Maryland-based JoS. A. Bank recently launched a redesign of their eCommerce website – JosBank.com. Given the fact that JoS. A. Bank is a Maryland company and the fact that I’m a big fan of their clothes (and sales), I decided to take a look at their recently redesigned website and offer my personal review.
Before I get too critical in my review, I want to stress that I truly think the new JosBank.com has come a long way in comparison to the old site. In terms of usability and shopping experience, the new website is light years beyond that of the old one. The new imagery, navigation and advanced functionality implemented in the redesign have helped JoS. A. Bank push beyond the limitations of their old eCommerce site and expand their reach on the web.
Overall
The layout of the website is clean, elegant and modern – three qualities I would expect from the website of a 104-year old men’s clothing retailer. This new look is extremely important for the JoS. Bank image as a whole, as it puts the quality of their website on par with the quality of their clothing and the neat, organized and classy look of their physical stores. In comparing their old website to their physical stores and their products, there was always a huge disconnect.
I did want to point out one technical issue I came across during my review. After purposely typing in a URL that doesn’t exist, I’m extremely surprised to find that the site doesn’t have a standard 404 error page, let alone a custom, user-friendly page. This happens when I go here – http://www.josbank.com/ties or type in anything after the main URL that isn’t a specific page. This can be especially hurtful when there are older links from other websites sending traffic to pages that either never existed or don’t exist anymore. The best practice would be to first set up a 404 error page to handle this issue, and next to customize it with a friendly error message and instructions on where to go next – top categories, bestsellers, contact form, etc. Considering the project was a large undertaking and employed the help of tech giant IBM, this is a big oversight in my opinion.
Home Page
When you land on the JoS. Bank home page, you’re greeted with a large, colorful banner displaying their most recent promotion – currently it’s a buy one get two offer on all sportcoats, pants, sweaters, sportshirts and outerwear. Considering that they’re known for promotions like these, particularly through email, I think it’s a smart move to display them front and center. If you aren’t interested in the latest promo, they present you with their top three categories – men’s suits, men’s dress pants and men’s dress shirts – right underneath the main banner. The imagery and category names stand out well enough, but I think the call to action could be more prominent; that is, turn the tiny “Shop Now” link into a button and make it bigger.
While the home page has some strong elements to it, I still believe it’s lacking. JoS. Bank’s home page appears to follow the same path of many other clothing retailers online – keep the home page short and sweet. With the breadth of products and promotions that they have to offer, why not put a little more onto the home page? If I were part of the JoS. A Bank’s web marketing team, I would strongly consider pulling in additional categories, bestsellers and a prominent store locator on the home page.
Click the image below to see what I envision as a better performing home page for JosBank.com:
Category Page
When I click through to a category page, I am presented with clear product images, pricing and color options. I especially like the “quick view” option where I can get a little more detail of a product before going deeper into a product page. Quick view is becoming more popular these days with large e-tailers, and I think it’s a positive addition to JoS. A. Bank’s website. The category refinements at the top could use a little more copy to stand out – i.e. “Refine your Sportcoat Selection” – but I am most certainly a fan of the functionality itself.
On-page SEO is one important element missing from the category pages. There is no h1 header tag for the category name and the URL’s are not keyword-friendly at all (I’m currently looking at the Sportcoats page here: http://www.josbank.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/SubCategory_11001_10050_9203500). These are two very basic elements of on-page SEO, and they definitely should not be difficult ones to implement. From an experienced retailer with a large online marketing team, I’m quite surprised at this disregard of SEO on the category page.
Product Page
The new product page is a key part of the redesign for me. In a one-column layout, they efficiently present all the elements I would expect to see on a product page, and some I never even considered. Some of the elements include a crisp product image with the ability to zoom, unique product description, related products, recently viewed items and my favorite product page feature – matching apparel. The matching apparel section is a creative upsell that is well-suited for an apparel and clothing accessories retailer; the layout of the section itself does an even better job of selling, letting visitors see the product, choose all the necessary options and add it to their cart right from the main product page. In comparison to the rest of the site, I think the product page needs the least amount of work.
Checkout Process
After I select the options on my Executive 2-Button Silk Sportcoat and add it to my cart, I’m presented with a mini cart pop-up, which immediately catches my eye. I’m asked whether I want to continue shopping or proceed to the checkout; I choose to checkout and am directed to my shopping cart. The shopping cart appears to have almost all of what I consider to be eCommerce best practices in place, including the product image and details, shipping & tax information and a clear call to action to proceed to the next step. Similar to the product page, the shopping cart presents “other products you might consider” neatly arranged in the right column. I really like the placement for these products; I can see what’s available, but they don’t cause me to lose focus on completing my purchase.
One issue I do have with the shopping cart page is that the coupon field is too prominent. I would recommend reducing the prominence of this field with the goal of making it visible to those who are looking for it, but no one else. Making it stand out like that may encourage visitors to leave the site in search of a coupon code, or feel slighted that they didn’t get one.
The billing and shipping pages are pretty standard – with the main navigation and other calls to action removed from these pages, there is little to distract away from the process at hand. Once a visitor gets to this step in the checkout process, the only goal should be pushing them along to convert into a sale – JoS. Banks clearly recognized this goal and did an excellent job with it.
I would like to see some more internal store policies in clear view within these final checkout pages. Information like shipping policies, return policies and any sort of money back guarantee should be clear – otherwise you risk losing visitors that can’t find this information or go back in the process looking for it. These policies would fit in perfectly right underneath the “cart details” in the right sidebar.
Do you have an opinion on the new JosBank.com? I’d love to get some more thoughts on this major redesign from all points of view. Please share your opinion(s) using the comments below, and I’ll be sure to respond to any questions as soon as possible!
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