Hattons new Website Oh Dear.....

[mahoganydog]

I'd noticed that there had been no updates on their site since Thursday then I notice a link in news to their new site....what a shambles.

The pre-owned section is utterly awful, all ability to refine what is displayed has vanished and the items are a muddled mess. The old site had everything grouped into type/scale so 00 steam locos were all together, diesels together and so on all neatly colour coded so we could see the scale without having to check every single item. What it displays as now is just a complete, utter mess making it far more difficult to spot items I may want. Having it like this will cause people to order things they think are 00 but aren't.

Far worse is that everything seems to be on a pre-order system without any stock showing plus there seems to be new bargains muddled in with it.

The links section down the left side has gone so no longer can I quickly go to the right section or perform a manual search (find everything within a section).

This is just after a few minutes on there looking! Then we get to the weird site behaviour like if I disable java the site works enable it and it comes up with only the site's title bar?!? Old site works fine with java enabled!

Jim

[Lancastrian]

Oooohhhh! I have just visited it out of curiosity and I don't like the set up one bit. Hopefully they will get feedback that will encourage them to look again at it.

[Mountain]

I dont know much about modern site design, and I've not looked at Hattons site in the last week or so, but when I have looked I didn't find it easy to see the difference between new or used, and if one wants to look at just used items, one gets a list of what came up on each day to troll through. One can't seem to just get a 00 list of what is in stock or a 0 gauge or 0-16.5 or N gauge list.
As when I do look it is not all that often, (Maybe once a month or once every few months) strolling through daily lists isn't easy and very time consuming.
If I want a new item and I type it in the used items come up as well and if one didn't know which is the new item I'd be potentially ordering a secondhand item without knowing it. Fortunately having been in the hobby for many years I know my way around what is old and what is new (Roughly speaking).
One big concern when I see advertisements is one often sees things incorrectly labeled by people who dont seem to have the knowledge of what it is. I sympathise but I am really puzzled why the adverts are put up without being checked by more experienced staff in whatever subject the item relates to. I've seen some really large mistakes here which are very basic errors as if a complete novice has been allowed to write the adverts as doesn't really have a clue about trains. Hopefully they can have someone do a quick check on the adverts before they are up online in future times. I'm not knocking the ones who have made the mistakes as we all need to start from somewhere and none of us know everything.
It is a blessing for many that the site is there and that they can buy the secondhand items which they are looking for along with some decent priced new items.
Certain things would be a blessing to see. Some modellers like me scratchbuild and if broken track (Or other bits and pieces) became available at a very cheap price we maybe tempted to buy some. A bundle of old rails even if they are steel rails may tempt some. They can be used fore many uses besides building track! Take a look at this 0-16.5 waggon as an example which has its main structure made from old Peco code 100 rails:-

[alex3410]

https://hattonshobbies.com/ for anyone who's interested


I don't think its that bad, i will be honest i don't like the fact they are chucking in preowned with the new stuff but they do it on the current website anyway. If i wanted preowned i would click on that section!


You can filter down the results using the options on the left, they give you a lot of options as well which is handy. I have pointed out the ability to select multiple manufacturers would be helpful - if i am just browsing for a new loco for example viewing Hornby and Bachmann together would be nice. Steam engines -> Bachmann & Hornby -> in stock -> price lowest first

Some of it will just be getting used to a new way of doing things

[Mountain]

I just looked and it looks the same as before.
Not sure why but I never really found their site that easy to use but it is still better then a few other retailer sites that I've seen.
The odd few sites were set up years ago and with a few, it looks like they've not been updated since with the odd competitor. At least Hattons update new stock arriving and more importantly, delete old stock which has sold.
I never forget (Though not internet related) seeing a certain model that I wanted being advertised from one retailer. "Ooh. They still have one in stock!" I thought. I rang them up and they had sold out ages ago. Do you know that they kept the same advert up for a year and a half advertising the same DMU after I had that phone call! I won't say the retailer, but to me there was no excuse as they had ample time to amend their advert.
Hattons are not like that as they always make an attempt to keep up with things.

[b308]

The pre-owned section is utterly awful, all ability to refine what is displayed has vanished and the items are a muddled mess.

