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Post by Kumdoalan on Apr 1, 2012 14:06:30 GMT
Never-mind what their swords may or may not be like....I dont know enough about their swords to evaluate them here. But what I do know about is that the Handmade Sword website is the best sword selling website I have yet found on the web. It's so good to visit that website, that i actually think it should be seen as the "example" for other sword sellers in this market to study the layout and learn how it's done correctly. the website is so easy to use...it works with you to find a sword in whatever price range you got, as well as type of steel. the SEARCH function works like a charm. Here is an example of a sword i just picked from their site at random. www.handmadesword.com/663.htmlNotice how you get great photos and how there is just a wealth of information tossed at the potential buyer....all this is the sign that someone who knew the mind of a sword buyer was in charge of website design... there are videos for individual swords in many cases, as well as small reviews by past owners of each sword. I dont know much about the swords they sell, but I can not find fault with their website!
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Post by Jussi Ekholm on Apr 1, 2012 16:16:39 GMT
Well this has been always my favorite sword by them, Fully Hand Forged Clay Tempered Razor Sharp Japanese Tachi Gunto Sword #501 and only for 17,500$...
Heh, joking aside, onto serious matters, as shady sellers have been discussed recently. Never been a fan of that company, and personally I would never put over 200$ for their swords.
Sure they have fairly nice pictures and information, and most likely some reviews are real but there are just some that can not be accepted as genuine ones.
Bob from San Jose, CA bought 17,500$ production sword, he was perfectly happy for the product, but he just didn't happen to write a single word why it was good.
The layout is pretty nice as well as the color theme. Navigation works pretty well. So like you said website is nice but personally for me it wouldn't matter if it would be blank white page filled with text and pictures if the product would be good. But I agree good website desing will most likely get you customers and they've executed it pretty well.
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Post by Kumdoalan on Apr 1, 2012 16:36:12 GMT
Yes, I think the Handmade Sword website is by far and away the best I have yet seen.
The fact is, I have went to a ton of different websites over the last month looking for 2 swords in my price range , and the Handmade Swords website is the only one I felt was designed by adults.
All the other sites are , well, to be honest all the other sites at best could be described as "amateurish"
It's as if the many websites were designed by people who dont have any experience at all in modem web design.
I love the way the left hand side of the screen there has a product listing that lets you know whats for sale at a glance. Even with the 100s of swords that have offered you can zero-in on a type of sword you are interested in with just one or two clicks.
Thats user-friendly....thats how it's done!
I also love the use of videos and how you can click on images to so big blow-ups of parts of the sword you are interested in.
I wish, I really do wish that the people that run other sword selling website would take a look at how Handmade swords has done it right....
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Post by Deleted on Apr 1, 2012 16:43:10 GMT
Yeah, honestly I couldn't care less about their website design if they don't sell good products. Though they have a lot of pictures the information seems a bit lacking. The $18,000 "tachi gunto" are suspicious as well. The only information is that the blade is 1095 steel, differentially hardened, the fittings are brass, and it weighs almost four pounds. The issues with their other swords have already been noted in other threads, ito doesn't alternate even on their most expensive katana. Cheap fittings.
They're going to need more than that to justify a price tag that high... Seriously, I could get a papered nihonto in full mounts for less than $18,000. Or a house full of chinatanas similar to the ones that they sell.
So yeah, the website is okay but the fact that it's official looking will just trap more people that didn't do their research before buying.
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Post by Opferous on Apr 1, 2012 16:50:11 GMT
Hm, looks like the just used the basic Store Builder tool with Yahoo E-Commerce and inserted a bit of their own art. Probably most sellers have somewhat less streamlined sites because, with our industry, the lower our costs the better and so free e-Commerce solutions are used like Zen Cart, OpenCart or WP e-Commerce. Yahoo E-Commerce is something like $300+ a year for the most basic plan, if I remember correctly.
It is nice that Handmade Sword does take a lot of photos though. Makes me wish I had a proper photo studio.
