PNA WEBSITE AUDIT

What we assessed: the customer journey from finding a product through product pages, cart, checkout, delivery, collection and stock communication on desktop and a 390-pixel mobile viewport. Live testing on 18 August 2026 reconfirmed that main-site products cannot enter the cart before store selection. A real order or payment was not submitted, so failed-payment recovery, order confirmation and post-purchase messages remain not tested.

Evidence: the main product page cannot start a purchase

The product shows a price and “Available in stock,” but no quantity, Add to Cart or instruction to select a store. Store-specific pages do provide those controls, so this is a broken customer route—not proof that WooCommerce lacks the capability.

Business impact: customers arriving from the homepage, search or Google can reach a product and still have no clear way to buy it.

1Product Discovery

What we assessed: category structure, recommendations, featured and seasonal products, search results, filters, sorting, comparison and recently viewed items.

• Category browsing otherwise behaves as expected for a standard WooCommerce/Motta catalogue.
• Featured products and seasonal content exist, but campaign-expiry governance is inconsistent; the Content and Merchandising section contains the full finding and recommendation.

2Product Pages

What we assessed: product information, images, price, stock, purchase controls, fulfilment information, related products and reviews. The main site and a store-specific product page were compared to separate the platform capability from the implementation problem.

• Clear product name, product images, and stock availability all check out on every product page reviewed.
• Specifications are folded into paragraph copy rather than a separate structured list, making products harder to compare.
• No promotional/"was-now" pricing was found on any product checked, so promo-price display couldn't be verified either way.

3Cart Experience

What we assessed: quantity changes, removal, saved-cart behaviour, discount-code entry, delivery-cost visibility, stock alerts, add-on recommendations and persistence.

Research source: Baymard Institute, e-commerce UX statistics (2025 data).

Not tested because the main-site purchase path could not place an item in the cart during the 18 August validation:

• Independent reproduction of the reported delayed cart updates during the controlled purchase-path test.
• Saved-cart functionality (does the cart survive closing the browser, or logging out and back in?)
• Stock-alert messaging for low/limited stock.
• Cart persistence across sessions.

4Checkout Experience

What we assessed: contact details, delivery and collection, address entry, charges, payment choices, mobile layout, errors and support access. No real order or payment was submitted.

What did work well:

• Contact details pre-filled from the logged-in account.
• A clean, low-friction checkout (contact → delivery → payment on essentially one flow, not a long multi-page wizard).
• A clean toggle between "Ship" and "Pickup in Store" — "Pickup in Store" itself was free, fast and error-free.
• The Help Center link is present in the footer throughout checkout, so support access is at least reachable.

Testing status: the homepage and product journey were retested at 390×844 px. Guest checkout, failed-payment recovery, order confirmation and confirmation email/SMS remain not tested because the main-site journey could not add a product and a real transaction was outside this non-destructive audit. These are Phase 1 acceptance tests before launch.

5Delivery, Collection and Stock

What we assessed: delivery areas, fees and timing; collection and store selection; stock handling; tracking, returns and post-purchase communication.

A direct, like-for-like comparison: a PNA product page at a store-scoped URL (/clearwater-mall/product/... — already past the store-selection gate, so this is PNA's best-case page) against a comparable stationery item on Waltons, a similar South African office/stationery retailer. Both captured live on 14 August 2026. This is a separate question from the store-gating Critical finding above: even once a PNA visitor clears that gate, how does the page itself compare on features a shopper would expect?

PNA · pna.co.za/clearwater-mall/product/croxley-colour-pencil-wood-free-set-of-14/ · store-scoped, authenticated session · 14 Aug 2026.

Waltons · waltons.co.za · Monami Wax Crayons Retractable Assorted (Pack 12) · 14 Aug 2026.

• The last two rows draw on the full-page captures rather than the crops shown above — Waltons' Trustpilot rating (4.3, 1,390+ reviews) sits in its footer, and its store-locator/delivery-promise bar runs above the main navigation sitewide.
• To be fair to PNA: its stock figure ("47 in stock") is more precise than Waltons' generic "In Stock," and its breadcrumb is arguably just as clean. Everything else in this table is a genuine feature gap, not a style difference.
• This is one product-page pairing rather than a full parity audit. Its findings have been incorporated into the standalone competitor benchmark.

