The new Walthers.com

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Walthers finally updated their website. Its not perfect, in fact I don't see many structural changes. The fonts and colors have been changed to be a bit more eye friendly. What do you think?

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Still looks dated to me.

[tom mann]

Cool for '99.

[lock4244]

Who cares... there's no N in Walthers 

[asarge]

It definately looks more plain Jane. Somethings up over there. I posted on Facebook that I hoped they had bigger plans for it and somebody who works there piped up right away that they had big plans. A week ago I posted on their page that they needed to add the Greenville Hoppers to the new products page to at least help let people know about it and less than 30 minutes later I had private message from a guy who works there they would be on the site in less than a week.....and they were. never had replies from them that fast before.

Maybe some of the new blood...........

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Yeah but if that new blood are the ones who brought back the NE caboose, then its just more of the same.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

They desperately need to read this though:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/06/25/how-to-use-photos-to-sell-more-online/

[asarge]

Yeah but if that new blood are the ones who brought back the NE caboose, then its just more of the same

Don't know who ordered that, but the last 2 key people they hired came in WELL after that fiasco.

[tom mann]

They desperately need to read this though:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/06/25/how-to-use-photos-to-sell-more-online/

Ed,

I think that for the most part, their photography is really good.  They do a lot of work to present the product in nice settings so it looks like they are part of a layout.  But, not showing any photo bigger than a few hundred pixels is unacceptable.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Absolutely Tom, but I think they needed to take it one step further.

From their homepage, you don't know what they sell. They could've used imagery much better to entice and excite potential customers.

MUCH better.

[Mark5]

Window dressing.

[SkipGear]

A good example of window dressing is Woodland Scenics rrevised website. Some great examples of scenery done with their products greets you when you open the page. It's simple, doesn't take forever to load and gets the point across.

http://www.woodlandscenics.com/

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Yes, I agree 100%. They show you what CAN be done with the editorial images, then show you just the products with the product photos (ie, on white backgrounds).

Scenic Express does a good job too, just like in their catalogs:
http://scenicexpress.com/

Well, except for all the motion and flashing.

[DKS]

I think that for the most part, their photography is really good.  They do a lot of work to present the product in nice settings so it looks like they are part of a layout.  But, not showing any photo bigger than a few hundred pixels is unacceptable.

My gripe would be that they don't have thumbnails with the product lists/search results. You need to click on each product to see it. The non-thumbnail images could be a bit bigger, but the lack of thumbnails is a bigger failing in my book.

Scenic Express does a good job too, just like in their catalogs:
http://scenicexpress.com/

Well, except for all the motion and flashing.

Arrrgh, my eyes... visual overload... visual overload... they need to tone it down by about 110 decibels.

I quite like what John Cubbin did for StoneBridge Models:

http://www.stonebridgemodels.com/

[tom mann]

I quite like what John Cubbin did for StoneBridge Models:

http://www.stonebridgemodels.com/

I have my eye on Wick Lumber.  Resembles what I need for Burbank Junction.