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Dell

www.dell.com

3 to 6 clicks to start the buying process.

Selection / Customization process

Product Clarity: Good. 

Price Clarity: Moderate.  Components were priced relatively, the system price is prominent, but monitors were often pictured but not a selected component.

Speed: Fast.  Dell pulled up pages quickly.

Range / Power: Moderate.  To choose between more than a couple processors, one must choose a model to customize that already has the processor speed one wants.  Other selection is of average range, except for monitors, where Dell offers far more choices than the usual two or three.  For schools and businesses: High.  The customization offered schools and businesses is more powerful, e.g., seven or eight processors from 2 to 3.06 GHz.

Notes

The most recent press reports put Dell in an increasing lead over its rivals in worldwide and U.S. sales.  Dell is reputed to primarily sell its computers direct— either through their web site or their toll-free phone number.

Their site, though they’ve been on the Web since 1996 and company sales through the Internet reached $50 million dollars per day in 2000, is pretty confusing.

There are two methods of entry for buying their products.  Across the bottom of the screen, is this list: “Servers & Storage,” “Notebooks & Desktops,” “Networking,” “Handhelds,” “Software & Peripherals,” and “Services.”  Across the right-hand side, the “Online Shopping” is divided into “Home & Home Office,” “Small Business,” “Medium & Large Business,” and four categories of public institutions.

Getting to a selection of desktops through the “Notebooks & Desktops” link (by choosing “desktops” here instead of “notebooks” or “workstations”) gives one the Dell “Dimension,” “Optiplex,” and “Precision.”  Through the “Home & Home Office” link, one is offered immediately the Dimension 4550 and, at the bottom of the page, the 4550 again and the 8250; through the desktops link on the right (which is an image link identical to the one that got me to all three Dell lines quoted above) simply brought me to the Dimension 8250, 4550, and 2350.  That is all one can learn about through the “Home & Home Office” section.  The small business and other points of entry eventually have customers choose among all three desktop lines.

It actually took me six clicks to get to buying something on my first try: from the home page, a click on Desktops and Notebooks, a click on Optiplex systems, and there’s nothing to buy here.  One has to choose what you want to use this Optiplex system for: home use is not an option so I clicked on Small Business and chose one of the three Optiplex models which were presented.  The next page had the customize option, which is apparently the only way to buy: customize first.  Also in other ways of approaching buying a computer at Dell I could not find a link for actually buying the computer, even on the product specification page, and so I clicked on Customize It!.

Dell is held up as the archetype of Internet-aided operations, especially customization.  Charles Fine of MIT and Daniel Raff of the University of Pennsylvania, for example, “suggest the applicability to automobiles of the ‘Dell model,’ under which customers specify exactly what features they want and buy a product that is built to suit their tastes.”

Customization for computers for the home and home office proceeded in steps.  The processor speed, the home-office-style software package, the sound card, and the warranty can be changed on the first page; then the second page reoffers the processor options and lists dozens of other options, including:

The format for indicating the price of components is “add [occassionaly subtract] $x.” for each option.

Clicking on the computer they were pushing for K-12 educational institutions, on the other hand, automatically brought one to customization immediately.  This is a different format however and opened with far more cusomization power.  All the options are on one page in this system making it easier to fine-tune one’s selection.  One could choose to view this page with dropdown lists or with printed lists with radio buttons.  Components are still priced relatively to the cheapest selection.  Business systems might follow either this typically more powerful customization method or the generally less-powerful step-by-step customization process.

Dell constantly pictures models with a monitor and then, buried in the specifications, the one component that is not automatically part of the system is the monitor.  A nice way to appear to shave one to five hundred dollars off the price of a system.  I wonder how many people buy Dell computers mistakenly thinking a monitor will be shipped to their house also?  Hey, if it’s a business model that works.

I believe that the multiple points of entry and the (technologically) arbitrary division of personal computers by where they are meant to be used confuses customers, delays their finding what they want, and can leave them feeling that they were not presented with all the relevant options.  In Dell’s case, that feeling would reflect reality: people who clicked on the home and home office link and didn’t go back and try another point of entry were not shown two of Dell’s three lines of desktop computers.

The division into desktops and workstations is another nonsensical one.  There are simply too many points of entry and too many options lost by picking one over the other.

Problems

Good Features

On to HP-Compaq evaluation | Back to main page

Created 2003 January 23 ,,, Updated 2003 March 14