M&S has revealed that their online sales have dropped 8.1% in the past 3 months with the blame being put on its new website.
Merchandise sales have also fallen by 1.5% like- for- like according to its quarterly results.
M&S believe that their sales figures have fallen over the past 3 months due to the “settling period” for their new website.
CEO of M&S Marc Bolland said: “We have seen a continued improvement in Clothing, although as anticipated the settling- in of the new M&S.com site has had an impact on sales.
The new website was intended to transform the 130 year old business but has caused many issues such as forcing 6 million customers to re-register to the new one, and the discovery of bad reports of site navigation.
Jerry Sanders, an independent internet analyst, said that successful websites should not require too many steps before purchasing. He recommends simple search bars to find an item, followed by a “buy it now” button. He also stated that “Three pre-purchase interactions are just about tolerable – four or more and the sale will likely be lost to a competitor’s site.”
This could be the main reason why their new website isn’t working as effectively as they had planned, it may be time to go back to basics and reconsider the websites sitemap and navigation.
