Formerly known as Argos Additions they have changed their name to reflect their growing independence from the Argos brand. Additions Direct is the UK's largest mail order company and are beginning to circulate their catalogue within Boots stores which alters the exclusive arrangement that they used to have with Argos.

Site Navigation

The front page is really well laid out with virtually all relevant sections available at the click of your mouse, rather than the usual "breadcrumb trail" that requires you to click through multiple times just to find a specific section. The site itself is very easy to navigate and fast, although I don't know whether this makes it just too tempting to go click crazy.

Sections

The landing page lists a number of sections including: Women's Fashion, Men's Fashion, Women's Footwear, Men's Footwear, Women's Sports, Men's Sports, Babies Kids and Teens, Electrical, Furniture and Home ware and What's new. I like the way this is broken up as it seems very logical after all being a man if I want to buy Men's shoes why should I need to click through three other pages to get to my specific section? To the right of the screen are displayed any main offers that are available and this usually changes week by week.

Wish List

I haven't seen this before on most other online shopping portals but the basic concept is that you can create a list of items as you browse through the site that you might like to buy in the future. I like this option as you don't have to add items and remove them from your shopping basket, you just save them to the wish list and then at the end of your browsing you can add the specific items you want to your shopping basket.

What's more, unlike a shopping basket, you can save your wish list for future reference and you'll be particularly pleased to hear you can email it to a friend, an ideal way of dropping hints to your friends and family for future presents!

Payment Methods

The two main ways to pay are via Credit Card directly through the website or through something called a Direct Plus Account.The Direct Plus Account is an interesting Idea that provides you with a credit limit within the Addition Direct site. All you need to do is fill in an online application form including: Name, Address, Income etc, that you would normally expect to complete for a credit card application. Additions Direct will then carry out an online credit check, which if successful will allow you to create a new account.

Tips

The Direct Plus Account is an excellent idea if you intend to shop regularly with Additions Direct and you can pay off your balance anytime online, by Post, or at the Post Office. The instant credit is a little dangerous for those of you who are tempted to click and spend!

There are three main credit check organisations that most big name companies use these are Experian, GE Capital and Equifax. There are also a number of small organisations. They apply specific criteria given to them by any company who want to give you credit and these criteria can vary from company to company. For instance that is why you can go into a bank and ask for a loan and one bank will turn you down but another bank will accept you despite the fact that they both use the same credit check agency! I think that Additions use Experian as their preferred company, (although I stand to be corrected.) So if you know that you have credit problems with Experian it's probably not worth applying for the Direct Plus Account.

Delivery

Additions Direct have a great rang of delivery options for you to choose from these include;

Standard Delivery

If you order before 1pm it should reach you with 48 hours.

Next Day Delivery

If you order before 1pm it will arrive the next working day. It is worth noting though that next day delivery isn't available on weekends, so if you order on a Friday it won't reach you until the Monday.

Specified Day Delivery

This is so refreshing, I hate receiving deliveries as you can never be entirely sure of when they will arrive, but this solves the problem. You can choose which day your goods are delivered in any of the next seven days (excluding Weekends). i.e. Order on a Monday and choose which day from the next Wednesday onwards that your order is delivered.If you're a busy person like me this is ideal as I can plan my diary around when the delivery is arriving. Having used this service it really does work!

Delivery times are from 8am 5pm Monday to Friday.

Returns

They're free! If you aren't happy with the product just return it within 14 days in the original packaging.Having bought some items myself via this website I can vouch for the specified date delivery, they arrived on the right day and with minimum disturbance to me!