Circuit City Overhauls Its Online Store

Richmond, Va. — Circuit City has completely redesigned its five-year-old e-commerce Web site, www.circuitcity.com.

The overhauled online store features a cleaner look, improved navigation and added features, while a more robust architecture has allowed the company to triple the size of its assortment to over 1 million SKUs.

“We have conducted multiple surveys and interviewed a wide variety of online shoppers, both novice and experienced,” said Fiona Dias, Circuit City's senior vice president and president of Circuit City Direct, the division that operates the Web site. “Popular features from our previous Web site were maintained and improved in our new online store. And we've added new features to provide what we believe is an unsurpassed shopping experience.”

The site's new look and navigation capabilities were designed to make searching and shopping easier and more intuitive, allowing customers to focus on products rather than Web site mechanics, the company said. Among the changes, each page is now topped with a navigation bar that organizes offerings into eight core categories: TV & Video; Audio; Computers; Cameras; Phones; Car; Office & Home; and Music, Movies & Games.

Pull-down menus break out each category into subgroups, which can then be searched and sorted by brand, price or product features. Individual product pages then provide five tabs — Highlights, Customer reviews, Specifications, Accessories and Click & Learn — that allow shoppers to drill down further as they research specific models.

Other features include an online outlet center, stores organized by brand, music and software downloads, 360-degree and close-up product images, and e-mail newsletter offers.

The site will continue to provide weekly circulars by ZIP Code, real-time inventory searches of specific Circuit City locations and in-store pick-ups, a 30-day price match guarantee, and free shipping on orders of $25 and higher.

To herald the redesign, which launched this month, the site is offering daily specials, free giveaways and sweepstakes for flat-screen TVs and digital imaging packages.

The site was designed by New York interactive ad agency R/GA, while BroadVision, Redwood City, Calif., provided the software architecture.