Scores reflect what this audit could directly observe. Where a genuine score requires access we don't have, it's marked "Not measured" rather than guessed.

View screenshots for the Critical findings →

We assessed the customer-facing experience, e-commerce journey, technical performance and measurement, and the site's search visibility and retail content. These cards highlight the issues with the greatest customer or business impact. The linked evidence pages contain every finding, recommendation and test limitation for each grouped area.

Recommended solution by brief pillar

These are opportunities to grow and improve PNA's digital retail experience after the transaction path and measurement baseline are stable. Prioritise them using customer evidence, commercial value, delivery cost and operating complexity.

Two further ideas worth a closer look but not fully scoped here:

• A lightweight installable/PWA experience for mobile, given how repeat-driven stationery shopping is across school terms.
• A proper language toggle rather than one-off Afrikaans campaign pages (the "PNA Love" menu includes "Skool met die Grootste Gees" alongside English-only site chrome) — worth confirming whether this is a business priority first.

A three-phase improvement programme, with technical validation and measurement beginning on day one. Timing is indicative and should be confirmed after access, architecture and integration discovery.

This matrix maps every requested audit area to a result, evidence source and completion status. It prevents an untested item from being mistaken for a pass and keeps the remaining PNA, IT and transaction inputs visible.

Audit coverage status

Completed means directly observed or tested. Partially completed means core evidence was reviewed but a named dependency remains. Not tested means no reliable conclusion should be drawn until the listed validation is performed.

Checked: is the offering immediately clear; does the site feel modern, credible and recognisably PNA; are priority promotions visible; is the value proposition clear; is there a strong distinction between shopping online and finding a store; are campaigns properly integrated — plus compliance against PNA's own Creative Guide (logo, colour, type).

Evidence: strong brand, unclear retail choice

The homepage is recognisably PNA and visually credible, with prominent campaign content. What it does not do is explain the full offer in one sentence or make “Shop Online” and “Find a Store” the two unmistakable starting choices.

What is not working and should change

• The visual system reads as modern, credible and recognisably PNA, but stale campaign dates, the broken Shop my School destination and the missing route to purchase weaken that first impression.
• Priority promotions are visible in homepage banners and on the Promotions page, but expired campaign material remains live alongside current offers.
• Campaign integration is inconsistent: the Promotions page mixes current and expired material, while "Buy a Gift Card" drops visitors into an off-brand microsite — campaigns aren't yet integrated as one coherent, on-brand thread.

Checked: main menu structure; product categorisation; category names and labels; clicks required to reach priority content; breadcrumbs and back-navigation; store locator; contact and support information; access to promotions, catalogues and loyalty information.

• Access to promotions, catalogues and loyalty information is reachable from the menu; content freshness is covered under Content and Merchandising Audit.
• Breadcrumbs are present, accurate and clickable on every category and product page tested (e.g. Home > Stationery > Writing Instruments & Correction > Pencils > Graphite Pencils > Goldfaber Graphite Pencil 2B), giving reliable back-navigation.
• Click-depth to priority content is shallow — the "Categories" mega-menu gets a visitor from the homepage to a specific product in two clicks.

Tested at a 390×844 viewport across the homepage and product journey, covering menu, links and buttons, readability, browsing, search, imagery, purchase controls and responsive behaviour.

Evidence: responsive layout, but weak shopping controls

The page adapts cleanly to a narrow screen, yet the product-card action is only about 20×21 px and uses a cart symbol for a “Read more” link. The mobile experience is not failing because of the layout alone; the shared shopping interaction is the problem.

No other mobile-only layout breakage (overlapping elements, horizontal scroll, unreadable text, broken pop-ups) was found across the pages tested.

Assessed: search accuracy, predictive suggestions, spelling tolerance, product-name and category recognition, zero-result searches, result relevance, filters and sorting, availability information.

Usage evidence: GA4 records 3,999 view_search_results events from 1,540 users on 18 August, confirming that on-site search is a meaningful customer journey. The current report does not expose common query terms or zero-result status, so the requested “most common searches” assessment remains pending until those dimensions are added. Filtering and sorting on search results use the same underlying widget reviewed under Product Discovery; redesign search, filters and result cards as one experience with consistent price, key specification and stock status.

