Marks and Spencer - incompetent web design muppets

An email I just sent to Marks and Sparks via their online enquiries form:

(A warning to FF users - the second of these two links *will* crash your browser immediately. The first one just doesn't display properly)

Certain of your pages seem to have been redesigned in the last couple of days - in particular this one, which I have been referring to over the possibility of ordering a cake: http://www2.marksandspencer.com/foodmagazine/

and its sub-page:

http://www2.marksandspencer.com/food...es/index.shtml

Information which previously displayed adequately in any browser now fails to work properly in anything but Microsoft's internet explorer. The second of the two pages causes the Firefox browser (PC version) to crash completely and displays quite incorrectly in Safari (Mac OS).

In this age of accessibility, greater choice of web browsers and W3C web design standards, it is totally unnecessary inexcusable to employ web designers who cannot even produce web pages that are coded to internationally agreed standards and work properly regardless of the browser or platform used to view them.

You also need to employ a proof reader who can spell - Occasion is misspelled on your left-hand navigation throughout that part of your site.

I am most disappointed and am inclined to order my cake elsewhere. You will only need to have blocked a handful of your customers with this incompetent web design before any money you might have saved in producing it on the cheap will have been lost in sales.

Yours in great disappointment,

Says it all, really. When will these people learn?

[Jon M]

Second link worked fine for me (FF 1.5 b2)

[gazzae]

Note to self: If someone informs you that a link will crash your browser, don't click on it just to see if he was right.

Originally Posted by Jon M

Second link worked fine for me (FF 1.5 b2)

Still using 1.0.4 here, haven't got round to updating yet.

[handyman]

Site looks great for me (IE6 whore)

You could try getting a proper browser?

Seriously I design my sites purley for IE as thats what most people have, can't be chuffed with any of this old hat netscape reworked rubbish.

Originally Posted by handyman

Site looks great for me (IE6 whore)

You could try getting a proper browser?

Seriously I design my sites purley for IE as thats what most people have, can't be chuffed with any of this old hat netscape reworked rubbish.

Yep, it worked for me when I reverted to IE. The point is, I don't like IE as a browser. How would you like it if you were suddenly told you had to have a Phillips TV as several TV shows won't display properly on other models of telly?

I think the most important aspect of this is the financial one - I will not now order our daughter's Dedication Day cake from M&S because their website didn't work for me. That's one slice of profit gone. How many more people will do the same? A small but significant number, I think. And how much money do you think M&S saved by employing a web designer who was cheaper because he took less time, because he only bothered to check his work against one browser?

Lazy web design is, I believe, going to become a financial issue for companies like M&S who want to sell online. If upstarts like Amazon can manage to make it work, then old companies like M&S have no excuse.

[Ramrod]

My 1.0.7 crashed......

[dilli-theclaw]

My firefox did indeed crash - and has been mentioned - why the hell did I click on it AFTER I'd been warned

Originally Posted by dilligaf1701

My firefox did indeed crash - and has been mentioned - why the hell did I click on it AFTER I'd been warned

Don't think about an elephant standing on his hind legs.

[handyman]

Assuming lets say the site gets 1 million pages hits a week

If 1% of people buy and 5% of those buy a cake then M&S would lose out £75 per week assuming £1 profit per cake

Thats also working on IE having 85% market share amongst those purchasers

[dilli-theclaw]

Originally Posted by Chris T

Don't think about an elephant standing on his hind legs.

GIT

Originally Posted by handyman

Assuming lets say the site gets 1 million pages hits a week

If 1% of people buy and 5% of those buy a cake then M&S would lose out £75 per week assuming £1 profit per cake

OK - so what's your daily rate for web design, and how many days would you quote for the M&S Food site, which is the bit they're redesigned (starts with a www2 address)?

[Stuart]

Works in Opera 8.5..

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by handyman

Assuming lets say the site gets 1 million pages hits a week

If 1% of people buy and 5% of those buy a cake then M&S would lose out £75 per week assuming £1 profit per cake

Thats also working on IE having 85% market share amongst those purchasers

£1 profit per cake, more like 50-100% at a gross level. i.e. sell a cake for £40 and they have paid at most £20 for it, the other £20 goes to the cost of running the company and whats left is profit for shareholders, so you can up your estimate significantly.

Also is it just this page that does not display? Or much of the site, resulting in those on browsers other than IE not shopping there. That would mean descriminating against about 15% of the web population.

Originally Posted by SMHarman

£1 profit per cake, more like 50-100% at a gross level. i.e. sell a cake for £40 and they have paid at most £20 for it, the other £20 goes to the cost of running the company and whats left is profit for shareholders, so you can up your estimate significantly.

Also is it just this page that does not display? Or much of the site, resulting in those on browsers other than IE not shopping there. That would mean descriminating against about 15% of the web population.

It is almost certainly not just that page, but we were looking for a particular cake so I didn't stray very far around the site. Besides, it was late last night and I was getting fed up having to ctrl+alt+del all the time to force quit Firefox.

It does only seem to affect http://www2.marksandspencer.com/foodmagazine/ though - that part of the site has a couple of subtle design differences that suggest it's been subcontracted for someone else to produce for them and then fit back into the overall M&S online presence. I don't think they did a very thorough job.