John- why not address a lot of negative comments and revise the Marstar website?

I placed an order for a restricted firearm with them on Monday. I know that John and his crew will find me the lowest price on shipping possible so I don't even ask for a shipping quote. I just tell them the item I want and charge my card what it costs. I trust John completely in that regard not to screw me over.

Now if the BC CFO would get off his ass and complete the transfer so John could ship my gun out before the weekend that would be great :p
 
The site is not hard to get around. A couple visits and you can catch on.

Moving the volume that Marstar does would require a permanent person to do updates, and the time it takes to import some items means that they will show as out of stock for a long time.

One solution that would make ME happy would be to see an "updated on" date at the top so if I see something as being out of stock I know it is actually out of stock and not a matter of the site not being updated for a long time.
 
Gatehouse said:
Half the online shopping carts I have used are great. The other half do frustrating things like rejecting PO boxes, using a shipper I don't want, not answering questions, putting in stuff I don't want etc etc...

I have a telephone.

I don't need an online shopping cart to order form Marstar.

I'm not actually scared about calling and speaking to a human and ordering a gun; I don't need to stay hidden online to do it.
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Amen brother.
 
In response to my comment that there was a consistent theme among posters that the Marstar website needed work, John wrote in part, on page 1, post #3 of this thread:
johnone said:
..."I agree with you, we are looking at many solutions....
John
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Now if John thinks improvements are necessary... enough said.
 
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johnone said:
SHOPPING CART ON OUR SITE;
Let me put forth one point we are considering....
you place your purchases in your cart, add the total, and select shipping....

As an example you stipulate Canada Post, which would cost X....

Fine but at the present time the invoicing dept is always on the lookout for the cheapest shipping rate, would you want the computer making that decision ?

If you are ordering ammo as one client today did, the ware a spread of $750. on the shipping from the highest to lowest rate, would you want the computer making the selection ?

IF this is what our customers want, this is what we can do.... Less work for the invoicing staff....
John
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This has actually has come a really long way in the last while.

I've been involved in several web development projects that required to be able to collect realtime rate quotes from various service providers based on source, destination, dimensions, weight, insurance, etc and in turn providing accurate rate quotes based on that.

Once you have this information on hand, it's trivial to automatically select the cheapest service provider, or leave it to the customer to choose a specific provider based on preference.

I'd be more then happy to answer any questions you have regarding this, or other web development or e-commerce questions.

D.
 
drache said:
mine still hasn't even had the transfer started :(
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well so as mine well they must be very busy.
but the gentleman over the phone say that i should receive my .22 in 5 to 7 business days so im going to be VERY quite till then... still 5 more days to wait...
 
i like the "not in stock" message, at least if the item has not been in stock for years you have a good start on what the item cost years ago helping you out when you find it used on ee
 
jt_trouble said:
A shopping cart option would be a very good idea, I rather have that then filling out a form and faxing or emailing it (security reasons) when it comes to my credit card information. At least this way you could tabulate taxes, shipping and overall cost of your purchase before hitting the send button.
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Most people seem to have hit on the little things on the Marstar website that are confusing or counterproductive, or lacking in some way
such as
- the sold items lingering forever (with no indication IF or WEN they may or may not be back)
-dead links to web pages that don't exist (the drop down for the vz-58 under the rifles page was dead forever..lol)
- an overly complex main menu
-I love the shopping cart idea!
agreed x2 handy on a site like Marstar where you could easily walk out with carts full of stuff, and a hundred little knick knacks (and some really big ones :)
other than that, the site was pretty good as is. LOTS of info that other sites don't have. A WIDE variety of inventory, including movie guns the rest of us can only dream about :). LOW LOW LOW prices on stuff we all love and use.

John please take the ideas of the masses and serve us up your great stuff in a way that we may more easily buy it all from you. Maybe even revive the pre-order, but in an online only fashion. A person could pre-order on the web page and see the status of the purchase including where they are in line, and approximate date of arrival, which could be updated accordingly.. maybe even generate email updates for all the "are we there yet" types... :)

I like the pre order. I don't want to miss about 4-5 guns you have coming in in the future. Please give us the pre-order. Maybe only for priviliged clients? We could sign in to your website so you know who is who, even if we use online name. Just an idea anyway.

Thanks for the awesome stuff
 
As posted in "Why the sold list?" thread:
.30/06 FTW said:
They updated the lists! Good job John for taking our suggestions.
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True enough- it is great!

Another great step would be to remove items that will never be re-stocked or offered again. Then it'll be possible to get a picture of what's actually available!
 
Yep. The only reason I dont buy from them is the fact that you got to email them instead of having a shopping cart and a self checkout...

They need to get their website up to the 21st century... Its lame...
 
zelly said:
i like the "not in stock" message, at least if the item has not been in stock for years you have a good start on what the item cost years ago helping you out when you find it used on ee
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so do I, saves me a lot of cash...
 
I you don't like it don't uses it, really who cares there's dealers who ship the day you order and there's dealers who ship once a week or twice, some have easy web sits some don't.

We are consumers and the best way to send the messages is with your wallet. I shop where they ship fast and have easy web pages.

its a free market place
 
tangospike99 said:
I you don't like it don't uses it, really who cares there's dealers who ship the day you order and there's dealers who ship once a week or twice, some have easy web sits some don't.

We are consumers and the best way to send the messages is with your wallet. I shop where they ship fast and have easy web pages.

its a free market place
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You're quite right- ultimately, who cares? It's a website, although judging by the passion from some folks, seems like it's the most important thing in their lives!

But it does have a LOT of interesting stuff-it'll be nice when it's easier to navigate.

Just to reiterate, in post 3 of this thread, John answered "...it seems that there's a pretty consistent theme in a lot of would be customers' posts: the Marstar website needs work...." by writing:
"I agree with you, we are looking at many solutions.... "

So it seems John is in agreement that improvements are needed and is taking some of his customers' (or would be customers' )suggestions and acting on them.

And let's face it, ultimately John calls the shots at Marsatar.

Do I figure John's going to redo his website just for me? Heck no, but getting back to post 3, he obviously does think it needs work. And looking at the rest of the thread, there are a lot of other customers who also think it needs improvement.

In the meantime, for those folks who think the site's perfect as is, more power to you, glad the site works for you.
 
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