Two Websites

Two websites that I frequently visit are overstock.com and amazon.com. Both of these websites have similar purposes. The purposes of these websites are to offer their customers a wide variety of product (pretty much anything you can think of) at a discounted price. The audience for these webpages would really be anyone who has money. They don’t care how old you are or where you are from as long as you buy something. I guess you could narrow it down and say their audience is people who don’t want the hassle of going to the store to buy something. The audience could also be people who want a good deal on certain items or even people who don’t know exactly what they want to buy.

Overstock’s ethos I believe comes in the way the website is set up. It is very organized and has every product grouped into sections so the consumer can find what he or she is looking for.  Amazon’s ethos also comes from their presentation of their website. Amazon’s ethos also comes from a pre-existing credible name. Amazon is known as one of the best online shopping websites, but why? It’s from people who have experienced how great Amazon is telling all of their friends and then them telling their friends and so on and so forth. However, I believe that Overstock’s website has way more ethos than Amazon. Overstock’s is full of pictures with vivid colors and is very organized. Amazon’s contains lots of words which sometimes, people don’t like to read.

Overstock makes great rhetorical choices. The first thing that pops up is a collage of pictures with big writing on them, describing the sales of each. It is very colorful, yet not too bright or overbearing. As you scroll down there are pictures separated in to categories such as “recommended for you..” and “trending on overstock.” These category titles are in a red, larger font. It then shows pictures of these items and their price. I think this is a very effective way of advertising because it will lead people to buy things that they hadn’t intended to purchase.

I believe amazon didn’t make the best rhetorical choices. Amazon’s home page is rather plain. It is a white background with light orange, blue and black text. There is a picture of a little girl reading her Kindle on the couch, which is good advertisement for the amazon kindle. Amazon has similar categories to overstock as you scroll down. However, everything is just kind of blah feeling and it makes me want to go back to looking at overstock.

In conclusion, Overstock made better rhetorical choices than Amazon. Overstock’s website is more fun to look at and in general would get more of my business.