7 replies to this topic

[book]

Just a little bugbear. I was wondering if there's any reason (other than bandwidth perhaps) why so many online shops don't bother with pictures or have the pictures buried deep beneath a load of clicks.

I have a list of sites I look for stuff, but regardless of customer service, quality or price, I have a priority list of which sites to go to first purely based on how easy it is to browse for the item.

Are others the same or do I have a visual hang up?

I had a bit of a butchers through my list and decided to rate the sites based on how easy they are to browse through. The rating has nothing to do with company quality, customer service or anything like that as some companies have great sites but rubbish service and vice versa.
If anyone thinks I’ve made any mistakes or am doing a site down, PLEASE tell me. My reason for writing this was because I find some of the sites a pain to navigate so if I’m missing something, let me know.

Mini Spares 9/10
Pros
Clean and easy to read the monochrome font.
Nice photos and additional details.
Handy ‘people who bought this, also bought...’ list
Easy navigation
Lots of products visibly on screen at once
Cons
They do have some photos missing

Somerford Mini 4/10
Pros
Great detailed illustrations showing what goes where. Helpful to work out if you need anything else.
Cons
Not very user friendly
You have to buy the in depth catalogue? Don’t they want my money?
Price list is in a separate place to the parts list.
Illustrations not photos.

Mini Sport 7/10
Pros
Nice photos and additional information
Sub adverts down the sides to help jog your memory for those other ‘must have’ items.
Lots of products visibly on screen at once
Cons
Reading isn’t as clear as Mini Spares due to multi-coloured font and annoying habit of enlarging the without VAT price so your eye is drawn to that.
Missing a few photos.

Minispeed 0/10
Pros
Can’t think of any. This site is the reason for my post. The company might be fantastic, but I can’t shop here. If I can’t even see decals before I buy them, why would I purchase the more important stuff?
Cons
An extra click to display all groups rather than just brakes and suspension? Why not just display all groups straight off the bat.
An extra click on an object just to get a look at it, then a click back when you realise it’s the wrong one, then a click on the next item...just too many damn clicks!
LOTS of missing photos

Huddersfield Spares 8/10
Pros
Nice photos and details
Easy navigation
Lots of products visibly on screen at once
Cons
Not as easy to read as Mini Spares, but easier that Mini Sport.
Has the same ‘highlight excluding VAT habit’

Hythe Performance 6/10
Pros
Easy to read monochrome font.
Handy ‘people who bought this, also bought...’ list but only appears every so often
Cons
Not many products on screen at a time.
A lot of missing photos
Looks a bit disorganised

Moss Europe 5/10
Pros
Easy to read font.
Cons
Navigation tends to hit a dead end of a list with no further links or pictures however copying and pasting the part number in the search function means progress can be made. Why not just make it a link you can browse to from the list though?
Strange combination of photos, illustrations and nothing.
No idea if price includes or excludes VAT.

[Guess-Works.com]

I know exactly what you mean...

Try http://MRA-Minis.co.uk see how you rate that...

Also something I've been toying with... ( it's still very much beta but does sort of work )

http://www.guess-works.com/Parts/

[robtheplod]

Just a little bugbear. I was wondering if there's any reason (other than bandwidth perhaps) why so many online shops don't bother with pictures or have the pictures buried deep beneath a load of clicks.

I have a list of sites I look for stuff, but regardless of customer service, quality or price, I have a priority list of which sites to go to first purely based on how easy it is to browse for the item.

Are others the same or do I have a visual hang up?

I had a bit of a butchers through my list and decided to rate the sites based on how easy they are to browse through. The rating has nothing to do with company quality, customer service or anything like that as some companies have great sites but rubbish service and vice versa.
If anyone thinks I’ve made any mistakes or am doing a site down, PLEASE tell me. My reason for writing this was because I find some of the sites a pain to navigate so if I’m missing something, let me know.

Mini Spares 9/10
Pros
Clean and easy to read the monochrome font.
Nice photos and additional details.
Handy ‘people who bought this, also bought...’ list
Easy navigation
Lots of products visibly on screen at once
Cons
They do have some photos missing

Somerford Mini 4/10
Pros
Great detailed illustrations showing what goes where. Helpful to work out if you need anything else.
Cons
Not very user friendly
You have to buy the in depth catalogue? Don’t they want my money?
Price list is in a separate place to the parts list.
Illustrations not photos.

