never thought I’d type one of these messages…

the CRC site was down for me so my money went to Wiggle.

(oh the shame!……….I don’t drive an Audi though)

My biggest prob with the CRC website is loooooooooong loaaaaading times:

Doesn’t seem to show what’s in stock very clearly anymore.

Reminds me of the ‘new’ autotrader site…

They lost my custom. They don’t seem too keen on winning it back.

@Jamie looks like a case sensitive search issue

Looks like this is going to do a great service to the Australian bike shops & Tax office – we have crap internet 🙂

We have new computers at work. Most websites are fine. CRC now takes ages to load any pages, menus are dreadfully slow, like we have a dial up connection! Was using it last night and I gave up in the end as it wouldn’t load anything and either crashed or I got the “oops sorry we messed up” screen.

If I were CRC I would be looking for the person who designed it with a set of Bombers. Absolutely hopeless.

I have a very new Win 8 PC, fast broadband (100 meg) and its slow for me but very useable. Not enough to lose my custom.

They need to do some optimisation, and fast as I have no doubt it does effect most people but it also does work as well.

I hope that makes sense as I have had a few shandy’s

Im trying to search/find a seat clamp from my android phone. Nope. Tried through google yep. Click through = blank screen etc

I don’t understand why anyone would switch to a new website without testing it properly before releasing it, especially if a large proportion of your sales are over the web. Just doesn’t make sense, so why would any retailer do this?

bellefied – Member
I don’t understand why anyone would switch to a new website without testing it properly before releasing it, especially if a large proportion of your sales are over the web. Just doesn’t make sense, so why would any retailer do this?

how do you test 3000 people connecting ?

I thought it was much ado about nothing but having just tried to kook for a helmet fir the other half it broke. The homepage loaded fast enough, the first drop down menu was slow to load, filtered, looked at one helmet clicked the back button and got a black screen. No amount if F5 could get it going again.

Getting rid of the roll over stock levels is a pain. I used to use it loads to save clicking on every product.

This must be costing them money. The old site was not sexy but it was easy to use and worked. Oops.

The JPEG compression alone on some of the images is laughable! Particularly their own company logo and the 3 links in the header – free shipping, returns and exchange.

I dislike the overall design in general.

how do you test 3000 people connecting?

There are programs that can do this. Should be part of UAT (User Acceptance Testing) in a pre-production environment.

how do you test 3000 people connecting ?

Quite easily with Siege: Siege

To the guy who came on here on behalf of CRC, I am wondering out of interest, did this get outsourced and put live by externals or was it done internally? Either way – and I’m not saying this because it’s an online forum – that’s one of the worst website go lives I’ve ever seen. Both in terms of changes in design and core functionality issues including performance. For a company that is so heavily based on it’s website shipping internationally, you chose to go live with this website which you deemed fit for production use? For such a sophisticated internal picking system at your warehouse, I’m shocked and appalled at the lack of care and investment in your website which is key to your business success.

I am wondering out of interest, did this get outsourced and put live by externals or was it done internally?

I’m going for the tea lady.

At a guess I’d say they used a UK digital creative agency and then outsourced the build overseas.

Seen it done with several large sites – all the money is spent on the creative process and the numerous latte’s the designers crave for their brain farts. Then once all the money is burned sent it overseas to have it built on the cheap. Normally resulting in a build of this quality.

@CRC

Also lots of annoying little bugs like the brand filter on the left of the page being in no apparent order and several brands being listed twice with slight variations like “Mavic” and “Mavic 2013”.

Ta!

Michael@CRC – Member

Thanks guys, we wont be resting until this is sorted and you’re getting the shopping experience you deserve

Hah, I don’t think the average STW member is ready for the shopping experience they deserve Probably involves savage beatings.

The JPEG compression alone on some of the images is laughable! Particularly their own company logo and the 3 links in the header – free shipping, returns and exchange.

I dislike the overall design in general.

I wonder if they did that post launch in a hope to speed it up?

This is the best comparable website I´ve used: http://www.jensonusa.com/

It´s fast, easy to understand and use.
It seems to be what CRC were aiming for.
Just for kicks I checked the source code for Jenson vs. CRC´s main pages, wow, just wow.

@CRC
From an aesthetics point of view, if anyone involved reads this: Please fix the main drop down menus (MTB, Road etc)and have them cover the animated backgrounds underneath. It just looks messy and distracting.

