Introduction
The tremendous growth of technological advancement has become the driving force of the market nowadays. The diffusion of the internet has revolutionized the business arena. The use of the Internet is changing high-tech marketing overnight while different industries have been trying to use it as part of their marketing strategy. It does not only reconfigured the way different firms do business and the way the consumers buy goods and services but it also become instrumental in transforming the value chain from manufacturers to retailers to consumers, creating a new retail distribution channel.
In addition, the Internet has brought about many changes to the world, particularly on how contemporary businesses are being operated. Due to this technological progress, product development became faster and better and business processes are more systematized. Indeed, the introduction of the internet to several industries has paved the way for greater progress in the future. In any business organization, the core responsibility of the management is to ensure the consistency of its stakeholders’ relationships, to establish that the planned output can be achieved with the planned inputs of labour, capital, and materials. For each of these relationships, there is a corresponding financial flow.
With the advent of internet, more and more organization is trying to use this as part of their business strategy. Primarily, the main goal of this paper is to evaluate a certain website related to marketing. The website to be evaluated is Pikes Wines.
Pike Wines
Pikes Wines like any other wineries in Australia is a family owned and run business that was established in 1984. Pikes is very proud on making premium table wines that reflect the variety and regional characteristics where it was made. The Pikes winery and vineyard is located in the historic and picturesque Polish Hill River sub region on the eastern side of the Clare Valley in Australia. The climate in this area is cooler and the soil is also unique which attributes to the distinctive flavours and aromas of the wines of this company. The Pikes Wines like any other wineries and vineyards industry in Australia have been using E-marketing or the internet in order to have many customers from different areas. Pikes Wines have their own web site that includes everything about the company.
The products offered by Pikes Wines include Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and the Pinot Gris and the latest is the Pikes and Joyce wines. In their web site, consumer can see the description and characteristics of each wine, in this manner the consumer can easily know what wine would best suit their taste for them to buy. The company also sells high quality merchandise and offers a limited red wine clean skins product. The products of the Pikes Wines are being sold thru cellar doors, which are set amongst the roiling hills in the Polish Hill River.
To distribute their products nationally and globally, the company have merged to different distributors and stockists. In their virtual gallery, Pikes wines has been able to show their different product portfolios like the Chardonnay, Riesling, Viognier and many other wines which are properly described. The company also ensures that all of their products can be viewed by the consumer around the world, and let their consumer know whether such products are available for a certain country. In addition, the company also offers the consumer if they wanted to be a part of Wine Club, the details on how to join is also included in their website. The strength of this website is that all the information needed can be acquired by just a click.
Website Evaluation
When creating a website it is important that a web developer or designer should be able to adhere to the web designing rules, so as to ensure that the website created will be accessible. There are five basic rules that must be met in web designing: the website created must be easy to read, easy to navigate and easy to find. In addition, the layout and design of the web must be consistent throughout the site and the website should be quick to download.
It can be said that the website of the Pikes Wines adheres to the first rule because all the written information within the website is easy to be read and understood. Herein, the developed website for Pikes has been able to choose the best text and background which makes the users easily read and comprehend what was the website wanted to imply.
In terms of navigation, it seems that the Pikes Wines website has been able to meet the requirements of having an easy to navigate site. Herein, all the hyperlinks established by the Pikes Wines site is clear enough to be understood by the users or visitors. In addition, the graphic images like tabs or buttons can be easily read because the developer of such website has labelled it clearly. The Pikes Wines website has been able to carefully and meticulously choose colours, backgrounds and textures for easy navigation. In addition, the website of Pikes Wines has also been able to follow the rules of providing link colours to have a distinction between those unvisited links and those mostly visited links. For example, the link of distributor’s website has used red text to be easily seen by the customers who would avail the product of the company.
The next design rule is the easiness of the website to be found. It is important that when developing a website, one of the goals of the web designers is to create a website that would be easy to access and found over the internet. There are thousands of organizations that are now creating their own website; hence, it is important that the site created must be unique and distinctive. In line with the Pikes Wines website, it can be said that the site has been able to meet the third rule of having a website that is easy to find. Herein, the company make it sure that their site will be available both online and offline.
To be able to make the website available to all and to be able to promote the website to all the users and possible customers, the company had used different search engines including Google, Yahoo and others. In addition, the website of Pikes has also been able to use easy to access contact information. In terms of consistency, the Pikes Wines website has been consistent throughout the website. In order to make the Pikes Wines website a user friendly, the web designers has used software other than the standard HyperTExt Mark-Up Language. The website is being operated under PIKES WINES. The main purpose of this website is to provide information regarding the products and services offered by PIKES WINES, including online marketing and ordering system that the company had established.
The possible users of the website are visitors and customers who would want to avail the products and services offered by the company. The audience is universal which means that the company offers different products to people in the other regions or countries. Herein, the users may easily access all the information regarding PIKES WINES and the best things that PIKES WINES can offer for their wine needs. Through the website, even customers from different parts of the world may avail of the company’s product through its online ordering system. Herein, the customers are given the opportunity to place their order through e-mails and to know the nearest distributor of the company. The website also provides information on how the customers can avail the products. All the data that the customer gave are being protected and secured through encryption.
