Website of the Week Amsterdam Schiphol See Buy Flywww.schiphol.nl/Shopping/ | |
 | Content (0-4): 3 |
 | Pricing (0-2): 1 |
 | Navigation (0-4): 3 |
 | Style/Design (0-4): 3 |
 | Supplementary information (0-2): 1 |
 | Overall incentive to shop (0-4): 3 |
 | Total (0-20): 14 |
Scoring system explained – click here | |
Website of the week: Amsterdam Airport Schiphol
Amsterdam Schiphol Airport is the Netherlands’ main airport. In 2007, Schiphol handled 47,793,602 passengers, making it the fifth busiest airport in Europe behind London, Paris, Frankfurt and Madrid.
Schiphol has large shopping areas on both landside and airside. Schiphol Plaza, the airport’s shopping centre, is located before Customs (landside), and is open to the general public. The airport’s tax free shops trade under the See Buy Fly banner.
Style
The Amsterdam Airport Schiphol shopping home page is characterised by its trademark colours of yellow, blue and white which dominate the website. The overall image is fresh and visually engaging with good use of Flash graphics to highlight current promotions.
Pictures are used consistently across the site to illustrate products. The quality is of a moderate standard and there is no option to view larger images when a product is clicked on. Font use is simple yet effective, although the use of larger bolder fonts in places would benefit the site’s visual appeal.
Content and usability
“See Buy Fly Shopping Centre, save up to 35%” is the introductory message from Schiphol – one that is consistently repeated across the site, ensuring the reader is aware of the cost savings across the duty free catalogue.
This promise is also frequently beaten, especially in the fragrances category where savings as high as 40% can be made on products such as Jil Sander Sun Women (€38) and Hugo Boss Dark Blue Men (€36).
Selecting any of the special offers on the site takes you to a reservation page for that product with the headline “˜You can book this special offer if you fly in the period from 1 July up to and including 31 August’. This creates a sense of urgency for the passenger and is a clever tool to drive sales.
All the products listed on the shopping site are displayed with an image, the local recommended retail price in Euros and the See Buy Fly price with the level of cost saving as a percentage.
The full product catalogue is listed under the special offers section of the shopping home page and a menu list on the left side of the home page lets you choose from 14 categories: Books, Flowers, Chocolates, Fashion, Delicat’s, Liquor, Photo & Electronics, Gifts, Music & Movies, Perfumes & Cosmetics, Leather & Travel, Jewellery & Watches, Toys and Sunglasses.
The full product catalogue is also presented in a handy electronic “˜Turning Pages’ digital edition, much like The Moodie Report Digital Print Edition: See Buy Fly catalogue. This gives readers the opportunity to look more closely at the products with the software’s zoom capability. It also makes browsing the catalogue a much more enjoyable experience and saves readers having to click through several pages of the website – a useful addition.
The home page has four further sections: Schiphol Plaza Shopping; See Buy Fly: shop (Tax Free); Reserve Service; and Contact Us.
See Buy Fly includes a variety of options such as store details (opening hours, maps, methods of payment), benefits of tax free shopping (reserve service, pick-up on return, worldwide guarantee), bars & restaurants (an extensive selection of eateries at the airport), reservation product list and Assortment. Assortment consists of a further drop-down menu of product categories which allows the reader to access an overview of the brands carried, special offers in that category and contact details of the shops that carry them.
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The Schiphol shopping site cleverly uses Flash banner advertising to educate passengers |
Although Schiphol does not have a pre-order facility, it does have a reservation service, which is summed up in simple steps on the site along with a list of product categories and contact details:
– you reserve a product online
– the shop gets the product of your choice ready for you to collect
– you pay for the product in the shop
– you can either take the product with you directly or pick it up on return to Schiphol (pick-up on return).
Schiphol’s pick-up-on-return service allows passengers to pay for products at the moment of purchase and collect up to 30 days from the date on which they were purchased. Orders can be collected 24 hours a day. Although the airport does not offer a pre-order facility, its reservation and pick-up-on-return services go some way towards negating the lack of pre-order.
Schiphol Plaza is the airport’s landside shopping centre, open to all. It features opening hours, bars and restaurants, maps and store overview. The latter option includes six categories with contact details including hairdressing salons.
Navigation
Navigation across the site is very straightforward; the sections are well sign-posted and drop-down menus are well integrated. Returning to the home page is simple; visitors can click on “˜Shopping’ found at the top of the left-hand menu at all times.
The left panel menu to access the product categories and the “˜Contact Us’ tab is consistently present across the website as well.
What we like:
Heavy emphasis on tax free shopping and good price savings
Strong product catalogue
Reservation service
Turning Pages digital catalogue
What we think needs adding/improving:
Pre-order service
Website of the week scoring system explained:
Content: How wide is the range of items on offer? Are there good quality photos and product descriptions?
Pricing: Are product prices listed? For all products?
Navigation: How easy is the site to use?
Style/Design: How does the site look?
Supplementary information: On allowances, currencies, after-sales service, useful tips and so on.
Overall incentive to shop: This includes tone, promotions, offers, competitions and, importantly, pre-order.
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PREVIOUS WEBSITES OF THE WEEK
Website of the week: SYD Airport Tax & Duty Free – 10/07/08
Website of the week: Icelandair Saga Shop – 03/06/08