Mini Sport 7/10
Pros
Nice photos and additional information
Sub adverts down the sides to help jog your memory for those other ‘must have’ items.
Lots of products visibly on screen at once
Cons
Reading isn’t as clear as Mini Spares due to multi-coloured font and annoying habit of enlarging the without VAT price so your eye is drawn to that.
Missing a few photos.

Minispeed 0/10
Pros
Can’t think of any. This site is the reason for my post. The company might be fantastic, but I can’t shop here. If I can’t even see decals before I buy them, why would I purchase the more important stuff?
Cons
An extra click to display all groups rather than just brakes and suspension? Why not just display all groups straight off the bat.
An extra click on an object just to get a look at it, then a click back when you realise it’s the wrong one, then a click on the next item...just too many damn clicks!
LOTS of missing photos

Huddersfield Spares 8/10
Pros
Nice photos and details
Easy navigation
Lots of products visibly on screen at once
Cons
Not as easy to read as Mini Spares, but easier that Mini Sport.
Has the same ‘highlight excluding VAT habit’

Hythe Performance 6/10
Pros
Easy to read monochrome font.
Handy ‘people who bought this, also bought...’ list but only appears every so often
Cons
Not many products on screen at a time.
A lot of missing photos
Looks a bit disorganised

Moss Europe 5/10
Pros
Easy to read font.
Cons
Navigation tends to hit a dead end of a list with no further links or pictures however copying and pasting the part number in the search function means progress can be made. Why not just make it a link you can browse to from the list though?
Strange combination of photos, illustrations and nothing.
No idea if price includes or excludes VAT.

I find minispares best for pics and description (poor layout), minisport best for general layout (poor descriptions), somerford PDF's for that hard to find/describe item, and my real bugbear is accurate web stocklevels. One in your list always shows stock on all items but i know this is not true!

Edited by robtheplod, 12 November 2009 - 08:48 AM.

[book]

I was going to do MRA minis when I did the list, but the site wouldn't load! Seems fine now though.

For me personally, I like the layout of Mini Spares, but maybe some extra adverts down the sides a la Mini Sport would be helpful. And yes, I also use Somerford for those tricky items. The details are good on Mini Spares, but because Somerford shows what else you need I find that very handy. I bought an upper engine steady recently and using somerford I could see all the washers and bolts I need too.

I did look at the Guessworks site and it looks fine for what it is, handy photos and GREAT info, however for my little boredom assignment I decided to avoid all the sites that specialise (retro retrims, galileo gauges, guessworks etc) and just do the sites that do all sorts of parts, because it's the job of organising all those parts that makes it easy or hard to read.

So in conclusion I pretty much only shop at Somerford and Mini Spares. If any of the other major parts players want my cash, they need to sort their sites out. Then if that happens maybe I'll move on to ratings of customer service, quality, delivery and price

[gav]

We're going to move this Click etc to a more accessible area soon as it is a very useful tool.

Edited by gav, 12 November 2009 - 11:51 AM.

[Mattlav]

Just a warning to you guys.. i have used MRA minis a couple of times.. and i seam to get alot of spam email from the "admin" of the site offereing stupid rubbish and general spam.. so yeh use an email you dont want spam on! But other than that the products and service is good

MIni sport has to be the best tho

[danrock101]

minisport is the best imo too, easiest to navigate, minipsares parts navigation bar should expand rather than having a sub drop down arrow box. I think minispeed deserves more than 0/10, although it really does need a parts navigation bar like minisport. I'd give minispeed 6/7 out of 10, minisport 9/10 needs to be more descriptive, minispares 7/10
just checked out mra minis briefly and can't really find any faults , guessworks site could do with a slight tidy up, by making all the pages the same and have a expanding navigation bar and then it would be spot on. So you have one navigation bar rather than 3

Edited by danrock101, 03 February 2010 - 05:23 PM.

[alicetheauto]

I dislike the search function on Minispares. It brings up absolute random and irrelevant search results and it has actually put me off shopping there before because I got se fed up not being able to find what I wanted. A quick search on Minisport finds it immediately though.