Checked: colour contrast, font sizes, keyboard navigation, image descriptions, form labels, error messages, button clarity, consistency of icons and terminology, ease of use across digital-confidence levels.

• Colour contrast, font sizes and button-label clarity did not surface obvious issues on the pages sampled.
• Icon/terminology consistency has one confirmed problem (the grid "quick add" icon behaves as a "Read more" link) — otherwise icons and terminology were used consistently.
• Checkout and account form validation, error recovery and assistive-technology behaviour were not fully tested because no controlled transaction was submitted. A WCAG 2.2 AA audit across all shared templates remains an implementation acceptance criterion.

What we assessed: the full recorded funnel, traffic source, browser/device signals, internal search, new/returning audiences and whether the available analytics can support conversion decisions. Current figures below use 18 August 2026, the first full day of the newly configured reporting view. They are a diagnostic snapshot, not a commercial baseline.

Evidence: customers reach checkout, then recorded progression stops

GA4 records 9 checkout users—5 desktop and 4 mobile—but zero users adding delivery, adding payment or purchasing. This is a measurement and journey warning, not proof that every one of those users genuinely abandoned; tag coverage and a controlled order must be validated.

Why it matters: PNA cannot yet separate customer abandonment from missing tracking.

• *Measurement caveat: Checkout Journey confirms the 9 checkout users and splits them between desktop (5) and mobile (4). The unusually high 192 add-to-cart events from only 16 users still requires de-duplication testing, and later checkout events remain absent. Rates are therefore provisional.
• Historical audience context: GA4's 1 May–31 July report shows 491k new users and 66k returning users, with 0 recorded purchasers and R0.00 recorded purchase revenue. These values are retained as the available audience baseline, not proof that no sales occurred.
• Internal search: 3,999 view_search_results events from 1,540 users confirm meaningful search usage, but the report does not expose the common terms or zero-result rate required for search-success analysis.
• Technical signal: GA4 records 5,012 js_error events from 1,931 users on the same day. The event's parameters and source pages need validation before treating every event as a unique site fault.

Traffic source snapshot

GA4 Traffic acquisition, 18 August 2026. Channel conversion cannot yet be calculated because no completed purchase is recorded.

What we assessed: a Lighthouse lab test of the live homepage on mobile and desktop, plus representative-page checks for loading, secure connection and browser errors. This is not a full catalogue crawl or a substitute for real-user field data, hosting logs, backup evidence or integration monitoring.

Lighthouse 13.4.1, single lab run on 18 August 2026. Google's good Largest Contentful Paint threshold is 2.5s or less. Results vary by run and should be repeated across homepage, category, product, cart and checkout templates.

Evidence: platform maintenance is an operational risk

WordPress reports core and plugin updates, while Motta reports inactive required dependencies. Site Health separately records two Critical issues and four recommended improvements, including a failed scheduled event and no persistent object cache.

Interpretation: this supports staged maintenance, monitoring and regression testing—not an automatic platform replacement.

• Every page visited loaded over valid HTTPS with no browser security warnings. The initial representative sample showed no site-generated JavaScript errors; later Bryanston evidence captured HTTP 503 resource failures, while the 18 August recheck loaded correctly. Treat reliability as intermittent and verify it with hosting logs and monitoring.
• Page-level observations are not an exhaustive sitewide crawl. A representative sample across live, archived and newly created store subsites, shared templates and fulfilment configurations should form part of every implementation release.
• Browser compatibility status: functional cross-browser testing remains pending. GA4 shows that Chrome, Safari, Android Webview, Samsung Internet and Edge account for 97.4% of active users in the 18 August snapshot; these five environments should form the minimum release test matrix, with Firefox and in-app Safari as secondary coverage.
• Hosting reliability, CMS stability, platform scalability, third-party integration health, product-feed reliability, inventory sync and backup/recovery all require infrastructure/CMS access not available to this audit — flag for direct discussion with PNA's IT department during handover.

What we assessed: GA4 reports and the live GTM workspace were reviewed read-only on 19 August. No tags, triggers, variables, settings or site content were changed. Event presence in a report confirms receipt, not correct implementation; parameters, de-duplication and reconciliation still require a controlled journey.

Evidence: GTM identifies two coverage failures

Container quality is marked “Urgent.” Google reports additional detected domains that need configuration and pages where the tag is missing.

