Official Luthiers Forum!

https://www.lmii.com

Brad


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Well, that's good news, but they went all modern on us with the website. I looked for a couple items I've ordered several times from them before and had to do some hunting to find them. There's going to be a learning curve for the new site, at least for me.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Hmmm, the new site is a bit painful to go through. The density of information is horribly reduced, so finding anything will take time. I do see that they are working toward a maintainable site. Once set up they can add and remove products without modifying the pages. I am sure I can find a product using the left side bar filters I want but I am not so sure I would browse for products i didn't know I wanted.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

I agree with both these points. After playing around with the new site a bit, I think it works ok for finding one-off items like specific tools or for items for which there are only a few variant options. Still, there's way too much clicking through multiple pages for my liking. For other things like purfling, tuners, saddle or nut blanks, or inlay materials which have a significant number of choices, it sucks IMO.

Take purfling for example. On the previous site ALL the info about the different puflings they sell were on a single page. You could quickly scan down the line item list and instantly see the all the purfling configurations/patterns and dimensions available and their prices. Now, every single purfling has its own entry and they are spread over 4 pages. Only some of those entries include the dimensional information so you have to click through to the individual detail pages and scroll down to a table to find that info. Argh! and then navigate back a level to look at other options. Sure, it's possible to use the filters on the first purfling to narrow down the options, but that's a bunch of clicking that was completely unnecessary on the old site. In addition, using filters greatly reduces the chance of coming across something you didn't know was an option you might be interested in. At the risk of sounding curmudgeonly, my first take on the new site is give me back the old site.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

I checked out the new site and I've got to say I like it. I'm not by any stretch of the imagination a computer guy. I like the "compare" feature. No fee free shipping should appeal to many. I live 10 min. From LMI so I always will call my orders. Great company.

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Brad Hall
Mystic Dawg Guitars

The free shipping got my attention. Often I've done the StewMax thing simply because I have the free shipping option. Now I've got a choice and just made an order from LMI this morning. Since they just remodeled their website which is a big undertaking I'm ok with giving them some time to get it tweaked so it's more convenient to use. In general I usually know what I'm looking for so it shouldn't be an issue although I can see the difficulty if you're trying to browse a number of items such as bindings.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I was checking out the Lmii go-bar deck that jordangatenby posted about recently. I'm pretty sure it was $160. Not surprisingly it's now going for $172.00. We are still paying for shipping. It's never free...

M

Yikes. I also went to log in so I could look at my order history to see what I've paid in the past for items. You have to re-register and, from what I can tell, the order history is no longer accessible.

So, I went to my email. The last order I made was:

Plan, tenor ukulele - Antes - PL77 - $12.50

Acrylic template, tenor ukulele - SPT17 - $35.65

Those items are now $14.45 and $41.20.


I'm actually more sad to lose my order history than anything else.

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There is no free lunch, of course.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Yikes! That can start to add up. I always made sure that I had a bunch of items on my order to justify the flat rate shipping. I think I'd rather have that. And agreed on the Order History. I hope they are able to port that over from the old site.

-T

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Tony Thatcher
Bozeman, Montana

Yep that seems to be the trade off. You can no longer save money on shipping by buying items together but now you don't have to wait to buy to justify shipping. That may be better for some and worse for others. For LMI, they may loose out on some extra sales that get put on orders because "I'm ordering anyway so why not get my money's worth," but will likely gain sales that would have waited for another reason to order, then never being ordered. . .

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Ya gotta love competition.

That new site is a breath of fresh air compared to the clunky old one imho.

I saw Steve Denvir ask about Canada on Facebook. Higher prices, no free shipping? Hopefully they plan some kind of discount for our friends up north.

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Chris from LMI here!
Thanks for the feedback. We appreciate it very much. For everyone, including us, there is some getting used to. But rest assured, the changes we made were to specifically address the problems people had (with the old site) browsing for and finding the stuff they need. I encourage everyone to look over this short video if you are having any trouble.
https://youtu.be/BCSXKgdqQQg
Our other main goal was to improve the information and photos for all the products. Enjoy!
Price increases? Yes, some, but keep in mind that we have not done an increase like this in a long while and even now, we are competitive.
Free shipping in the US? That's just gravy! Chris

Here's what the single old LMI purfling web page looked like. Compare this with the new website's initial purfling page: https://www.lmii.com/402-purfling

I think it's pretty clear which one gets you to the purfling you are looking for faster.



The top of that same old purfling page also had a nice summary/overview of their purfling offerings which included some very practical information. That summary is now missing in action on the new site.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

One more example for me is fretwire. The old site had really good information that allowed me to find the fretwire I needed for the application. I never remember all of the specs but always read this is the fretwire typically used for such and such application. I did see that I could click into each product and see the same info. But take EVO for example I would have to click into 1-11 products before I found "This is easily our most popular gold fretwire and is used mostly for steel string, but is often used on classical and electric guitars as well. This wire is similar to Dunlop's #6230 wire." Maybe you can get that sort of description in a flyover pop up when going over the product photo.


I am supportive LMI updating their website and I know and appreciate the amount of work required just to get it where it is now.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

I work in IT and can tell you, change is seldom welcomed! After a while you’ll grow used to it.

Chris, will the order history be retrievable somehow? I like to be able to look back at what I ordered for a specific project.

Even if just an opportunity to dump it out to a spreadsheet.

Thanks for the clarification on the price changes.


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Argh, they added one of those terrible "sign up for our newsletter" popups. I sometimes tolerate popups if it's the only way a site can get funding to continue its existence, but why would you torment your customers with an un-paid advertisement for the very web site they're looking at?

Just one more quick suggestion, if Chris is still here... Coming from someone who is 20 years in IT and web design I definitely like the more modern mega-menu at top but it would be better if to drop down the menu it was a hover rather then a click. So for example when I hover over 'parts' it drops the menu down.

Also a sorting option to add more items to each page would be nice too. Right now when you click on an items page you see either 9 or 12 items. An option to see 36 or something like that would be nice, that way you don't have to go to the next page all the time.

I like how site map is in the footer.

Overall though imho it's much better. The old site was more of a 'back end' design. Some people will really like that but most people don't.

I can't seem to find the serviced fretboard section.....

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Tony Thatcher
Bozeman, Montana

Why is it that when changes cause reduced usability and functionality the stock response is so often "after a while you'll grow used to it"? As a paying customer I don't see why I should just have to grow used to it. Seems like the proper response would be something like "ok, we'll fix that problem".

The new site certainly does look more more modern, but it appears that the modern look was a higher priority than functionality for the customer. Changes that require the customer to make more clicks to get to the same place is a web design fail IMO.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

I meant the custom slotted /radiused boards.

I found it- there video shows how.

There seemed to be a glich in it-it wouldn't let me add a radius to it.....

Change only affects existing customers, obviously, but you have to understand that a business has to cater toward new customers as well, the future. The old website didn't follow any standards in modern web design, the new one does. Familiarity across platforms makes it easier for customers, perhaps not us who are used to the clunky old way that we got accustomed to doing. It's like someone saying that they used to love DOS because it was so easy to use. And it was, but give it to some one today and... ewe.