The two E-commerce sites selected for this comparison are Barnes & Noble's Online Store (http://www.barnesandnoble.com) and Borders Books (http://www.borders.com). These two sites were chosen for several reasons, the most important being that they both began operations after the benchmark book site amazon.com. The implication here is to see how the two contenders for second place are handling the rigors of E-commerce. For more concise comparison, the same search item was sought from the home page, the Bill Gates book, "Business at the Speed of Thought." The results screens of both of these sites are at the end of this analysis.
The following elements were analyzed in this exercise.
Speed and ease of access to site features
The availability of product related information online
The use of online promotions such as sales and discounts
The provision of online customer service
In addition, connections were tested using a 28.8 k, 56k and DSL connections.
3 No site map; slow graphics; cluttered menu
Speed and ease of access to site features
4 Have to sign in, but don't know that until end; six levels
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