Luxury Watches - Christopher Ward, Movado, Tissot, Versace

With a view to creating a comprehensive guide on the best UK online wine merchants we reviewed 25 or so online wine shops that were stong candidates. The ratings were on a 5 star scale with 1 star allocated to each of these 5 factors - fun (is it a fun shopping experience?), navigation (is it quick and easy to go through the website and find what you’re looking for?), value for money (is it money well spent?), information (does the website provide information to help you make a better choice), and quality (do they sell strong quality brands and products?).  I will warn you that the ‘value for money’ metric is not fully polished.

The Top 5 Wine Shops - Basically you can’t go wrong with these.

1. Berry Bros and Rudd - 4.25 stars and a bonus .5 star for having a blog, podcasts and videos. Also bonus .5 star for having a great shopping experience. They also have a really well rated Wine Club.
2. Chateau Online - 4.25 Stars and a bonus .5 star for having amazing information including Tasting Notes and Robert Parker ratings.
3. Laithwaites Wine Merchants - 4 stars, they won Independent Wine Merchant of the Year 2007, and their range is amazing - for example, 79 Chilean, 753 French, and 196 Spanish wines. For a quick comparison Tesco has 52 chilean, 193 French, and 59 Spanish wines.
4. Majestic Wine - 4.25 stars and a bonus .5 star for having the very best Wine Guide.
5. Averys Wine Mechants - 4 stars. Cheapest shipping I’ve found. Add on the 25 pounds off discount code for first time customers and that you can buy just 1 bottle if you like and its the clear winner in terms of price.

The Top 3 Wine Deals [Will be added soon and then updated every week or so].

The Top 2 Alcohol Shops - Again these are beautiful shops. They don’t provide as much user information as the Wine Shops and still get comparable ratings because of the lack of competition in alcohol and spirit shops. The average Wine shop is much better done than in any other niche/market I have reviewed so far.

1. The Whiskey Exchange - 4.25 stars and a bonus star for having 1300 different Single Malt Whiskies, and similar range across all spirits and liquers. 
2. The Drink Shop - 4 stars and a super cool cocktails guide. 

The Top Supermarket Wine

1. Waitrose (1 star each on Information and Fun), Ocado (3.75 stars) - This is slightly confusing as Waitrose has amazing information and pictures - however they branch you off to Waitrose direct which doesn’t really have an up to bar website. So I’d recommend reading about wine at Waitrose.com and then buying from Ocado which has just superb navigation and prices. Researching at Waitrose and buying at ocado equates to a 4 star experience.

Thats effectively the top 8 of the 25 shops I reviewed - The average wine website is however very well done and the other wine websites merit a closer look too (especially if they have good deals). Before we go on to other wine shops we have Wine Gift Shops a few of which are impressive

1. Vintage Wine Gifts does an excellent job of focusing on its core competency i.e. fine wine gifts and delivers a super user experience. 3.75 stars because the navigation is a bit spotty. However, in effect a 4 star shop if you’re looking to pick a gift for someone.
2. WineShare - Solid 4 star shop since 75 pounds lets you gift someone a row of vines in a vineyard that has won a gold medal at wine competitions. Also really answers all your questions. And you can go visit your vines anytime.

The Really Good Websites 

1. Sunday Times Wine Club - 4 stars. They go for more of a modern look and do boast one of the most popular Wine Clubs in the UK. Barely miss the top 5.
2. Marks and Spencer 3.75 stars. Rally good store however the lack of information and slightly pricey wine stops it from being a 4 star shop.
3. Last Orders.com - 3.5 stars. A really good gift website hampered by a lack of range. This is one of the websites I’d love to bump up to 4 stars.
4. The Alcohol Free Shop - 3.5 stars. sell zero alcohol and <.05% alcohol beers and wine, and also alcohol free beauty products. 
5. Waitrose Wine Direct - 3.5 stars.

The Rest

1. Tesco Wine - 3.25 stars.
2. Sainsburys - 3.25 stars.
3. Virgin Wines - 3.25 stars.
4. Oddbins - 3 stars. 
5. Sparkling Direct - 3 stars. This isn’t as much of a wine shop as it is a gift shop. 
6. WineandCo - 2.75 stars. The language tanslation messup holds them back.
7. Threshers - You can see the offers online and that’s it as you can’t buy online.
8. ASDA Wine - Left incomplete as the navigation drove me crazy. 
9. Morrisons/Safeway - Do not have an online store. 

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This page compares LoveFilm DVD Rental(which recently bought Amazon’s DVD rental program), My Movie Stream, Cinema Paradiso, Odeon, Blockbuster and some other DVD Rental Programs to see which one is the best in terms of quality and value for money.

Update: LoveFilm has a great 90 day Free Trial offer with Coupon Code: LFZZ98762. Be sure to enter the code. The link should take you to lovefilm.com/partners/freegift.html. Also Blockbuster has a month’s unlimited DVD rentals (although I don’t recommend them) with discount code: ST90258.

