RedEnvelope: Pretty to look at, lovely to behold, but once you’re inside,
it gets pretty old.

IN A NUTSHELL

When savvy Web shoppers need the perfect gift in a hurry, they head to RedEnvelope. They’ve got gifts for every occasion and in a wide range of prices. Whether you need a romantic gift for your spouse or corporate gifts for your 10 best clients, RedEnvelope should be your first stop.

BRAVO

RedEnvelope doesn’t lock shoppers into any one hierarchy; shoppers can navigate the site by occasion (Valentine’s Day, Birthday, New Baby, and more), by collection (Home and Garden, Flowers and Plants) or by recipient. Customer Service chat, powered by LivePerson, is available 24/7, and the representatives are helpful and knowledgeable. Online ordering is simple and secure.

TRY AGAIN

Letting users choose their own navigation experience is a good thing, but RedEnvelope offers users too many choices in an effort to be all things to all people. Navigation schemes differ from page to page and from section to section, footer content changes from page to page, and color schemes change without rhyme or reason. This can disorient users and make them wonder (aloud, sometimes) what happened to the page they were just on, and how do they get back there? RedEnvelope should settle on a navigation structure and apply it consistently throughout the site.

And while about half of all U.S. homes have broadband Internet access, there is still a sizable minority who deal with dialup. And those bedraggled gift shoppers would need to wait for 40 seconds while RedEnvelope’s massive 148kB homepage downloaded over their phone line. Or would  they wait? If it were me, I’d head somewhere with fewer images and “lighter” pages that would download quickly and let me get about the business of shopping. RedEnvelope would do well to reduce the number of gratuitous images and rely more on cascading style sheets to render their pages.