The Energon Pub

News Credits: 60 · by **fenrir72** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 11:24 am

Occasionally, I check on them but it seems they no longer sell any 3rd party items.

If any one can find me a link..........

News Credits: 2 · by **xyl360** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 11:31 am

Yep, they still sell them, in fact, right on the bottom of their homepage they're advertising Exgraver and Thundershred (TFC and FansProject respectively) and there's also a pre-order for the new third party Quintesson.

This page shows quite a few from a lot of different companies.

News Credits: 60 · by **fenrir72** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 11:37 am

Thanks my friend. In their old set up, 3rd party stuff was included in the TF section. Now the accessories linked me to an official Hasbro watch. :???:

News Credits: 2 · by **xyl360** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 11:43 am

, no problem. Yep, their menus can get confusing sometimes and they do seem to rearrange them a lot. To find that link I had to first find a third party product, then backtrack through the hierarchy of links leading to it in order to find that link.

Like Baneblade on Facebook · by **Baneblade** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 12:10 pm

that's not a good customer experience if you have to sludge around looking for a product when they re-organise it.

a simple reorganisation of the menu system would have been more beneficial. in the past when i was a web designer and you had to overhaul/re-layout the site you had to alter the menu to boot - a simple css alteration (if thats what they are using) or alter the main site template....

kinda puts you off browsing if its so slapdash....

News Credits: 2 · by **xyl360** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 12:37 pm

Agreed, and it's bound to hurt sales to a certain extent as well. If the customer can't find the product they wish to purchase, they'll check another site to find it and buy from the other site instead.

Their search engine needs work too, it's far too strict. I was searching for the listing for the Unicron.com Golden Disk accessory set and I typed in "golden disk" without the quotes, which returned 0 results. I then tried "golden disks" and got what I was looking for.

They're a great company, and my primary source for all things Transformers, but their site is anything but user-friendly.

Like Baneblade on Facebook · by **Baneblade** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 12:54 pm

Great company yes, but someone should throw them a spanner or a toolbox to fix the browsing experience.

Ultimately a great company will be rendered to just a good company because of the initial customer experience of browsing the site...lets take nothing away from BBTS here, but an overhaul of the browsing experience and the site cataloguing would make the search and browsing experience much more delightful

News Credits: 402 · by **Mkall** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 12:57 pm

For a while, there was a notice on their front page that all TF 3rd Party figures had been moved to a new menu. I think it lasted a week or so.

Like Baneblade on Facebook · by **Baneblade** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 5:02 pm

Mkall wrote:For a while, there was a notice on their front page that all TF 3rd Party figures had been moved to a new menu. I think it lasted a week or so.

a notice is ok...But for a shopper that's missed the notice it isn't ideal. There should be a longer notice period or even an automatic redirect....hell even a permenant notice/link to the new location on the site.

News Credits: 5 · by **zodconvoy** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 11:08 pm

They moved it out of the Transformers banner just to avoid any complications with Hasbro if the 3rd Party sh!t ever hits the fan. If you're going to be searching for any 3rd Party items search by the maker. It's a lot easier that way.

News Credits: 1 · by **Gauntlet101010** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 11:59 pm

It's a lot more convienient this way. Although I notice that they didn't include Knight Morpher. Or maybe I just missed it ...

Like Baneblade on Facebook · by **Baneblade** » Tue Oct 25, 2011 6:16 pm

i just thing and am expressing the opinion that a better notification for future browsers/customers that want to check out their stock or check the pricing.

just makes it hard for prospective new customers to maybe find what they are looking for ~shrug~

News Credits: 16 · by **It Is Him** » Tue Oct 25, 2011 6:23 pm

zodconvoy wrote:They moved it out of the Transformers banner just to avoid any complications with Hasbro if the 3rd Party sh!t ever hits the fan. If you're going to be searching for any 3rd Party items search by the maker. It's a lot easier that way.

3rd party stuff should have had its own submenu years ago. So much easier, indeed.

News Credits: 5 · by **zodconvoy** » Tue Oct 25, 2011 9:21 pm

It Is Him wrote:
zodconvoy wrote:They moved it out of the Transformers banner just to avoid any complications with Hasbro if the 3rd Party sh!t ever hits the fan. If you're going to be searching for any 3rd Party items search by the maker. It's a lot easier that way.

3rd party stuff should have had its own submenu years ago. So much easier, indeed.

Agreed. When I first ordered the City Commander from them I was kinda surprised to find it in Accessories along with licensed products.