The NEW Bodybuilding.com Store: Your Feedback And Questions?

[admin]

Hello!

As you know, we recently re-designed our online store. We spent 18 months and millions of dollars to put in a completely new e-commerce platform. This includes front-end and back-end systems. It was a major development and business effort that launched a few weeks ago with only a few hours of downtime. Of course, there are bugs but we are squashing them in record time.

Why did we do it?

We constantly get feedback from YOU asking for new features. You want a better experience, more tools, better information, more ways to find products, personalization, time-saving features, more internationalization and localization, and much more. Instead of just buying new Ferraris or paying off our bookies, we put our money into new innovations to help you get in shape faster.

Our old system was very difficult to work with for updates like this.

Every change we made was based on feedback from you. Every page was designed with you in mind.

Here is a quick video and page that explains the major new features:

http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/our-new-features.html

Of course, with any change, not everything is perfect. Some features have been removed that were valuable to you (and can be added back). Some of our ideas may not be working out as intended.

I would like to spend the afternoon getting your feedback. What do you like? What do you not like? What is hard to find? What can be improved?

Please don't just say "it's awesome!" or "it sucks balls!". Please be specific. What exactly was difficult? What exactly was hard to find? What exactly is missing that you want added back?

I really appreciate your help!

Ryan DeLuca, CEO

[Marshall28]

I do like the fact Whey Cheap purchases are now checked out in the regular store.

[Brandoncyruss]

Remember when bb.com had low prices..... remember when you could take 10 percent off the buy 2 get 1 free.... remember why you stopped buying stuff from here:P

[SupremeMMA]

For the most part I like the look of the new store however there are a couple things that are an issue for me:

I would like to be able to scroll through a companies products without pictures. This should be a new sort option. This would allow me to have more products on a page and reduce the number of pages I have to scroll through, similar to the product list in the old store.

The way the cart handles the discounts is very confusing. If it's a buy 2 get 1 free deal then you see 3 items and the total price for that (not the discounted price). The discount is summed up in one total at the bottom of the page. If I have more than one deal in the cart, I don't know what I am paying for each.

[admin]

I do like the fact Whey Cheap purchases are now checked out in the regular store.

That was added by popular demand. =)

For the most part I like the look of the new store however there are a couple things that are an issue for me:

I would like to be able to scroll through a companies products without pictures. This should be a new sort option. This would allow me to have more products on a page and reduce the number of pages I have to scroll through, similar to the product list in the old store.

The way the cart handles the discounts is very confusing. If it's a buy 2 get 1 free deal then you see 3 items and the total price for that (not the discounted price). The discount is summed up in one total at the bottom of the page. If I have more than one deal in the cart, I don't know what I am paying for each.

I agree with you about having an option to scroll through without product pictures, and fitting more products on a page. That's a big issue right now and we are working to fix it quickly. This will also allow us to bring back the "price per gram" and "price per serving" sorting and data columns. Good idea!

As for discounts in the cart, I agree as well. It's completely ridiculous and confuses me as well. We will work on this right away.

[sunngodd]

The tables where I could sort by price per serving and see evrything on one page were very useful

[admin]

The tables where I could sort by price per serving and see evrything on one page were very useful

We are working on this as well. Should be back in the next few weeks!

[sloop]

How is it that wheycheap product prices change throughout the day?

For example, this morning the Cryoshock was $12.99 then jumped to $19.99 later on.

[YeBro]

I placed an order a week ago. Still no email confirming it has even been shipped. I do not like the new store.

edit: now on phone with customer service

[changemyoil66]

new layout is ok, just like anything new it takes time to get used to. Took me a while to find the promo code area. but now i know where it is so its ok.

[admin]

How is it that wheycheap product prices change throughout the day?

For example, this morning the Cryoshock was $12.99 then jumped to $19.99 later on.

Hmm... that's odd. I will check with the team right now.

I placed an order a week ago. Still no email confirming it has even been shipped. I do not like the new store.

We found in our research that sending packages costs too much, so our new store just accepts payments but does not fulfill the orders. It's much more profitable this way.

LOL. Obviously something is wrong. It could be that some bug caused your order to not go through, or it got stuck in the system. Very rare but we did have a few issues in the first few days. Please PM me your order number and/or name and e-mail address and I'll check it out immediately.

[BigNastyIsBack]

I wish you guys never switched to fedex. It really kills the service aspect of your website. I used to get packages insanely fast (with 2days) now it takes a week. Unfortunately, due to this and the increase of prices on this site - I order elsewhere most of the time.

[EntropyIncrease]

Please switch the product info pages back to how they were initially laid out.

I seriously doubt someone's complaint was 'move the pricing and nutrition info to the right side of the screen'.

Screen just doesn't flow like it should; people read left to right (at least for the majority of the people on this site) and the new way is just weird.

[Marshall28]

I would like to see BB.com add new products faster....It's been months and no XF LCP protein. It forces people to shop elsewhere if the want the latest and greatest products.

Sad but true.

[DanND33]

I don't like how the "Have a Promotional Code?" is somewhat hidden away on that page. What's the point of having to click it to open up the free text box to add the code? The freetext box should already be open and obvious so that people don't forget or have a difficult time finding it

How is it that wheycheap product prices change throughout the day?