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Post by Kumdoalan on Apr 1, 2012 16:58:38 GMT
Im only talking about the web design...LOL
I find the web design of all the other sword-selling websites to be very lacking .
It's like the guy who is designing such sites has no clue what he needs to do to bring the visitor to the sword he will buy.
that's what i think is missing in a lot of websites....this ability to bring together a person to the sword they were seeking as fast as possible.
I went to one website and even if you click on the right place you end up reading a book worth of unrelated text before you even find the sword you were there to look at. By then after so much reading and scrolling the seller is lucky to even sell any such swords.
I think that a good website should make it easy as pie to find at a glance the sword you were interested in.
An example would be doing a search for a "Folded red tanto" Now Im not sure how long that search would take a person at other websites, but on the Handmade Sword site you enter into the SEARCH box and bang, you are looking at their collection of Folded Red Tanto See one you like, click on it and bang" you are looking at it in detail....
No need to read about other things first in order to dig your way to a red tanto for sale.....just click-bang and you are there.
Clearly the designer of this site knows what they are doing
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Post by Kumdoalan on Apr 1, 2012 16:59:26 GMT
I sure wish this would catch on then......
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Post by stickem on Apr 1, 2012 17:51:01 GMT
As someone who just started looking for katanas within the last two weeks, I'll tell you one of the reasons I initially chose to try Handmade Swords was because of their easy to browse inventory and clean website design, with lots of photos to see what you are getting into. I agree it is laid out better than the other sites I bumped into in the discovery process.
That said, when I think about the sheer volume of swords they offer on their site, it makes me wonder whether they are into volume to the point their business is all about quantity rather than quality...
For instance, the nice sword I finally ended up ordering is a Bugei that I have to wait 6-9 months for, rather than Handmade Swords off-the-shelf, mid-range-$ katana. While I freely confess I've never actually held a Bugei or a Handmade Sword in my hands before, there is something comforting about knowing a sword is made in smaller quantities and that the demand for it is high enough that production runs sell out rather quickly.
One thing is for sure, the marketing people at Handmade are as good as anyone. You can't Google, Amazon, or Ebay Japanese swords without bumping into some of their products.
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Post by Opferous on Apr 1, 2012 18:37:16 GMT
By all means, larger retailers should be able to afford a decent e-Commerce solution that looks good and is simple to use. For smaller ones though, it's sometimes a bit hard to justify the cost when that sixty to a hundred dollars a month could be used to pay for customer service time or even be used to lower product prices a little to stay competitive. A lot of the smaller guys in the industry are just scraping by as it is.
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Post by Deepbluedave on Apr 1, 2012 20:38:08 GMT
Site looks nice, just wondering how many of those 18,000.00 dollar swords they sell....anyone here bought one yet, if so please review it as one sentence seems a bit sparse for 18k.
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Post by ineffableone on Apr 1, 2012 23:18:27 GMT
I would say I find one major flaw in the website design. While I do like the general feel and look I think having reviews and previously viewed come before the sword stats is a poor design. I often don't notice the stat info as you have to scroll down to the end to find them. They should be up with the pictures prominently displayed. Then after pictures and stats finally the reviews and previously viewed. Other sites have done this much better. www.musashiswords.com/ has a decent set up, though not as many pictures and less glossy enticing a website in general, but easy to navigate. www.trueswords.com/ Has a decent set up, and has some pretty easy navigation, though is filled with movie prop and other SLOs that you have to wade through. Their description page for the swords is pretty decent though. www.swordnarmory.com/ is pretty good navigation too, though again a bit of SLOs to wade through they do make it easy to get to mushashi or other particular sword manufactures. www.kultofathena.com/ also another good site, with easy navigation, set up different than the others listed, it focuses on showing nice thumbnails for you to look through. It has some easy sorting functions and a decent search ability. Now the site I purchased my sword from www.st-sword.com/ Which has some nice function, description is the default when you visit a sword's page but then they have a button to see more pictures with a large amount of pictures to look through. A very nice visually