# New Website Launching Today



## JBroida (Nov 25, 2015)

We are in the process of launching a new website for Japanese Knife Imports today... at some point today, our current website will go down for a bit, and the new website will officially launch. Please bear with us through any hiccups that may occur. We hope you enjoy the much easier to use new website when it is ready later today.


----------



## Smurfmacaw (Nov 25, 2015)

You can test your shipping functions out on my address - I'll send back any really cool knives you accidentally send my way by accident - eventually lol. 

good luck, looking forward to the new website (my wallet isn't).


----------



## JBroida (Nov 25, 2015)

The new website is up and running... hope you guys enjoy it
http://www.japaneseknifeimports.com/

(if its not working for you, try clearing your cache and reloading)


----------



## schanop (Nov 25, 2015)

Yeah, it is working ! Congrats, Jon.

A lot of tea, for a knife shop.


----------



## JBroida (Nov 25, 2015)

haha... its really good tea though 

For what its worth, international customers can order directly on our website now with significantly discounted DHL rates  Give the rate quote calculator a shot (on the cart page)


----------



## JBroida (Nov 25, 2015)

by the way, let me know if any of you have trouble with anything on the site... there may be a few kinks to work out, but i think we've done a lot of testing this time. Reviews should be up on the site early next week... it took a bit longer to integrate that part than we expected.


----------



## marc4pt0 (Nov 25, 2015)

Meh, Kochi still shows as sold out


:biggrin:


----------



## JBroida (Nov 25, 2015)

Haha... Soon though


----------



## bkultra (Nov 25, 2015)

The site looks good, much improved browsing experience on mobile devices. Odd question what is the shelf life on the tea? Not so much when it goes bad, but more of when it would be past its peak potential... You know how they list coffee as 1 year, but really it's best within two weeks of roasting.


----------



## JBroida (Nov 25, 2015)

They are vacuum sealed, so they last a very long time. Obviously fresher is better, and once opened, you want to consume as quickly as you can. I will ask them for more specifics though. The brown sugar one is crazy good... Not sweet at all oddly.


----------



## DSChief (Nov 25, 2015)

FYI, link to new site does not work for me. Tried with Firefox & IE.

Cleared DNS Cache via ipconfig/flushdns & received correct system msg

Also ran CCleaner 

then restarted pc & tried again site still won't come up


----------



## bkultra (Nov 25, 2015)

Open Internet Explorer.
IE 8: From the Tools menu choose Internet Options.
IE 9: In the upper right corner, click the small gear icon (to the right of the star icon) and choose Internet Options
On the General tab, under Browsing history, click Delete.
Un-check the Preserve Favorites website data box.
Check the Temporary Internet files, Cookies, and History boxes.
The Form data, Passwords, and inPrivate Filtering data boxes may be left un-checked. You can check them to delete this data if you so choose.
Click Delete.
When finished, click OK to return to your Internet Explorer window.
Close the Internet Explorer window and reopen.


----------



## JBroida (Nov 25, 2015)

DSChief said:


> FYI, link to new site does not work for me. Tried with Firefox & IE.
> 
> Cleared DNS Cache via ipconfig/flushdns & received correct system msg
> 
> ...



it will take a little time for DNS to fully propagate... by tomorrow, everyone should be seeing the site easily


----------



## JBroida (Nov 26, 2015)

I just put together a blog post on many of the new features and improvements we've added with this new website... check out the post here:
http://www.japaneseknifeimports.com/blogs/news/69573317-welcome-to-our-new-website


----------



## SousVideLoca (Nov 26, 2015)

Damn nice work Jon! Really love the new browsing experience and how much smoother things animate and respond. I've always felt that your site didn't do your product enough justice (quality high end knives sold on an outmoded and awkward platform), so the change is a tremendous upgrade. 

Two things struck me as off though, or at least a little weird for the new design: 

1. The giant red bar at the header for announcements is _barbaric._ Like, 1995 AngelFire "Site Under Construction" barbaric. It immediately throws a red flag into the user experience: even if the content is something benign, the initial impact of a jarring red flag on a black background is "something went wrong." You don't want your customers first impression of your site to be "something went wrong." If you're dead set on keeping it as is, consider throwing a "close" link into the frame so we can hide the warning announcement after reading it.

2. Shortly after scrolling past the red bar of impending doom, a popup implored me to sign up for a newsletter. You effectively jammed something annoying between me and my view of your product, right as I started looking at it. That's the website equivalent of jumping between a walk-in customer and a display case the minute they enter the store, and asking for their email address. It's awkward to think about IRL, and just as awkward in a web platform. Let your users explore before giving them warnings and trying to get their email.