It’s alright, I can use it, not all that tablet friendly IMO, but it’s a usable site (assuming you are using a reasonable broadband connection…

I think the speed lag some are finding is simply down to the amount of Graphics and the apparently more complicated menu system it needs to load, dare I say it, its the old “less is more” issue…

the old site was marginally Simpler to navigate (Plus it’s what people are used to), I’d have prefered it if the face lift had made it “cleaner” looking with less graphics and animated stuff, I also prefer list views for searches and field views (with smaller thumbnail images?) to these odd portrait 1:2 ratio Tiles that seem to load by default…

But it is just a comercial wesite people They’ve not executed anyone, no need to get so worked up…

That said:

How many runners need a Headset?

Just for kicks I checked the source code for Jenson vs. CRC´s main pages, wow, just wow.

Jenson achieve a homepage in a mere 227 lines of HTML, compared to CRC’s 5228

Jenson has more assets at 3.3mb compared to CRC’s (now) 2.6mb – and it still feels blisteringly fast in comparison.

Just had a present purchase to make…CRC or Wiggle….CRC or Wiggle – tried CRC – **** that! Wiggle got the sale.

Monthly sale figures are going to need a sharp intake of breath I’d have thought.

This doesn’t make pretty reading:

Jenson achieve a homepage in a mere 227 lines of HTML, compared to CRC’s 5228

Lordy…

OK I give up !
Speed of delivery and reliability have always been excellent but after two days I have failed to place an order.

Admittedly one skewer isn’t going to make much difference but it sounds like sales are being driven away.

Almost unusable on an iPhone 4 (and I prefer to browse sites using the non-mobile version as it’s usually better). On the plus side, you can filter by size which means I don’t spend my time clicking on clothes in the sale which turn out to be only XS or XL…

At a guess I’d say they used a UK digital creative agency and then outsourced the build overseas.

Seen it done with several large sites – all the money is spent on the creative process and the numerous latte’s the designers crave for their brain farts. Then once all the money is burned sent it overseas to have it built on the cheap. Normally resulting in a build of this quality.

I’m not sure. It looks like it’s been a cack-handed effort all the way through to me.

There’s obviously a fair bit of work that’s went into it, bolting on various bits and pieces – stuff that was on the existing website – but as already mentioned, it looks like any real user experience design has been forgotten about, which is the one thing they were winning at before – that and the prices.

Time and time again I’ve found myself browsing through the products on the CRC home page, purely because I’m bored and have some money burning a hole in my pocket. If I go there now I only see four products. Not really much of a choice! It has become your run of the mill Joe’s Cycles (no offence to any store named Joe’s Cycles!). An off-the-self ecommerce solution with some bolt on extras.

CRC always looked like a happy accident in the past. It was never a work of art, but work it did. Customers were invited to endless pages of discounted products, all easy to find and in your face. Despite it’s faults it offered a very good user experience. When I go to the home page now I just can’t be bothered to go any further. It’s no longer inviting. And I imagine that will hit sales hard.

And none of that even has anything to do with the technical side.

weeksy

how do you test 3000 people connecting ?
Really? You honestly think that website designers and builders don’t anticipate and test user peak traffic?

I reckon that the new website started off as a good idea but got swallowed up with everything the marketing / sales team wanted it to do and now its just too unwieldy to do its basic function, never mind everything else.

What they should do is strip out all the gimmicks, videos, etc and just go straight to basics, consolidate that then look to add the bells and whistles at a later date.

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/berg-blast-140-14-cosmetic-damage/rp-prod105247

Not quite what I was expecting (view in Firefox)…

Heh…

Isn’t this post just trying to get as much traffic as possible to their new site no? Thus letting us all know they have one. As such getting old eyes back on their stock.

Err – It’s a cack handed way of going about it, the site is unusable on a PS3.

It’s not a lot better for a lot of people on PC’s.

I wonder if the person who did the re-design is the same as that fella who came on here boasting that CRC were totally scam proof and that all the credit car fraud was nothing to do with CRC.

Iolo, I assume the email I’ve just received from crc apologising for the difficulties and with a 10 off 75 automatic voucher suggests not…

£10 off £50 would have been nicer 😡

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u0EL_u4nvw[/video]

Think it’s fallen / falling over again tonight. Hey ho.

wiggle or merlin it is then! not waiting for crc

Backup…..

Bring back the old one .. !

New one is cack and frustrating ….

(Just given up)