The Common Features across all programs are 2 weeks free trials and

1. No Late Fees and no Return Dates
2. First Class Post i.e. 1 to 2 business day delivery.
3. Free Shipping and Returns
4. Cancel anytime (LoveFilm requires a phone call to cancel. Something they should change really soon)

And the results are

1. MyMovieStream - An easy to use interface, the reviews were great, and has very fast turnaround times. The best reviews for its service and the 2nd best website design. It has a lot of ratings for films, but it does not have enough reviews - in fact some films have very few reviews. They have 40,000+ titles and do not have games or adult titles. 2 DVDs out at a time unlimited program is £12.99, and 2 DVDs out at a time with 4 DVDs a month limit for £7.99. 
2. LoveFilm - [Get this if you want movie and game rentals in one package] I’m really torn here because I REALLY like how they include games and have such a strong range of titles. From my side if they removed their ‘fair use policy’, improved their turnaround time, and added a way to cancel online (no phone calls necessary) they’d be #1. They have 56,000 Titles, including 2000 titles for download at £2.99 each. The subscription includes Games. They also have 2,300+ Adult Titles, 1000+ HD-DVD titles & 2000+ BluRay titles. 2 DVDs out at a time unlimited program is £12.99, and 2 DVDs out at a time with 4 DVDs a month limit for £7.99. Note: LoveFilm bought Amazon’s DVD Rental program and they also run the DVD rental programs for OdeonDirect, Tesco, and W. H. Smith.  
3. Cinema Paradiso - [Get this if you mostly watch Foreign Films or that's an important criteria] This is the #1 choice if you’re into World Cinema and also has a great, easy to use interface. No reviews for the movies. 2 DVDs out at a time unlimited program is £12.49, and 2 DVDs out at a time with 4 DVDs a month limit for £7.99 (it’s cool that here unused movies roll over to the next month). 
4. I don’t recommend Blockbuster (see note below). They have an innovative Pay-per-Rent program with a 5 night limit (£3.95 to £4.95 per movie and up to 6 Movies out at one time). I would strongly advise against it as forgetting to return DVDs by the due date is very costly (£.70 to £.90 per extra night). All the other programs (including Blockbuster’s unlimited program) have no due dates or late fees and can be cancelled anytime and work out much much cheaper. 

One thing that i found which was interesting was ‘gifting’ DVD Rental subscriptions. Personally I’d go with either  LoveFilm or MyMovieStream or Cinema Paradiso Gift Vouchers.

Edit: After reading Blockbuster’s policies in the US and how they treated customers I don’t recommend them - details here. So, basically if you’re considering subscribing to Blockbuster - don’t.

First Paragraph of the Article: A handful of disgruntled (and in a couple of of cases, soon-to-be-ex-) Blockbuster customers wrote in this morning to point out that the video rental giant has hiked the prices for its Total Access mail order rental plan. The biggest change comes to the highest-tiered Total Access Premium plan, one which allows customers to have three movies out at a time and get unlimited in-store exchanges. That plan is going from $24.99 to a whopping $34.99 per month. In addition, the Total Access Premium plan is no longer listed as an option on the company’s Total Access signup page.

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A shopping experience that a lot of us have had is - You head out to the mall to buy a shirt for work, and on the way you notice there are a bunch of sales, you think you’ll just pop in for a quick look and you end up buying a few things you didn’t intend to - a jacket, 2 books, and a necklace. A few weeks later you realize that you still need that extra shirt for work, and except for the jacket you haven’t used the other things you bought. Well, this irrational impulsive purchase is not your fault, and this post is going to help you avoid these situations in future. Read more »

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This is a Maximuscle shop review/rating.

i think what it comes down to is this - they love sports nutrition and they’ve designed their website as a complete solution that also happens to sell sports nutrition products.

1. Overall the website has a very well structured layout. in fact the overall website, including product pages, additional content (which btw is a BIG BIG part) and the layout gets a 9 - i think this is the first website where i feel that way. A really good job by whoever thought out the sections and whoever put them together.
2. One of the top 3 things I like is that they have provided a completely different navigation path into their website i.e. By Goal.
3. The other two things in my top 3 are
   They have a comprehensive Tools and Downloads Section which includes tools like a Daily Meal Planner, a Calorie Calculator, Diet Plans, and other resources. This allows me to not have to go to 5 different websites and do a ton of calculations myself.
   Maximuscle also have Comprehensive Research Resources so you can get details and insights into different products and nutrients. I’m not an expert by any means - however the articles were well written and not fluff.
4. The navigation of the website is very smooth, thanks to a drop down navigation menu at the top, and a small strip on top of the menu that takes you to short write-ups on different goals you might have. Although I love the menu, the small strip above it is an interesting navigational/design decision and I’m not sure I like it - it does go with the ‘Goals’ theme, I just feel maybe it should have been in the menu as a drop down.

When you spend £30 you receieve a free gift - you can choose between a branded Maximuscle shaker, water bottle, or pillbox. You can also order a Free Catalogue that arrives the day after you order online.

