So recently, I had to use my mobile to access websites for those companies for the same reason: trying to find store locations as well as opening hours.

Was the experience pleasant? No, it wasn’t.

Why?

Because none of those websites were mobile friendly at all.

Bunnings
The Bunnings website won’t let you in unless you enter in your postcode/suburb/state. Then when you do that, it takes you to the homepage where right on the bottom was some info about my nearest store which is just ‘fantastic’ from a usability perspective (oh, don’t forget the Flash elements which aren’t viewable by iPhone users!). It wasn’t clear to me that I could click on my store’s name to get more info on opening hours so I immediately went to Contact Us which was not fruitful. This didn’t make me happy because I was already in a rush trying to find out where my nearest store was whilst trying to get there before it closed.

Super AMART
They chose superamart.com instead of superamart.com.au which was an instant fail. Their site isn’t mobile friendly at all, esp. with the HUGE Flash banner in the middle which on the regular website is a major navigation element. Thankfully, the store locator wasn’t obscure and I was able to search for my nearest store by choosing ‘South East Queensland’. Unfortunately, this version only showed me 4 stores. The regular site shows 13. Also, the regular site has a huge Flash-based map of QLD for you to use whereas the mobile version doesn’t – so I guess they’ve done something right (even if they’ve removed more than half the stores in the list).

Personally, I think if they all had apps for the iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Nokia phones, it would be fantastic. Even if the apps started off as just mere ways for people to locate stores and get info on opening hours, that would be a plus. Apps can be used very effectively for promotions. How about giving people an incentive just for downloading the app? or an incentive for using the app? It’ll work.

I would be the first to download apps from major retailers purely for the convenience of knowing locations and times and I daresay, I’m not alone.

What do you think?