Business impact: customer journeys can be fragmented between domains and pages, making conversion and revenue reporting incomplete.

Required measurement coverage

Reconciliation rule: reported online sales must agree across GA4, WooCommerce, the payment gateway and finance. Differences need an owner, tolerance and documented adjustment process before the dashboard is used for decisions.

Focused on: product/category-page indexation, product titles and descriptions, duplicate content, structured product data, pricing/availability signals, internal linking, out-of-stock handling, campaign landing pages, image optimisation, Google Shopping feed readiness.

Evidence: SEO implementation is incomplete page by page

The WordPress page inventory shows published pages with missing Rank Math scores or focus keywords and inconsistent schema settings. This confirms a governance problem across the content inventory, not a single missing homepage tag.

Duplicate product content and out-of-stock handling were not found to be issues in the sampled pages, but a full content and URL inventory was not completed. Product titles/descriptions quality is covered under Content and Merchandising below.

Checked: promotional banners, seasonal collections, product hierarchy, bestsellers/new arrivals, cross-selling/upselling, campaign landing pages, online-exclusive offers, bundles, product recommendations, catalogue integration, content freshness, expired promotions.

Evidence: expired and current promotions appear together

On 18 August, the Promotions page still presented a Young Designers campaign with a 31 July closing date beside current Funky Socks offers.

Business impact: customers cannot confidently tell which offers are active, and campaign pages become an unreliable retail channel.

• A Hot Products carousel, seasonal collections and a Similar Products module are present.
• Run a complete content inventory covering old pages, duplicate URLs, redundant navigation links and expired campaigns; remove, archive or redirect each item and then refresh the sitemap.
• Catalogue integration (whether pna.co.za reflects the same catalogue used in-store/POS) can't be assessed externally and is marked not measured.

A consistent public-journey comparison against three South African retailers with overlapping stationery and gifting ranges. No competitor purchases were placed. Lighthouse page-speed figures are single mobile lab runs on 18 August 2026 and should be read directionally.

Live public checks: PNA, Waltons, The Crazy Store and CNA, 18 August 2026. Waltons' product-page feature comparison was also captured on 14 August 2026.

A curated evidence set covering the live mobile experience, the missing purchase control, Promotions-page content governance, checkout failure, the changing WordPress network, platform maintenance, page-level SEO and recorded analytics. It includes current GA4 checkout-by-device and GTM diagnostics, plus live homepage, search and store-locator proof captured on 19 August.

Takealot product-page benchmark. Derwent Academy Watercolour Pencils 24 Pack · live public product page · 20 Aug 2026. Delivery timing, regional stock, reviews, wishlist and recommended products are visible before checkout.

Typo product-page benchmark. Watercolour Pencils 24 Pack · live public product page · 20 Aug 2026. Online and in-store availability, wishlist, delivery, detailed content and related products are visible.

New GA4 checkout journey stops before delivery. GA4 property “PNA Website - GA4” · 18 Aug 2026 · reviewed 19 Aug 2026. Checkout Journey records 9 users split between desktop (5) and mobile (4), followed by zero add-delivery, add-payment and purchase users.

GTM container quality is Urgent. GTM-K4CBKSF · reviewed 19 Aug 2026. Diagnostics report additional domains detected for configuration and pages without the tag, both of which can fragment journey and conversion measurement.

Live mobile homepage. pna.co.za · 390×844 Chrome viewport · 18 Aug 2026. The responsive layout is clean, but the cart-shaped product control is a roughly 20×21 px "Read more" link rather than a purchase action.

Main-site product page still has no purchase control. pna.co.za · authenticated desktop session · 18 Aug 2026. Price and "Available in stock" are shown, but no quantity selector, store-choice instruction or Add to Cart action appears.

Promotions page retains an expired campaign. pna.co.za/promotions/ · authenticated desktop session · 19 Aug 2026. The leading PNA Young Designers banner states "Entries close 31 July 2026" above current August and September offers.

Contact and copy-quality evidence. pna.co.za/contact-us/ · authenticated desktop session · 19 Aug 2026. The page provides phone, email and chat links but no enquiry form. The footer newsletter placeholder reads "Enter your email adress".

