Shopping in the Matrix

is a fusion of the highly successful

and

sites. Customers can choose from a vast range of CDs, PC and console games and accessories, DVDs, toys, electronic peripherals and high-end home entertainment systems.

Registration

As with most e-commerce sites, you`ve got to register before being able to shop. The registration process is a bit lengthy - mainly because the site takes you through a series of information pages, instead of giving you one long form to fill in.

Also, the form doesn`t allow you to fill in payment and delivery options until after you`ve submitted the first few pages of information. The good news is that once you do get to these sections, you have the option of specifying more than one delivery address (eg home and office) and for the serious Web shopper, details for more than one credit card.

Payment options

Other than the usual credit card method, customers can also pay by debit orders and cash payments. The site doesn`t fully explain how the latter works, but logic suggests that it could be a cash-on-delivery type of system.

With debit orders, you`ve got to make a note of the total value of the transaction and deposit that amount into the company`s bank account, details of which are provided. You`ve then got to fax a hard copy of the deposit slip, or printout of the bank`s transfer verification screen in the case of Internet transfers, to The Shopping Matrix. As soon as the company receives your fax, your order will be processed.

Shipping options

Shipping of your order can be carried out in a number of ways: inside SA, you can choose between door-to-door delivery using Dawn Wing Couriers, or courier-to-post-office using Speedservices Couriers.

The Shopping Matrix also supports purchases from Namibia, Lesotho, Mozambique, Botswana and Namibia. If you need a purchase delivered to one of these destinations, you may place the order and a representative from The Shopping Matrix will contact you with customised delivery costs.

Functionality

The site certainly delivers on its promise to give customers access to various products through a number of methods. If you`re not sure what you want, you can explore various departments from the home page. If you know what you`re looking for, use the search engine - it doesn`t matter whether you are looking for a manufacturer, a brand name or specific product - the search engine will return all the items containing the string you specified from all of the fields of all of the retail product divisions.

You can also search for entire phrases - like band names or movie titles - and the search will return all the items associated with that band or movie. Just make sure you separate each word in the string with a space.

Most of the words in the return are also active, and if clicked on, will return a filtered result that matches that word.

Navigation

This site is incredibly easy to navigate - a navigation bar is anchored to the top of the page, regardless of where in the site you happen to find yourself. Each division also features sub-categories to which you can jump; this is quite useful, should you find yourself in Music DVDs when you should actually be in Music CDs.

Appearance

While the black and green colour scheme gives the appearance of slickness, the site is graphic intensive and is slow to load. Also, the copious amounts of information displayed are sometimes not very easy on the eye.

Anything extra?

Users seeking interactivity can add their own user reviews for DVDs and movies. There is also a newsletter to which you can subscribe - the database runs to 2 500 subscribers.