Canadian Coffee Websites Need a Pick-Me-Up

I conducted a review of the websites of Starbucks, Second Cup, and Tim Horton's for my current class. I also reviewed Starbucks' parent company website, which is a bit slicker than it's Canadian counterpart. My impression from my review (based on content, design, multimedia, etc.) is that while Starbucks (unlike many multinationals) cares enough to have a unique national presence, they don't want to fork for a good website.

Starbucks' Canadian website comes across as quite cheap and hokey compared to Second Cup & even Tim's. Second Cup's seems like a rich, discerning and expensive website (although the wait time for loads would seem unacceptable to their customers). If I judged Starbucks solely by their Canadian website, I would think it is a very small, young company. Or it is possible they don't see the business value in using the web - which is possible, but considering their competitors are doing more, one would think they'd be forced to keep up.

Overall, all of the sites have some good features. Starbucks makes a more convincing case for prospective employees, Second Cup offers a more enticing depiction of their menu, and Tim's offers the best nutritional information options. All of the websites could be doing a lot more - and I don't mean expensive gimmicks or design , just some well-placed content would do the trick (except for Starbucks, which does need a redesign).

Characteristic	Starbucks	Second Cup	Tim Horton's
Canadian website	Yes	Yes	Yes
Use of .ca domain	Yes	No	Yes (but redirects to .com)
Bilingual	Yes - but defaults to English	Yes - must choose language first	Yes - must choose language first
Main colour	Beige	Brown	Brown
Secondary colour	Khaki	Cream	Red
Overall design critique	Functional, spartan	Rich, sleek	Clean, professional
Approach to graphics	Amateurish sketches	Slick photography	Colourful photographs
Store locator present	Yes	Yes	Yes
Platform	Microsoft content management system	PHP	Content management system
Multimedia	None	Extensive use of Flash & slick user controls (many pages have wait time to load)	Videos of happy employees (couldn't bring myself to watch)
Ability to load card	Yes	Yes	Yes
Bells & whistles	None	Storybook presentation of their teas, which is graphically lush & ability to turn pages - also has virtual tour of a location	Road trip planner - so you can plan your trip around Tim's
Glitches	Dead links	Content below the fold with no way to know it's there	Road trip planner - took more than 5 mins. to load
Menu	Bare bones -lists with descriptions, with exception of coffee -some content for connoisseurs	Rich, graphic presentation with descriptions - special feature sections for coffee & teas	Standard presentation of menu
Nutrition info	No	Fairly detailed - but hard to find	Extremely detailed including those with special needs - has a nutrition calculator
Social responsibility	Very prominent - item in nav and graphic promoting - although many links on this dead - supports several charities, including employee charitable work	Link on homepage to one charitable campaign - otherwise nothing	Very prominent graphically and in nav - emphasizes charitable efforts for children & community
Corporate history	As expected - no mention of Canada	Emphasized Canada	Long, included storied history (ie. Tim Horton bio)
Mission statement	Yes	No	Essentially
Employment info	Detailed, enticing - emphasized commitment to diversity - links to own job finder microsite	Brief & lackluster	Very detailed
Email newsletter	No	Yes (I got this for awhile - it was nicely designed, had a few useful mentions of new products, but was ultimately boring)	No
Coupons	No	No	No
Contests	No	Yes	No (links to info on in-store contest)
Innovative use of web	No	No	No
Compelling reason to return to site	No	No	No
Notes	significantly different from US parent company website		Extensive investor relations material & press info