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bill937ca

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Bob,

 

They're rebuilding the website.  It seems they are doing away with Kato/Tomix/MA sections.  The new structure will be Japanese Rail with sub-menus and World for international rail.

 

Most of the Japanese pages are now up.  It looks like it's going to take some getting  used to.

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan

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Hmm, looks like they've got some of the English-language stuff converted to the new format now, but not all.

 

The big problem I see is that some of those categories are going to be huge.  They really need a method to winnow down the display (like subordinate checkboxes for "show these manufacturers only" the way big sites like Amazon do).  Still, I'll reserve judgement until I get some time to play with the finished version.  It was always hard to find specific kinds of things that weren't by Kato/Tomix/MicroAce, and maybe this will make that easier.

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Yup,

 

Take commuter trains for example - 630 items over 31 pages! ... and there's still more Tomix stuff to move into that page too!

 

The search engine is still the same old useless thing it was.

 

For me, this is one of the worst changes that HS has ever made, apart from killing the discount margin, that is!

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan

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I only want to see selected manufacturers, like it was before cause I knew exactly which brand they were from and seeing if they were selling them still, now I have to get use to this new set-up :(

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I really dislike this new layout and search on Hobby Search. It really makes it impossible to browse if you just wanna take a look at different things.

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I only want to see selected manufacturers, like it was before cause I knew exactly which brand they were from and seeing if they were selling them still, now I have to get use to this new set-up :(

 

You can sort by manufacturer once you click on a category, but it leaves you to sort through the whole category whether that be Electric Car (EMU) (Express Train), Electric Car (EMU) (Commuter Train)  or whatever. to find your manufacturer. Not really an improvement.

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I can see the logic in re-categorising HS offerings but I would put something like

Steam Engine >

Kato

Tomix

MicroAce

Kawai

 

EMU

Kato

Tomix

MicroAce

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When I search for anything on the HS site, I first select 'Model Train' and then type some search words.

 

If you type 'tsubame' it will display 25 products of any scale, any manufacturer, any class of service (shinkansen, ltd express etc.)

 

If you type 'tsunami shinkansen' it will display only shinkansen related items from any manufacturer (5 items)

 

If you type 'tsubame shinkansen Kato' it will only display the 2 items Kato made of that model.

 

You can also search for things like item code, scale etc. you can type the search words in any order.

 

For simple browsing the old system was better, I agree with that.

 

It's not amazon.com but it's not that bad either. Just imagine the hobby without HS!

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Try this at the Model Railway Exhibition got asked where is the tsunami affected Module on your layout? I said to them in reply do you know what tomorrow is? (lookiing at him very sternly) He apologised for his comment and said maybe his comment was a little too soon to be said and walks off.

 

Meanwhile with the HSJ website, it is a bit difficult to get to understand what they have dne but I am stil lable to find certain items with ease.

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2012/04/07 Hobby Search will be unable to process shipment on the 10th April 2012 (GMT+9) due to a layout change of our storage and shipping center. We apologize for the delay and inconvenience that this will cause,and greatly appreciate your understanding.

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Gotta say hobby search's new web structure sucks. After years of using it in the Los structure I knew where everything was. The new structure requires a lot more screens to sort thru or more searches. I wish it could just go back. Perhaps better for a newbie who only knows the types of things they want, but if you know what you want it's not as fast as It use to be. I particularly miss the tomytec sections...

 

Sad Jeff

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Yeah, I'm still having problems finding things I know they have, much less browsing for interesting stuff they might have.  The old system had its flaws, and could have been improved. But they really managed to screw up a not terribly bad system.

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I just hope they get together with Corning....

 

 

....so I can see their stuff in the bathroom mirror....

 

ROFL ... Corning better not adopt the HS menu structure.

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan

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Gotta say hobby search's new web structure sucks. After years of using it in the Los structure I knew where everything was. The new structure requires a lot more screens to sort thru or more searches. I wish it could just go back. Perhaps better for a newbie who only knows the types of things they want, but if you know what you want it's not as fast as It use to be. I particularly miss the tomytec sections...

 

Sad Jeff

 

100% Jeff.

 

I'm going to email them about it.

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan

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This is probably the why.

 

2012/04/19 We have prepared a site for mobile devices.

 

For those using smartphones, you may have already discovered that

accessing our website http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/ automatically transfers you to our mobile site.

So if you have a smartphone, please feel free to access our site with it!

 

Also, Credit Card payment is now available for the Smartphone site too,

so please feel free to use this too!

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/info_details_e.asp

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