For example, this morning the Cryoshock was $12.99 then jumped to $19.99 later on.

very good point here


EDIT: forgot to add that I laughed when I read you guys spent millions on the redesign

[Histrionics]

Why does the store banner claim lowest prices and fastest shipping when neither one is true any longer?

[or_yourlivingtodie]

Why does the store banner claim lowest prices and fastest shipping when neither one is true any longer?

lol, this.


you guys put "millions" into designing this new store?

good job wasting that money. you guys did an absolutely horrid job. everything is overcomplicated, any thought i had of bringing some business back to bb.com is out the window after seeing the new store..............looks like i'll continue to shop elsewhere

[strike8892]

2nd on lcp, also it would be great if genomyx was back in the store.

[Murderfox]

Prices have gone up, specials gone down (no use of coupons with b2g1 deals), shipping has become slower/more expensive, the time it takes to add new products has been ridiculous.

No hate, just my .2 cents.

[rhadam]

The search function is bunk. If I type in "green mag" I get 0 search results. I have to type out "green magnitude." Now this isn't a I'm lazy issue, its because if we recommend a product to someone and abbreviate it and then they search and can't find it...

Old layout was much easier to find products in my opinion.

[TruStatement]

I miss low prices and cheap/fast shipping

[Jeff the Repper]

I'd like to see all products from one supplier on one page. I don't care to have to go through pages to see the products available.

[or_yourlivingtodie]

and for what its worth............another planet just redid their webstore too......however, they did a very good job with it.

[Feem]

I wish you guys never switched to fedex. It really kills the service aspect of your website. I used to get packages insanely fast (with 2days) now it takes a week. Unfortunately, due to this and the increase of prices on this site - I order elsewhere most of the time.

THIS!!!

Please switch back to FEDEX . UPS really suck

[jphansen]

Your search isn't very helpful. For example, when looking for Universal Intra-Aid, searching these strings finds nothing:

"intra aid"
"intra"
"universal intra"

You guys hopefully capture search results that find nothing. I suggest manually going through, say, the top 100, and if your search engine doesn't include functionality to match these terms to the right items, setting up special rules for correct routing.

Or, if no results are found, do a more greedy search, such as ('%intra%' AND '%aid%') in your SQL.

I'd also like an easy to find B2G1 deals or other specials. I ended up doing a google search: site:www.bodybuilding.com "buy 2 get 1" for them, but it would be nicer if I didn't have to rely on Google to search your site.

Also the "clearance" and "sale" tags seem to be applied to regularly-priced items. Clearance has 33 pages of items: http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/clearance.htm. I'm not sure if you purposefully are misleading or it is in error, but if it's in error, that's something to fix.

[T1nshot]

Your search isn't very helpful. For example, when looking for Universal Intra-Aid, searching these strings finds nothing:

"intra aid"
"intra"
"universal intra"

You guys hopefully capture search results that find nothing. I suggest manually going through, say, the top 100, and if your search engine doesn't include functionality to match these terms to the right items, setting up special rules for correct routing.

Or, if no results are found, do a more greedy search, such as ('%intra%' AND '%aid%') in your SQL.

I'd also like an easy to find B2G1 deals or other specials. I ended up doing a google search: site: "buy 2 get 1" for them, but it would be nicer if I didn't have to rely on Google to search your site.

Also the "clearance" and "sale" tags seem to be applied to regularly-priced items. Clearance has 33 pages of items: I'm not sure if you purposefully are misleading or it is in error, but if it's in error, that's something to fix.

Please fix the "clearance" problems. Took me 2 days to find Lean Xtreme.

[sloop]

Your search isn't very helpful. For example, when looking for Universal Intra-Aid, searching these strings finds nothing:

"intra aid"
"intra"
"universal intra"

You call it by it's correct name, but search for it by the wrong one?

Search "intra-aid" and it pops right up.

[Synapsin]

I like the new addition by having wheycheap go to the cart here, but the store is absolutely awful to navigate. I've put items in my cart and have had it disappear, it's hard to search for items, I keep getting articles when I look for products with a certain ingredient, and I miss the option to show products with the highest amount of the ingredient etc. Wheycheap as others have noted has also been increasing the price of products as the day goes on, and it happens pretty much every day.

Most important of all, I don't like that bb.com doesn't carry all of the products some brands here have. I think I can reasonably state that the site has lost lots of orders because a competitor might have had all the items people wanted and bb.com had all of them except for one. Not trying to sound like I'm ranting, I've shopped here for years, I'm just being honest.

[WhirlyBird]

When will you have all of our SNS products listed in the store? As of now there are only 14 items and we have released at least 14 more months ago.

Faster you can get our products loaded onto your store, the less likely someone is going to find our products at other places

[jphansen]

You call it by it's correct name, but search for it by the wrong one?

Search "intra-aid" and it pops right up.

Actually, I searched "intra aid" at first--I forgot about the hyphen. Then I looked at the Universal brand list and found it there. Then I thought of some example terms that many other search engines would find it under.

As a web developer, its my job to make it as easy as possible for somebody to find where they want to go on a website, even if it doesn't make a lot of sense and even if it's stupid. Try misspelling or partially completing search terms on Google.