Content Evaluation
First part of the website is the welcome page which contains the presentation and brief information about the company. This website has been able to include such design in order to attract the customer to take a look at the website. Also, brief information of the Pikes Wines is also included so that the customer will be able to know the purpose of the website. The second part of the Pikes Wines’ website is about the company. Here, the company’s profile, history, mission and vision, technical information, the vineyards and the people are discussed. The company’s profile and history is very important so that that consumer will be able to know more about the company as a whole, how did the company started and how does it became successful. Through this, the company will be able to share its story to others and might become an inspiration for other people who want to build their own business. Technical Information and the Vineyards including the scenery is also available for the consumer so that they may know something about how the wine is created and where the main ingredients of the wine came from. People are very important so that the company itself can show their gratefulness to the people who are supporting their company such as the employees and the winemakers.
One of the essential parts of any website of a company is the information of the products. About the wines will be the next area in the website. Here, the name of the wines, wine distinction and the vintage charts of each wines containing the vintage, growing season, comments, cellaring and quality rating of the wines. It is important that the company will be able to show all the information about the products so that the customer will determine which wine would best suit their tastes. Moreover, the distinction or the characteristics of each product is also important to make the customer aware that the company’s wine is different from other wine and provide the customer the assurance that the products will satisfy their needs.
The next part of the Pikes Wines’ website is the Cellar Door which is composed of the map to cellar door, time and date open, available products and type of distribution. The main objective of this part is to let the consumer be aware of the areas where the products of the company are available. Through this, the consumer had been able to immediately view the locations of the cellar door, when it will be opened to avail their service and products. Specifically, by clicking this site, the consumer also know the type of distribution that the company is offering.
Other than the products information, it is also valuable to have a site for the customer of the company. A company may not be successful if they do not have any customer to buy their products. The customer part of the website of Pikes Wines includes customer care, testimonials, video and newsletter. The customer care is put along with the contact number and the e-mail address so that the company will be able to know all the comments of the consumer. In this manner, the customer is aware that if ever the wine does not satisfy them, the company is just a phone call away or just an e-mail away to say their comments. This is also useful for the company because they would know easily the comments of their customer and they can immediately act for their customer. Moreover, through this the company will be aware if their product is better enough to satisfy a client. Testimonials are also important to attract other customer. Through the positive testimonials that their regular consumer gave, those who are looking for the right wine might be able to buy the company’s product. Video and newsletter will be part on-line promotion of the products may it be old or new products. Through this site, the consumer have information about the past and present happenings within the company and its marketing environment.
The next information that is available for the website of the company is the contact information. This includes a subheading of main headquarter, national distributors and international distributors. It is important that each sub headings must include the company’s main office, fax and phone numbers and the e-mail address. This is important so that the client or the possible client who wish to avail the wine products of the company will know exactly the nearest location to get the products locally or internationally. With this site also, the consumers are able to contact the management of the company to get other information for the distribution of the product personally. Next is the site for the events, which contain information about local events, seminars and venue of the company’s events. This site is also important so that the consumer will be aware of the things that are happening within the company. If they have time to join the company, they will know where the local events and seminars would be held and all other information about such events, like parties, consumer gatherings and sales information.
Last but definitely not the least is the purchase part. This site is as important as the products and the customer part within the website of the company. Purchase site of Pikes Wines includes information about how to buy, offers, pricelist of each wine, on line stores and order form. With this site, the consumer easily knows how the product can be availed. Different offerings are given in this part so that the consumer may determine which products are limited only, which products are for sale and which products are available for different occasions. Furthermore, the consumers are able to easily know the price of the wines that they wanted to buy. The website of the company also include the online store plus the order form of the company for the benefit of the regular consumers and the consumers to be.
Conclusion
In creating the website, web designers have to consider many things web technologies and designs. If the web designs adhere to the set standards of website development, then the website can be considered as accessible and readable. Next to consider is the credibility of your website as a vital component. Thus, you need to state your phone, fax or 800 numbers, head office address, offices’ location as the essentials. The addresses and contact numbers must stay accurate. With regards to the site, the designer would need to affirm the warranties, guarantees, methods of the delivery of the services, terms and conditions and the privacy policy. However, the amount of information given regarding the company will also depends on the objectives that the organization wants to achieve. It is easy to presuppose much knowledge on the viewer’s part, yet it is wiser to presuppose that people or users have drawn their interest in all the aspects of the services, from the basic information onward. The companies which are sincere with the marketing through the website extend to the vast span of expecting and responding the questions, motivating interest and raise the level of the viewer’s comfort.
Developing the website can be arranged into six steps: defining the goal which requires a clear goal so as to decide on the appropriate style, appearance and features; overall appearance which should reflect on the corporate culture of such business, which entails the selection of colours, use of logos, corporate images and the format design; navigability of the website, this includes the header, footer and side-menu bars which is attained by the use of every part of every webpage to link to equivalent pages and which aims to provide the visitors timesaving browsing through the website; visuals which become the focus of the process in developing the site along with the overall appearance, approved sampler and the graphics; content which shapes the foundation of the website and which can be helpfully organized into a site map that arranges the content into groups in which lays the path the visitors take as they browse the website; and finally is the site management which refers to the regular attention spent for the review of the design, use of graphics, maintenance of the site for the visitors to frequently return to. Once the website is functional, it will always aspire to keep its relevance most especially the time-sensitive information.
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Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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