Website of the Week: World Duty Free – 18/01/07

Website of the Week: World Duty Free

A wholly-owned subsidiary of BAA and the UK’s leading travel retailer, World Duty Free offers more than 17,000 products across its stores at London Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Southampton.

“We endeavour to bring you the very latest products at great value prices,” the website states. An excellent start.

A colourful home page sets a stylish tone for the World Duty Free site

Style

An elegant home page, tailored to the season courtesy of an appealing wintertime image, sets an alluring tone. The site certainly sits towards the upper end of the style scale.

Grey text is used plentifully and effectively against a white background, meaning the attention is focused on colourful, if sometimes undersized, product images.

Content and usability

When it launched in December 2005 www.worlddutyfree.com listed only fragrances and, currently containing a special section on the new Victoria’s Secret range available exclusively at the company’s London stores, this category remains its main focus.

With no opportunity to buy or reserve online, the site is limited in how much it can meet the customer’s needs, but its Fragrance search facility certainly has the consumer in mind. A series of drop-down menus allows users to define and refine specific criteria quickly and simply.

So, if your next flight is from Terminal 1 at Heathrow and you’d like to check what men’s fragrances are on sale there, simply select the airport, terminal and ‘men’s’ from the relevant drop-downs.

Not sure of the terminal? Find out in seconds via direct links to the ‘Which Terminal?’ areas of Heathrow and Gatwick’s websites.

Want to look specifically for, say, Hugo Boss? Use the “˜favourite brand’ list. Don’t wish to spend more than a certain amount? Choose, for example, the £20 to £40 price range.

Search results – this particular one returned five (see screenshot below) – show thumbnail pictures, a punchy summary (Boss In Motion: “Energetic, confident, successful”) and a link for more details. Here, you’re met with a slightly larger photo, detailed descriptions and the range on offer – in this case, 90ml aftershave, plus 90ml and 40ml edt sprays – complete with airport price, high street price and the 100ml equivalent price (all in £ only).

There’s also a link to fragrances with a similar scent.

The fragrance search is a superb tool for those wanting to check what products are available at their airport

This fake tan guide is among several features which make the site far more than just a simple product listings reference

Add in a free text search option that seems able to cope with the vaguest of requests (I typed in “˜musk’ and received six results from Agent Provocateur, Anna Sui, Britney Spears, Bulgari and Burberry) and you have an excellent tool, tailored to the large number of passengers who don’t have the time, nor perhaps the inclination, to browse any such site at length and just want to check if a product is available at their airport.

However, when navigating the rest of the site, it’s easy to bemoan the lack of a similar facility in the Beauty & Suncare, Wine & Spirits, Confectionery, Sunglasses, Fashion Accessories and Travel Essentials pages.

World Duty Free promises an “unparalleled premium selection of product ranges” and browsing the site’s extensive content confirms this. And as well as links to new items, gift ideas, special discounts, money-off vouchers of up to £15 (when you spend £100), there are several nice, category-specific, touches.

A guide on “˜How to apply fake tan’ for example, can be found in Beauty & Suncare, accompanied by well-positioned product “˜best picks’; Confectionery features “˜Winter treats’, headlined by “˜Great British favourites’ such as Christmas pudding from esteemed London company Fortnum & Mason; and there’s also a strong local feel in the souvenirs section of Travel Essentials, with models of London buses and taxis, a selection of Bonny Scotland merchandise and even a Beatles T-shirt on display.

Impressively, Wines & Spirits contains links to Customs allowances in every country in the world, though this is rather tucked away. Surely such a useful device deserves a more prominent position, particularly as its information isn’t just limited to alcohol. Why not make it a fixed link across the whole of the site?

What we like: