| Documents > Reports > Watch making industry (November 2000) |
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| Preliminary report |
| 15 websites scanned
- Dates: November 23-24, 2000: |
Baume & Mercier
- Chopard & Cie - Daniel Roth - Favre-Leuba - Franck Muller
- Gérald Genta - Harry Winston -
Michel Jordi - Montres Universal - Patek Philippe - Piaget -
Philippe Charriol - Raymond Weil - Rolex -
Vacheron & Constantin. |
| 1. General aspects: |
| 1.1. Search engine
visibility - Test: Yahoo, Altavista: |
Amazingly deficient when considering
we used ordinary keywords - listed here below - to perform the
search; i.e. whether in French or English, only 2 of the above
listed companies eventually appear on the first page of results?!
Yet… apart from all industry related press releases, newsletters
and various auction sites, it was rather funny to fall upon
an US military website!...
As stated in the Documents area,
only companies meeting specific conditions are selected for
our survey; other watch manufacturers did show on the first
page of results - through just a couple of combinations - thus
not considered in the following. |
| Research with the following combinations |
Altavista |
Yahoo |
+montre/s +geneve
+montre/s +genève
+montre/s +Geneve
+montre/s +Genève
+acheter +montre/s +geneve
+acheter +montre/s +genève
+acheter +montre/s +Geneve
+acheter +montre/s +Genève
+watch/es +geneva
+watch/es +Geneva
+buy +watch/Es +Geneva
+buy +watch/Es +Geneva |
0 / 1
0 / 2
0 / 2
0 / 2
0 / 0
0 / 0
0 / 0
0 / 0
0 / 1
1 / 1
0 / 0
0 / 0 |
0 / 2
0 / 2
0 / 2
0 / 2
0 / 0
0 / 0
0 / 0
0 / 0
1 / 1
1 / 1
0 / 0
0 / 0 |
|
| These results give an obvious
idea of what efforts remain to be done accordingly … |
| 1.2. Websites compatibility
with browsers: |
| This analysis will be performed
upon request... |
2. Ease of download: |
The average amount
of slow pages on the scanned sites is 25%; i.e. the size of
the related pages is bigger than 30 KB… Reminder of the custom:
Internet users will leave your website if a page is not loaded
in less than 10 seconds!
Apart from 4 sites we could not scan - 1 under construction,
the others nonexistent? - it is rather difficult to make an
overall comment, as some big sites have only a 'couple' of slow
pages, while it takes 'ages' to surf on other small ones...
Nevertheless, most websites incorporate the Flash technology,
which encourages design abuse, breaks the Internet fundamentals
and distracts attention from the site's core value. We do acknowledge
the fact that the watch making industry is about creativity,
attractiveness and splendor... but one of the major Internet
principles is INTERACTION - users control their own destiny;
i.e. a website should provide them with the information they
are looking for, as quickly and easily as possible.
A Flash session is very pleasant and could therefore be used...
but scarcely! keeping in mind that users with a normal 56K modem
connection will not be able to 'enjoy' it for what it is - a
gimmick that only increases time of download; i.e. they will
leave the site... |
| 3. Ease of use: |
| 3.1. Broken links: |
As for all the other
surveys, the number of broken links is very low. What does it
mean? On the one hand - internally - that the sites are well
managed (regular checks and clean-ups), bringing to a minimum
the number of bugs which could occur while surfing on a site
(one good point!). On the other hand - externally - it shows
that again, these websites are not connected to others; i.e.
they are functioning like islands ignoring one another - which
is the exact opposite of the Web purpose - therefore becoming
invisible for the search engines which pick up sites ONLY with
regards to the number of links they have with other sites having
a similar content (e.g. Google).
Moreover, the most important argument is that broken links frustrate
your audiences/customers and make you look bad... |
| |
| 3.2. Attributes: |
An attribute consists
of tags (information) regarding the height, width and alt (alternative
text description for an object) of an image on a webpage. Adding
these tags decreases the time needed for a browser to render
a page when requested.
Furthermore, an alt tag (name) allows to reduces "further" surfing
difficulties; i.e. for even slightly disabled people or for
users with the 'image function' turned off.
Here, missing attributes average out at 45%, situation that
could be rather easily improved... Yet, if adding an alt tag
is technically VERY easy, think about the amount of patience
needed when it comes to searching for every single image over
hundreds or thousands of objects!!!...
Needless to say the more detailed a project is planned, the
less amendments to be made later... |
| 4. High quality
content: |
Again, an overall
comment cannot be made... yet, one fact the above sites all
have in common - apart from the collections - is the nonexistence
of a recruitment section nor a supplier 'information package'.
What about people who might be interested to join the company
or potential 'office suppliers' (non production-process related
goods), who would like to know which requirements they have
to meet?
Another observation is that none of them does e-commerce; i.e.
it is impossible to buy an item on-line. We mentioned auction
sites in part 1.1. resulting from our search engine visibility
test; what we did NOT mention is the tremendous number of websites
offering pre-owned or fake items of almost any famous brand...
Does it mean it is easier to get a 'copy' than a certified watch
on the Internet?!? Furthermore, why would it be possible to
buy almost everything on-line... except a watch? |
| 5. Frequent updates: |
Overall, 20% of the pages are
more than 4 months old... however, this ratio shows a relative
'freshness of content' as the industry is governed by the collections'
rhythm...
Besides, the software used to perform this analysis determines
the 'last modification date' by reading the header codes returned
by the server when a page is requested. So, websites setting
the 'date of the day' instead of the 'last modification date'
of a page render the test impossible; i.e. some pages might
be 'old' but they are not visible... we therefore cannot establish
which elements should be 'updated' on the related sites.
However, what should be kept in mind is that updated information
increases recurrent traffic, customer satisfaction and therefore
helps building trust! - in addition to the fact that old content
should be examined to ensure it is still relevant!?!... |
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