At least you have the advantage of knowing what scale your prospective purchases fall into, those of us like Mountain and I who model narrow gauge have no chance, especially if you model in HO scale (NG or SG!!), TT or G1, 2 or 3!

[Mountain]

There was a different colour for 0n30 items if I remember correctly. The main issue I found with 7mm narrow gauge is that various retailers websites dont have a specific narrow gauge section and normally put them in their 0 gauge section so things can be difficult to find even though they may have an excess of unsold interesting stock. Also, if one tries to type in 0-16.5 or 7mm narrow gauge into a search engine on the retailers website, rarely do you get anything specific to the scale and gauge you are looking for.

Another issue with retailers is if I asked on the offchance "Do you happen to have anything in 7mm narrow gauge?", it is surprising how many dont seem to even know what it is. When one has a reply like " Is that Hornby?" you take it as a "No".
One retailer who used to be a Hornby and Peco stockist down my way was puzzled when I asked him if he sold Peco point motors. He looked at me daft. I asked if he could get them in. (It was cheaper for me to pay the top retail price locally then ordering them in and paying the postage costs if I only wanted the odd one or two). He said he would ask the Peco sales rep the next time he calls in.
The next time I passed I called in and he said that he would not be stocking them because no one locally uses them and the sales rep said that only professional modellers used them. The funny thing was that in his display of Peco products had a full range including catch points, a three way point and a double slip!

[b308]

It took Ebay over a decade in the UK to get a narrow gauge specific section, even though there'd been one in Germany and Austria for years. So i suppose it's a bit early to expect Hattons to have a separate section for us NG-ers!

[mahoganydog]

Extensive experimentation with blocking and unblocking elements of the site reveals that java scripts from 3rd parties need to be enabled for the new site to work correctly.

Some of the 3rd party scripts were trackers which shouldn't be there at all. Old site had ten scripts most of which were common ones while the new has twenty one many of them trackers which I've blocked from running.

NOT impressed.

Jim

[Byegad]

I've just looked and it's still better than Railsofsheffield, although anything worse than Rails' site is hard to imagine.

[GWR_fan]

The new site is OK for me although it has finally been programmed to attract the 10% GST applicable to Australian purchasers. The Rails website menu selection is a disaster and I have not purchased anything from that store since they introduced it and highly doubt that I ever will.

[Byegad]

I had another look and I take back my previous comments. It's worse than railsofsheffield.

As the Rails site meant I spent most of my cash with Hattons I can almost hear the Rails people rubbing their hands together.

[D605Eagle]

I wonder if the people who make this websites ever actually use them? Rails is just shocking, Hattons is just a ridiculous joke now. I wonder if they are regretting it because I'm sure they are getting tons of complaints.

[GWR_fan]

I recall when Rails had their new website up for test and comments. I voiced a few issues with the search menu and the way the system behaved when looking at a particular item and the system returning to the beginning of the search rather than returning to the page where the initial item was expanded. Also the pathetic search menu definition boxes on the left side of the screen to define your search requirements. There are no instructions as to how to actually use the system. I commented that the search should be self explanatory and not the stupid method of blindly ticking multiple boxes. This lead to a very frustrating experience when searching say the available bargains on offer. Nothing came of my comments as the website behaves the same as the original test site. They lost me as a "loyal" customer as I switched over to the Hattons site after the frustration experienced with the new Rails site.

The Hattons site is OK although the ability to define items in order of ascending prices (cheapest to most expensive) and how recently the items were listed such as new and old listings is missed. From the experience with Rails I believe little will be done to improve the Hattons site. It is odd that the web designer will run his system numerous times and yet be oblivious to the obvious faults in the design (tunnel vision).

When testing a site the individual who "tests" the site should not be either the web developer or an IT savvy person. A site needs to be tested by some one with little to no IT experience as these people actually see the "faults" the designer missed.

[b308]

I wonder if the people who make this websites ever actually use them? Rails is just shocking, Hattons is just a ridiculous joke now. I wonder if they are regretting it because I'm sure they are getting tons of complaints.

I wonder? As a guide, how many people on here have actually complained to either Hattons or Rails specifically about how bad their site is?

I'll start it off, I haven't, I'll just live with it... (Typical British reaction, I suppose!)