The cart does little to support the sale. PNA Horison View · authenticated desktop session · 19 Aug 2026. The R12.99 test basket has no promotion-code field, delivery estimate or product recommendations.

Delivery exceeds the product value. PNA Horison View checkout · authenticated desktop session · 19 Aug 2026. A R12.99 item attracts R69 PostNet collection, taking the order total to R81.99.

Delivery, PostNet and payment evidence. PNA Horison View checkout · authenticated desktop session · 19 Aug 2026. Options show R69 collection and R170 economy delivery; the PostNet store selector returns "Invalid store data received" and Zapper is the active standard payment option.

Store configuration requires remediation. PNA Horison View WooCommerce settings · authenticated administrator session · 19 Aug 2026. Zapper is the only active gateway shown, while WooCommerce reports outdated Motta template overrides.

The Multisite network increased to 157 sites. wp-admin/network/sites.php · Network Admin · 18 Aug 2026. The live register shows 157 total sites, 67 public and 89 archived, compared with 154 total on 14 August. This confirms active change and the need for store-creation, archive, indexing, QA and release governance.

Platform maintenance and dependency backlog. wp-admin/network/plugins.php · Network Admin · 18 Aug 2026. WordPress 7.0.4 and seven plugin updates are available, including PostNet 1.0.15. Kirki and Meta Box are inactive while Motta reports them as required. Update and dependency testing must happen in staging with backup and rollback.

Page-level SEO coverage is inconsistent. wp-admin/edit.php?post_type=page · authenticated desktop session · 18 Aug 2026. Multiple published pages show a Rank Math score of N/A, no focus keyword and mixed schema settings. The visible No Index notice links to the Boskruin coming-soon subsite; the main pna.co.za indexing checkbox was separately verified as unchecked.

Live homepage and navigation. pna.co.za · desktop Chrome · 19 Aug 2026. PNA branding, search, account and campaign content are prominent, while the relationship between Shop, Categories, PNA Locations and store-based fulfilment is not explained.

Search query without visible predictive help. pna.co.za · desktop Chrome · 19 Aug 2026. Entering “graphite pencil” produced no visible predictive products, categories or spelling assistance in the captured state.

Store locator is a useful existing component. pna.co.za/pna-locations/ · desktop Chrome · 19 Aug 2026. The locator provides province, city, free-text and nearest-store controls and lists 149 stores; it should be connected more clearly to online fulfilment.

No purchase path from a generic product page. pna.co.za/product/goldfaber-graphite-pencil-2h/ · desktop Chrome, authenticated session · 14 Aug 2026. Repro: open any generic (non-store-scoped) product URL — price and stock show, but there is no add-to-cart control or quantity selector anywhere on the page.

"Collect at PostNet" checkout error. pna.co.za/rivonia-village/checkout/ · desktop Chrome, authenticated session, store selected, item in cart · 14 Aug 2026. Repro: select "Ship" delivery at checkout with the default "Collect at PostNet" option — the store list fails with "Error loading stores: Invalid store data received," and Retry does not resolve it. (Also visible: Zapper is the only payment method offered.)

Earlier network capture: 154 WordPress Multisite sites. wp-admin/network/sites.php · logged in as a Network Admin · 14 Aug 2026. Shows the "Main" network site plus separate store subsites and provides the earlier baseline. The current evidence above shows the network increased to 157 sites four days later, strengthening the governance requirement.

Historical GA4 purchase journey showed 100% recorded drop-off. GA4 property "PNA Website - GA4" · 1 May–31 Jul 2026 · reviewed 14 Aug 2026. This is retained as earlier baseline evidence. The newly configured 18 August reports now record product, cart and checkout-start activity, but still no delivery, payment or purchase completion.

GA4 Generate leads overview: 491k new users, 66k returning, 0 qualified leads. GA4 property "PNA Website - GA4" · 1 May–31 Jul 2026 · reviewed 14 Aug 2026. Confirms the audience values recorded in this report; it does not by itself validate the e-commerce funnel.

GA4 Monetisation overview: R0.00 total revenue, 0 purchasers. GA4 property "PNA Website - GA4" · 1 May–31 Jul 2026 · reviewed 14 Aug 2026. Total revenue, purchase revenue and ad revenue all read R0.00 for the full three-month window, with 0 total and 0 first-time purchasers.