ASSIGNMENT PART B

OVERVIEW
For this assignment I will be analysing Rebel Sport Limited and Group Companies, which is the leading retailer of sporting and leisure equipment, apparel and footwear in Australia.
Rebel Sport Limited and Group Companies employ over 3000 employees, nationwide. Rebel Sport Limited and Group Companies, started from humble beginnings as a single store in Sydney’s west in 1985
From an eBusiness perspective u will be analysing the companies:
- First impression/big picture
- Text and Links
- Graphics, Video, Audio
- Navigation
- Content
and i will talk about these topics from the point of view of a customer wanting to access the website.
At first look of the businesses home page it loads quickly and immediately you know that you have entered an online sports retail store, who slogan reads "from our online store, direct to your door."
Quickly scanning the page tells visitors a lot about the purpose of it introducing an online store and visitors do not have to register before they can enter and browse at will.




INTRODUCTION
I will be analysing Rebel Sport Limited and Group Companies, which is the leading retailer of sporting and leisure equipment, apparel and footwear in Australia. Rebel Sport Limited and Group Companies employ over 3000 employees, nationwide. Rebel Sport Limited and Group Companies, started from humble beginnings as a single store in Sydney’s west in 1985
From an eBusiness perspective we will be analysing the companies, first impression/big picture, text and Links , graphics, video, audio, navigation and the content. And these topics will be discussed from the point of view of a customer wanting to access the website.




BODY
Rebel sport is australia’s leading sporting and leisure goods retailer, selling a wide range of the latest release, quality, branded sporting and leisure goods at competitive prices. Rebel Sport Limited has changed over the last few years from a Head Office driven operation to a store driven operation. Rebel Sport Limited’s philosophy is that a store based retailer will always run their store better than any person or process directed from Head Office. Everything Rebel Sport Limited does, revolves around providing Rebel Sport Limited customers with the most compelling product offer possible. (http://www.rebelsport.com.au) Rebel Sport Limited is continuously looking for expansion. And hence why they decided to introduce an online store to their corporate structure following suits with the way of society.
At first look of the businesses home page it loads quickly and immediately you know that you have entered an online sports retail store, whose slogan reads "from our online store, direct to your door." With direct links to Catalogues, Apparel, Australian Rules, Baseball & Softball, Basketball, Boxing, Compression, Cricket, Cycling, Darts, Exercise / Fitness, Footwear, Games, General, Golf, Hockey, Netball, Rugby League, Rugby Union, Running, Skating, Ski, Snooker & Billiards, Soccer, Sports bags, Supporter Wear, Swimming / Water sports, Table Tennis, Tennis & Racquet Sports, Trampolines, Special Offers and a link to the purchase of Gift Cards which are easily found and very clear and concise which saves a lot of search through the web page. And at the bottom of home page there is also direct links to the customer service, store locator, corporate information, terms and conditions and careers.



The home page (as shown below) is very colourful and inviting and user friendly the text is in Calabri font and black on a white or light grey background making it very easy for the user to read and navigate through the website. Every week the home page is updated with pictures and links to the weeks specials.

www.rebelsport.com.au/

Text links are a very good and simple style of navigation structure, “the biggest advantage is quick download time and it is the most search engine friendly. Text navigation can be primary navigation OR an additional navigation method.” (http://www.genealogy-web-creations.com/) The Rebel Sport site uses plain text links throughout. The top and bottom menus are examples as is the left side menu.
The site has also used Graphic images as navigation buttons. When using graphic buttons, it is best to also offer a plain text menu so as the users are aware of the link they are clicking into.
The site also has the use of a drop down menu. Dropdown menus, when used should always provided in an alternate plain text menu. (http://www.genealogy-web-creations.com/). The rebel sport website however does not use a different font which makes the navigation of the site less user friendly. The Appearance of the Navigation Structure has been done well, it has been made consistent with the color of navigation menus. And As you browse through this site, the color and style of the menus never changes, which is the best way to set up a website to make navigation
The web content that has been produced consists of textual and visual content and is found and encountered on all pages of the site as part of the user experience on websites. It has been kept rather simple on the Rebel Sport Website and only really includes text and images. Naturally websites need to be well designed and professional looking. But it’s far more important that you offer valuable content and promote your site effectively. (http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing). One of the good things about the content on this webpage is that there are no links to other sites or flashing advertisements that distract the user from there goals when entering a webpage.






CONCLUSION & ANAYLSIS
Rebel Sport has a well balanced site which has good content, by focusing on their audience’s needs and what they are selling. And after analysing Rebel Sport Limited and Group Companies, from an eBusiness perspective, analysing the companies website for, first impression/big picture, text and Links , graphics, video, audio, navigation and the content, it is clear that a lot of work has gone into the production of this website, in order to produce such a user friendly website that is easy to navigate and is easy on the eye as it isn’t throwing too much info at the user on each page.
There is only a few things that I would change about this website, one is that the Dropdown menus, when used should always provided in an alternate plain text to that used on the page. The other is that home web page has too much to choose from when trying to narrow down to a particular search. And lastly as can be seen on the bottom half of the homepage, there could be more in the plain whit background, even if it is just the rebel sport logo for example, as it is really wasting space.





REFERENCES
http://www.rebelsport.com.au/
http://www.genealogy-web-creations.com/
http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing