Is it just me ,or is the Lionel website about the most user unfriendly I have come across. Try looking up a current or former product and I usually get a "product not found " message. Also hard to find a part # unless you know what “Supplement” your train engine or cars is listed in. Don’t know about yall, but I dont have the supplements memorized.
I have found the MTH and K line websites to be very user friendly and I can actually find all the info I want very quickly. So what gives with Lionel ???
Any ideas???
Sorry Tim, I’ve found it to be the other way around. I can usually find what I want on the Lionel side and have to fight with the K-Line and MTH. My biggest gripe with all of the sites are that they are behind in keeping up with product documentaion, aka parts/diagrams/owner manuals.
Personally I don’t think any of them are as “Customer Friendly” as they should be. Parts of each are good but other parts of that same site can be exasperating as hell when you are looking for info. [V]
Okay if you have a fast connection but on dialup - forget it! I have just about given up with trying to wade through the Lionel catalog online. Also its not very clear about exactly what is or is not available, like some of those accessories, they have dates on that seem to suggest they were made but now aren’t in which case, why show them?
On the other hand, maybe its just me not reading something properly. Happens a lot. EVERY time I ask a shop keeper for something I have failed to locate its INVARIABLY right in front of me!
My pet hate for online catalogs has to be the Williams site.
Lionel has a LOT of info on their site. My chief complaint is the same as thor’s: it is way too slowwwwwww for dial-up. Once it’s cached it isn’t too bad, but it’s pretty data-intensive when it’s not cached.
MTH’s site ain’t bad either… when it’s not down (which it seems to be a lot). [|(]
Frankly, I’m sick of looking at the same graphics I’ve seen for years on Lionel’s website. I don’t have any major problems with the way it functions, but they really need to give it a facelift (or at least botox injections) anyway!
All websites suck whether it be Atlas, Lionel, MTH, or Williams. Lionel is not the problem. Whoever invented these stupid computers is the problem. No matter what, they are just plain slow compared to flipping the pages of a hard copy catalog and hard copy catalogs are all I look at anymore. I’m sure there will be super computers someday that will overcome this but they will cost $2,000 when you can get a catalog for free or for chump change. The world was so much simpler before computers and I believe they are a sign of the second coming of christ and the world blows up or something like that I read in the Bible. If it weren’t for computers, we would not be sitting here typing at each other. We would be cordially conversing at a train meet and drinking coffee or tea or something. I do however get entertained by a good flame war now and then like we never see at train meets.
Tim, as a person who regularly uses web sites for business and designed a few sites, Lionel’s web site is poor, very poor. They have improved the speed in the last year or two, but as long as that freight train still runs under the HELL’s GATE BRIDGE and not on the bridge…