So I was shopping for my brother's birthday present today. I live in the Philippines, he lives in the UK. I decided to order him some gift vouchers from Charles Tyrwhitt. I searched for Charles Tyrwhitt through Google and landed on their homepage www.ctshirts.co.uk.
The first thing I noticed was that I couldn't see where I would find gift vouchers. I used the site search and was taken to a page where I could choose between electronic gift vouchers and paper gift vouchers. I thought it would be nice for my brother to receive something in the post, so I clicked on the paper option.
You can choose your voucher amount from a range of pre-selected figures. There is no £10 option. Even though the image on the right hand side of the page shows a £10 voucher. There is also no option to enter your own amount.
OK, I'll go for £40. Nice one Charles Tyrwhitt, you've just upsold me by £10.
You have to pay £4.95 for delivery. For an envelope with a card and piece of paper in it! I know First Class stamps have gone up in price, but I'm sure they're still only 60 pence. You may as well have the shirt off my back.
So I decided to check out the electronic vouchers.
Look how different the email gift voucher page is. You only have 3 pre-selected options. And you can enter your own amount. It's much more flexible. Why can't this be the case for the paper vouchers?
Eugh, but look at the image options for the email. Do you think that a bloke would want to be receiving an email with pictures of other blokes? Really? And what if the gift is for a woman (they do womenswear too)? I went for the blue shirt, purple tie & cufflinks picture. Riveting.
And then for 'Your message'...
You're asked to fill 'Your name' in which is automatically populated in the 'Your message' field. This doesn't leave you with a huge amount of creative licence e.g. if you wish to sign the email from you and your family, or use a nickname. So now he'll have the rather clunky 'Love Becca...' followed by my full name. Great.
The checkout process seems to be generic, regardless if you're sending an email voucher or not. I had to enter delivery address (no option to enter an email, but I had already done this) and was told how long the delivery will take. Not really relevant for an e-voucher!
Hopefully the vouchers will arrive in his inbox on his birthday. And hopefully he will be able to use them in-store and online. There's no indication if this is the case or not.
The first thing I noticed was that I couldn't see where I would find gift vouchers. I used the site search and was taken to a page where I could choose between electronic gift vouchers and paper gift vouchers. I thought it would be nice for my brother to receive something in the post, so I clicked on the paper option.
You can choose your voucher amount from a range of pre-selected figures. There is no £10 option. Even though the image on the right hand side of the page shows a £10 voucher. There is also no option to enter your own amount.
OK, I'll go for £40. Nice one Charles Tyrwhitt, you've just upsold me by £10.
You have to pay £4.95 for delivery. For an envelope with a card and piece of paper in it! I know First Class stamps have gone up in price, but I'm sure they're still only 60 pence. You may as well have the shirt off my back.
So I decided to check out the electronic vouchers.
Look how different the email gift voucher page is. You only have 3 pre-selected options. And you can enter your own amount. It's much more flexible. Why can't this be the case for the paper vouchers?
Eugh, but look at the image options for the email. Do you think that a bloke would want to be receiving an email with pictures of other blokes? Really? And what if the gift is for a woman (they do womenswear too)? I went for the blue shirt, purple tie & cufflinks picture. Riveting.
And then for 'Your message'...
You're asked to fill 'Your name' in which is automatically populated in the 'Your message' field. This doesn't leave you with a huge amount of creative licence e.g. if you wish to sign the email from you and your family, or use a nickname. So now he'll have the rather clunky 'Love Becca...' followed by my full name. Great.
The checkout process seems to be generic, regardless if you're sending an email voucher or not. I had to enter delivery address (no option to enter an email, but I had already done this) and was told how long the delivery will take. Not really relevant for an e-voucher!
Hopefully the vouchers will arrive in his inbox on his birthday. And hopefully he will be able to use them in-store and online. There's no indication if this is the case or not.