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This is Part 1 of the ‘Shopping & Your Psychology’ series - a series of articles that is going to change the way you shop forever. More importantly it’s going to drastically increase the amount of satisfaction you get from what you buy. A Big Promise? Perhaps. Lets quickly run through what makes shopping fun for you. Some of the Pluses of Shopping are

1. Shopping’s fun.
2. Retail Therapy.
3. You can get things you really like.
4. You can get useful things.
5. The newness and there’s always stuff to explore.

Read more »

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Dec 18th update:

Nike are offering up to 20% off selected products in their WINTER SALE from now until 26th December 2008!

Remember the following codes are running till 24th December 2008.

Nike store Offer 1
Spend over £125 and get £10 OFF
Please enter code NS192 at checkout

Nike store Offer 2
Free delivery on all orders
Please enter code NS966 at checkout

NIKEiD Offer 1
Spend over £180 and get £18 OFF
Please enter code ID417 at checkout

NIKEiD Offer 2
Free delivery on all orders
Please enter code ID966 at checkout

July 4th Update: Nike Summer Sale with up to 50% off for you.

Latest offers at the Nike Offers page.

BTW, Shop NikeStore.com Get Free Shipping above £85. Enter FS4MIN85 at checkout.

I am NOT a fan of big flashy websites - the NikeID store however does a really good job of not letting the Flash interfere with a smooth easy experience and at the same time uses all the benefits of superb graphics and polish. I guess this level of detail and polish is highly desirable when you’re talking about personalizing products. So yeah the NikeID store rocks. The shoes seem really expensive though - aren’t these like made in China ???

As for the Nike Store - wait a minute i just realized something amazing. Here is what I have to do to get to a page where I can actually see Nike products -

1. Go to main Nike page. (btw searching for nike uk brings up global nike store)
2. Click on English
3. Click on United Kingdom
4. Some random girl tells me ‘how it’s like a war’ and other randoms say random stuff. Very impressive Nike for women pitch (except i’m not a woman). I click on the ‘Shop’
5. I get a drop down and I click on ‘Mens’
6. NikeStore loads up and i get a front page which has a ton of options and some random guy putting on headphones (why not just MJ). I click on Men to get a drop down and then click on Footwear.
7. I’m taken to a landing page with some featured men’s shoe and then i click ‘ALL’ to see the full range.

Wow - that’s 5 or 6 screens and 5 or 6 clicks (from the main page) just to see what they sell. In comparison the Reebok store has MainPage > Select Mens Store (in drop down) > Click on Footwear in Men’s Store.

2 steps and 2 clicks from the main page.  btw they have and a free hotline to order over the phone and a 40% sale and all this information on the FIRST page I see.

This is basically the reason I don’t like super fancy websites with complicated loaded stuff - did i mention the nike store takes a few seconds to load and has a progress bar - Wow - your customers must REALLY want to buy your stuff if you can get away with having a progress bar while loading up your webpage.

the funny thing is that it’s not until I go through the Reebok website that I realize how much simpler it is to shop there. Nike does have Reebok beat in terms of image quality and overall flashiness. I guess they’re catering to completely different audiences.

BTW if you’re interested in the Nike-Reebok-Adidas war, this article should be a great read - http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/04/business/04shoe.html.

Filed under: Clothing, Shoes and Fashion, Shoes | 1 Comment »

July 31st: Urchin Voucher code A0808X gives 10% discount off all orders over £50. Ends end of August 2008.
June 9th Update: Urchin discount code: A0806X for 10% off all orders over £50 between now and the 30th of June. Also, not that its much help - however the 15% off code from May A0805X has also been reactivated till end of June.

Improved Urchin voucher code: A0805X, that gives you a 15% discount off all orders over £50 between now and the 31st of May. There are also some product specific voucher codes.

Urchin is one of my favourite stores and a 4 star rated shop - Highly Recommended.

(May 22nd Update) Gotta Love It! Improved Urchin voucher code: A0805X, that gives you a 15% discount off all orders over £50 between now and the 31st of May. The Voucher Code: A0804X gives a 10% discount off orders over £50 until the end of May 2008. Also they added some product specific voucher codes (all of these end 25th June 2008) -

• £26 off Urchin’s child-sized drum kits. Was £129.99- now £103.99. Coupon code: A0DRUM.
• £10 off our Paint your own Wooden Toy Castle. Was £69.99- now £59.99. Coupon code: A0CAST.
• £10 off our Wooden Pirate Ship Toy and Pirate dolls. Was £39.99- now £29.99. Coupon code: A0PIRA.
• £10 off our faux leather kids chair and pouffe - Red or Lime. Was £69.99- now £59.99. Coupon code: A0CHAI.
• 26% off our Unique Cake Plates. Was £26.99- now £20. Coupon code: A0CAKE.
• £25 off our Family Message Board. Was £99.99- now £74.99. Coupon code: A0MESS.

Urchin just made it to my favorite stores list - have been surfing around and its a lot of fun. What really hit home for me is that this is not just a ’some clothes in small sizes’ store - it addresses almost every aspect of what living in a home with kids is like. And their purpose/mission shines through with copy like ” It is those little touches that make the difference between somewhere to live, and a warm, fun and organised family home that’s just right for your kids to grow up in.”

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