Christopher Lockwood, editorial and publishing director of Adjust Your Set compares the content and usability of Nixon.com and Gant.co.uk.

Nixon presents its site as a striking, bright, colourful, content-rich retail environment that is comfortable to navigate.

Nixon.com

Nixon presents its site as a striking, bright, colourful, content-rich retail environment that is comfortable to navigate.

Product is easy to find and buy, and customer service elements are clear and helpful. The site effortlessly displays a mixture of product, lifestyle content, good-looking video, social feeds, press coverage and features profiles and anecdotes from their various skate, surf and snow team heroes.

Looking for constructive criticism – it’s a shame that it has chosen to host video through Vimeo as opposed to on a bespoke player, but overall a great example of customer-focused retail.

Gant.co.uk

Gant uses a clean, simple and classic approach to digital retail. It’s not that there is anything wrong with the user experience and functionality: in fact it’s very easy to find relevant products and gain inspiration from collections.

What’s a shame is that it doesn’t seem to have taken it any further. There is no lifestyle context, no integrated video, no real social interaction and no real attempt to connect on a personal level with its customer base at all.

If you know you want Gant jeans you’re in luck; if you need a bit of wooing – then you’d better go somewhere else.