Website of the Week: Malaysia Airlines – Temptations – 22/03/07

Website of the Week: Malaysia Airlines – Temptations

Tracing its roots back to 1937, Malaysia Airlines is the national airline of Malaysia, serving international and domestic destinations. It is one of only four airlines to have been awarded a five-star rating by Skytrax. The airline operates services to 79 destinations, 60 of those are international and 19 domestic. In co-operation with codeshare partner airlines, the airline serves a further 23 destinations worldwide.

Style

The Temptations inflight shopping area conforms to the style template laid out across the rest of the carrier’s website. It has a basic colour palette centred on the tri-colour (red, blue and white) branding synonymous with Malaysia Airlines. While this maintains a sense of continuity when browsing the site, it does not really differentiate the retail element from the rest of the site.

Malaysia Airlines’ Temptations website offers a vast product catalogue with an impressive mail-order service

Content and usability

The content of the Temptations site scores highly: it has an impressive product catalogue covering many travel retail categories. All products are displayed in thumbnails which expand to larger, although not consistently high quality, images when clicked on.

The product menu, accessible on the Temptations homepage, contains a drop-down menu with all the categories available on the site. They are: Children’s Collection, Chocolate/Coffee, Cigarettes & Cigars, Cosmetics, Fashion Accessories, Fragrances, Jewellery, Liquor, Mail Order Specials, Stationery, Temptations Exclusives, Timepieces, Travel Accessories and Wellness.

The site provides a number of ways to order. Having browsed and selected your products online, you can submit order codes via the downloadable order sheet; either directly to the cabin crew on your flight, or alternatively through the mail-order service. This is a collect onboard pre-ordering service for which you must allow four days between ordering and flight. It is also possible to phone in orders and collect either inflight or through the mail.

The site accepts all major credit cards as well as a good selection of currencies at departure and arrival destinations. Additionally, users who are also holders of Malaysia Airlines’ new Enrich-CIMB credit card can enjoy a double bonus of Air Miles as a result of their purchases.

Navigation to the Temptations section of the Malaysia Airlines site is slightly long-winded and could be made easier. To reach the front page you must first click the “˜Flying with us’ header tab at the top of Malaysia Airlines homepage, then from the subsequent drop-downs menus a further navigation through “˜During your flight’ and finally “˜Temptations’. As we have seen with many of the most recent examples of good online retail sites, a visual link directly from the homepage would be a welcome addition.

What we like: