After collapse of Dick Smith earlier this year the brand was purchased by Kogan with the target to launch it as pure-play online retailer. In less than 2 months Kogan has launched Dick Smith Australian and New Zealand websites. Let’s have a quick look to new Dick Smith Australia website.

Kogan in disguise

From design, functionality and technology prospective new Dick Smith website is a lightly re-skinned  version of Kogan website. All main UI elements and controls are the same, the difference is in colour scheme, logo and other visual branding elements.

Kogan and Dick Smith web pages side by side. Click to the image to enlarge

I am not saying this is bad, it is probably only feasible way to launch new Dick Smith website in such short terms. There are also merits to use proven and known to Kogan team platform rather than keeping two separate systems.

Product range and prices

Product range of new Dick Smith website is also very similar with Kogan as well as most regular prices.

For example in TV and Video department:

• Kogan website has 167 products listed
• Dick Smith Australia website has 171 products listed
• I haven’t checked every single product, but the prices look the same in most cases (read more below)
• Only the difference in the number of products is in Home Theatre category, where 2 more products are listed on Dick Smith website

There are some interesting minor differences. For example “Kogan Bluetooth Soundbar with Integrated Subwoofer” that is on special at Kogan for $119 with $125 as regular price. The same product is listed for the same $119 at Dick Smith, but without references to full price. See screenshots below.

I’ve found couple products that are listed a bit differently and have different prices. The New Apple TV (64GB, 4th Gen) is listed together with 32GB version and priced at $299 at Kogan website. At Dick Smith website it is listed  $20 cheaper, for $279 as a separate product.

Dick Smith website misses several categories presented on Kogan, those that are not related with Dick Smith brand as it existed.

Kogan and Dick Smith categories comparison

Categories not listed on Dick Smith website:

• Kogan travel
• Kogan mobile
• Home and Garden
• Baby, Kids & Family
• Shoes & Fashion
• Health & Beauty
• Sport, Outdoors & Luggage
• Tools & Automotive
• Pantry

User accounts

Simple experiment shows that Kogan.com.au and Dicksmith.com.au share user accounts. I’ve registered on Kogan and was able to log-in on Dick Smith. It it is logical to expect that old Dick Smith customers were also integrated and can sign-in to both Kogan and Dick Smith websites, but since I don’t have old Dick Smith account – can’t be sure in that.

Speed/performance

I would expect almost the same results, but to a bit of surprise they are different

Dick Smith

• Google Page Speed Mobile – 56/100
• Google Page Speed Desktop – 70/100
• Google Page Speed UX – 99/100
• Pingdom performance grade – 81/100
• Pingdom load time – 2.23 sec

Kogan

• Google Page Speed Mobile – 61/100
• Google Page Speed Desktop – 78/100
• Google Page Speed UX – 99/100
• Pingdom performance grade -81/100
• Pingdom load time – 3.42 sec

Probably Dick Smith front-end coding is less polished than Kogan yet, so Google Page Speed score is lower there. Longer loading time for Kogan may be attributed to bigger number of externals services and libraries used on this website.

Other things

• Kogan uses ‘green bar’ SSL certificate with company name in address bar, while Dick Smith employs simpler SSL. It is probably related with the fact that Kogan hasn’t registered new legal entity for the business, it is stated that KOGAN AUSTRALIA PTY LTD T/A Dick Smith (Dick Smith) and KOGAN HK LIMITED T/A Dick Smith Electronics (Dick Smith Electronics)
• Contact phone numbers are different for Kogan and Dick Smith websites

It will be interesting how Kogan will approach trading under Dick Smith name in the future – will it continue to be a very close clone of Kogan for home appliances and electronics or there will be more differences in terms of product range, prices and other elements of marketing and business strategy.