Generally, you only need to change a few lines of code to make your site look good in all browsers (Also including Opera and Safari).
The bottom line is, if your site does not work in alternative browsers, you are losing sales.
What are other peoples opinions on this?
Ray
Hi Ray,
accoring to the latest figures Firefox has around a 12% market share. And I agree that sites should be compatible with all browsers. My point was that IE has the lions share of the market with around 82% and to launch a high profile site which isn’t compatibale with that huge market is just absurd.
And yes I know UKoffer doesn’t look good in Firefox and it is on my to-do list.
You need to reassess (5) as well… see http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/Help/MakingTheMostOfFavourites.aspx#ToView - the site lets you save favourites as well as import your selected items from saved baskets on Tesco, Asda etc..
Kieron,
Thanks for your reply to my post. I’m glad to hear that you are taking Firefox users into consideration.
I can completely understand your point - IE should take priority. But for the minimal effort it takes, a website like mysupermarket should be able to make their site work in ALL browsers. I hope they take notice of the feedback I have seen all over the net, and get to work making the site as good as it could be.
Thanks Kieron, Ray
Your argument that Firefox ‘only’ has a 12% marketshare doesn’t really stand up. That is a damn sight more than IE7 has, considering it has only just launched.
It is bad practice on their part though, and it won’t help them - the majority of the people that do online shopping will be the ‘tech savvy’ crowd, and in turn they are far more likely to be using Firefox, Opera or Safari.
In terms of the colour palette, I actually think it works well for the site - this is groceries remember, people don’t want to see pinks or suchlike.
Is there a market for it? Well - I’d say this is commonly known as the ‘first mover advantage’.
Is it worth £1 million? No - and it didn’t cost them anywhere near that. The technology behind it is very simple to accomplish. What they have achieved is a good way of bringing the data together, and I dare say it’s been a time intensive process.
We’ll see more like it in the new year for sure.
It says on the site “Best viewed on Internet Explorer 6″. Really, the idea of designing for a specific browser is so outdated. And it’s just plain dumb to design for a specific browser for which a new version (IE7) is released in the same week as your website and will be pumped out to loads of users by security update.
There are obvious faults with the site. It says it’s in beta, but really, some of the stuff they need to fix is so simple it shouldn’t have been released in this state IMO. Many of Kieron’s points are valid. Not least that aesthetically looks dated before it’s even begun.
I’m not convinced about the whole online grocery shopping thing anyway.
I used to do it with Waitrose, but in the end decided it was easier to just go to the shop so I could make my own selections and also not have to wait around for the delivery.
However, I’m sure it’ll make some money as it must be really cheap to run.
Can’t see it working.
Supermarkets are cut throat on pricing as it is.
As a result, the saving of a few pennies here and there will make little difference to the bottom line for consumers.
You talk about template monster look but where did you get ukoffer template form yes template monster lol!
Also its not a “bit of a luxury” look at tesco online sales was £12m for 2003 and then £28m in 2004 also some companies offer free delivery if you order over £25.
anonymous - ukoffer is not a template, it was custom built.
yes it is a template i saw it on template monster year and half ago, the only custom built bit is the affiliate info you added and the logo.
OK, OK you obviously think it is even though I spent hours consulting with my deisigners who BUILT IT FROM SCRATCH TO MY SPECIFICATION. Fool.
Anonymous - people rip off sites all the time and pass them off as their own. So some dodgy character has probably ripped off UKoffer and submitted it as their own template. After all, it is a successful site, so is tempting for some to try and replicate it.
Back to mysupermaket - it is not a good looking site at all. The functionality is ok, but in todays online world, if the site does not look good, people simply won’t use it. Getting good PR is very expensive. It seems crazy that they have spent all this money and time on PR when the site does not work properly in Firefox or IE and it looks damn ugly!
I see they have now put up a pop up box if you enter the site with firefox saying firefox support is coming soon!! lol
Hi all,
First of all - thanks for your valuable feedback on the site so far, it’s much appreciated.
Just to update you, I’m pleased to say that we’ve taken on board your comments, and recently addressed any problems users had using Firefox to view the site – we’re now fully operational on both Versions 1.5 and 2.
We’d really appreciate any further feedback you have. If you’d like to get in touch, please contact us at mailto:support@mySupermarket.co.uk
We’ve got great plans for the upcoming months, so do keep an eye on the site for more information!
Thanks again,
the mysupermarket.co.uk team
Hi Anonymous,
What if someone in say America or Australia registered mysupermarket.us or .com.au, would you be prepared to get involved?
Liam