Whistles

Whistles is a high street fashion retailer with a website where you can order their clothing. I ordered a leather jacket from Whistles UK website. It arrived the next day, well packaged. I was very happy with the quality of the jacket and the service I received. I did find the layout of the website a bit strange and it was difficult for me to find the specific jacket that I had seen in a magazine.

First impressions count

The front page is too big for any computer web screen so on first glance you don't know what you are looking at and the screen keeps moving making you feel a bit dizzy so you can't easily navigate it either.

When you eventually do enter the site and click on e.g knitwear you are faced with lots of pictures of models wearing the clothes in a very small format. Because they are all full body shots of teh models wearing different bottoms you can't easily see what they are wearing e.g the jumper so you have to click on each model to look further. When you do click on the model for e.g the roll sleeve striped cardigan you see a miserable looking model who would look better placed in the Adams family and the cardigan clearly doesn't fit her. It looks gapey and does nothing for her at all. Now i actually have this cardigan in 2 different colours and therefore know how nice it can look but if I were to have seen it on this model I wouldn't have wanted to buy it because it looks so awful on her.

I previously looked at a dress before you changed the website: The animal devore dress. This looked great on the previous site as it was just a picture of the dress and I actually went to the shop to see it closer, unfortunately they didn't have it in stock so I haven't bought it yet. When I went to review it online this morning, which is how i discovered your awful new site it is, it is now pictured on the miserable model and again does nothing for her. It looks baggy round the chest, she looks pale and miserable and I probably wouldn't have investigated the dress any further had I seen it this way in the first place. Female pyschology is if they are going to spend £250 on a dress they would at least expect to see it looking good on a model with the hope it would also look good on them. If it looks bad on the model they wouldn't hope for a good look on themselves as a retailer surely you need to understand this?

The same goes for a lot of the other clothes on the site the models are all miserable looking and the clothes don't look good on them. Whoever designed this site clearly doesn't understand how women shop for clothes. Generally they want to see the actual clothes (not on a model) and close up with a decent zoom. Yes it is useful to have the option to see the clothes on a model but this should be a secondary option or as a "lookbook" for e.g like the Reiss site or ASOs with a "catwalk' view option. As least chose models that look good who the clothes actually fit!

Reiss is a good site to compare to as most people who shop at Whistles are likely to also be Reiss customers like myself. Their website isn't perfect but you can clearly see the clothes and navigate to what you want to find. They are probably a major competitor to you and have got it so much better than you on the web front. All saints is another good example of a competitors website which is much more functional than yours again probably another competitor.

I don't normally give feedback on things like this but come on Whistles!! Sort it out!! I have been raving about Whistles for months now as an untapped secret but this site drags you right back down.

Women will not buy clothes pictured on models who have been cast from waking the dead.