appealing site that is well laid out and has easy ability to navigate. Though when I first visited I had trouble using firefox browser with it (the buttons wouldn't work for me with that browser) and was the first contact I had with that vendor. Letting them know firefox browser didn't work with their site. It was fixed shortly after my pointing it out to them. There are plenty of very nice visually appealing sites out there. www.zhisword.com/ has a great layout also, and quite easy to navigate. I do think some sites could use a serious remodel, some sites are quite difficult to navigate and worse don't prominently telly you prices. www.sinosword.com/ for example doesn't telly you the prices for swords easily. Which I imagine has them loose a lot of business since the customer who has to search to find out what a sword will cost to buy is one who already knows of the vendor and understands this process must be navigated to get to the end. First time sword buyers would likely get frustrated and go elsewhere with easier pricing. Fed Lohman of www.japanese-swords.com/index.htm is another one who actually refuses to do paypal wedsite based transactions and has a difficult site to navigate. If he didn't have such amazing services and products his resistance to a decent website would have put him out of business. However people know he is a bit grumpy and anti tech but amazing with sword restoration and repair and sells items you could not find anywhere else at decent prices. His is an example of a site made intentionally difficult that surmounts this by amazing quality of goods and services. His reputation overcomes the poor web presence. Another site similar in difficult navigation but has a good reputation www.japaneseswordsltd.comSo some sites while not the easiest to navigate have built a reputation in the sword community and surpased their poor web presence with a community who goes to them for quality and dependability. All that glitters is not gold, and often websites with more flash and "curb" appeal are hiding deficiencies in actual products. Many of the most respected sword sites aren't laid out very well, and don't have great pictures and navigation. Yet they still thrive. Yes Handmade has a decent website design though as I pointed out I do feel a flaw in the sword page design listing reviews and previously viewed before the stats for a sword. In this other sites have done much better, so I would say no Handmade does not reach the best site design.
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Post by Kumdoalan on Apr 2, 2012 0:02:07 GMT
I actually like the way that before you get into the dry, nitty-gritty details of a sword that first you get to read the reviews of a sword.
I see the point in doing the layout this way as it builds interest in the sword before you even know much about it!
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Post by lamebmx on Apr 2, 2012 1:17:06 GMT
eh, my 2 cents, I like my web designs simple and plain. kinda like my crappy resume. i was too busy with contract work to focus on it. I want to buy sword from people that know swords, not people that know how to setup a sales website. most horrible would be namikawa. But with time and persistence it is well worth it in the end. Another crappy one is nihonzashi. Imagine the nerve of mixing up their product for sale with useful information. That being said, they were quick to respond, hooked me up over my mistake and host a boatload of good information. What other site has a obi's for sale right by the same link on a basic method to tie the obi? Great website, but pretty crappy from the sales perspective. Somewhat, as expected, there is an inverse relationship between ease of use and quality of products. Not to say its not worth shopping, but dont forget every penny spent says something. I want mine to say I support people that take the time to teach others, to make foreign products more accessible and even the great idea throwing a sword grab bag together for those paychecks I have a few bucks to blow. Wow, how off topic is that, your discussing the best website, when 2 of my fav's are really crappy. And lohmans site, sheesh, that about takes the cake for bad sales websites. Of course kumdoalan, we know you are just learning. With time you will grow to see the value, without an easy to manage website. For your reference: Nihonzashi: nihonzashi.com/Namikawa Heibei www.namikawa-ltd.co.jp/english/index.htmlFred Lohmans site: www.japanese-swords.com/
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Post by wolf_shade on Apr 2, 2012 13:00:33 GMT
Personally I prefer Kult of Athena. It's basic and to the point. Trueswords is too "busy" with way too much on screen at any given time. HandMadeSwords is similar, but not quite as bad. HandMadeSwords also has duplicate selections ("Samurai Swords", "Japanese Style Swords", "Katana Swords", "Samurai Katana"s, Department of Redundancy Department) which I am not fond of. Given that their entire selection is "Japanese Style Swords" what's the point? There are much better distinctions of Japanese blades that could be used for their categories.
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