Just my two nitpicky cents though, and despite those little quibbles the site is both aesthetically and functionally awesome.


----------



## JBroida (Nov 26, 2015)

thanks

because we often use the header bar for notifications we need people to really pay attention to, we decided to make it red. We announce holiday closures and other important things there. People often miss it, but the red seems to attract more attention than other colors. I'll look into an option to close it after viewing though... or maybe changing the color when its not something serious (like a holiday closure)

On the newsletter thing, i'm not sure why its popping up... i have it set to off in the settings, but i guess i'll just have to wait until my web developer is back from vacation on monday... in the meantime, i set the time for re-notification after closing it to 1 year, so it shouldnt bug you again for a long time. Anyways, we're working on getting it disabled as soon as we can.

Thanks again for the feedback.

-jon


----------



## JBroida (Nov 26, 2015)

@sousvideloca what do you think of the header color now?


----------



## SousVideLoca (Nov 26, 2015)

JBroida said:


> @sousvideloca what do you think of the header color now?



Perfect! It's distinct and different enough to draw attention, without sending off our innate "red light means stop" alarm. And like you said, being able to change it for really important announcements is always an option.


----------



## JBroida (Nov 26, 2015)

yeah... i think it looks better too... thanks for the recommendation


----------



## Matus (Nov 26, 2015)

Since it is now possible to shop from your webstore internationally I have just registered and tested the shopping cart and shipping calculator - everything works as it should. Just could not find that discounted DHL shipping prices 

A few comments: 
- when I was checking out the sharpening supplies (via the main menu) I was not able to get all sharpening supplies listed at once, but had to go through the categories (coarse stones, medium stones, etc). Did I miss something obvious or it is not possible to list them all at once? It was possible with the old webpage. The same is true for knives.
- To get those drop-down menus on knife type, steel type, etc. one must got to the page of the of the knives. I think this selections should be acccesible from the main drop-down menu where the "by brand" and "by type" are located


----------



## JBroida (Nov 26, 2015)

haha... seriously though, the DHL prices are like 1/2 of what they were a week ago. From the quotes i see, they are on par with USPS Priority International. Its crazy... i'm pretty pissed that i didnt figure out how to do this earlier.

On sharpening supplies, we have it set up to take you to a page that offers options for aratoishi, nakatoishi, etc. I made an option for "all sharpening supplies" now, but i think this way is better organized.. I also just added a section for stone sets and combo stones. For kitchen knives, if you click "by brand" or "by type" it will show a grid with various options. But if you just click "kitchen knives" it will show all items.

I thought about including the display filters on the main navigation menu, but it made it too cluttered. Sorry.


----------



## Matus (Nov 26, 2015)

Yeah, I misstook DHL for USPS, though I am not sure what effect will that have on international shipping as at leat in my experiencce (Germany) the most delays come from customs. But I am eager to test them soon


----------



## Krakorak (Nov 26, 2015)

The new page is definitely much improved and much more pleasant to use, good work! If I should mention something that I don't like, it would be the fact that you cannot see prices of items that are currently out of stock; you are solely able to see in which price category the parcitular product is (for instance 100-250 dollar, which doesn't say much). Consequently, the "Notify me when this product is back in stock" function doesn't make as much sense, at least for people that have a limited budget and have to plan their purchases accurately...OK, there is of course the option to write you an email, etc., but its an unneccesary time waste for both sites..For me its no problem, because I still can remember all the prices of my "wish" items from the hundreds of visits:biggrin:...but I believed that its worth mentioning anyway...


----------



## marc4pt0 (Nov 26, 2015)

This is what the bottom of your home page looks like on my tablet (android) in both vertical and horizontal view. Not sure if that's ok or not, but just thought I'd share. Outside of that I'm looking the new site. Great work Jon.


----------



## TheDispossessed (Nov 26, 2015)

Jon it looks good on my iPad running iOS 9. I couldn't really use the site on mobile before and the functionality is much improved. Thanks for the update!


----------



## Matus (Nov 26, 2015)

I will test on my Galaxy S4 mini later today.


----------



## JBroida (Nov 26, 2015)

Krakorak said:


> The new page is definitely much improved and much more pleasant to use, good work! If I should mention something that I don't like, it would be the fact that you cannot see prices of items that are currently out of stock; you are solely able to see in which price category the parcitular product is (for instance 100-250 dollar, which doesn't say much). Consequently, the "Notify me when this product is back in stock" function doesn't make as much sense, at least for people that have a limited budget and have to plan their purchases accurately...OK, there is of course the option to write you an email, etc., but its an unneccesary time waste for both sites..For me its no problem, because I still can remember all the prices of my "wish" items from the hundreds of visits:biggrin:...but I believed that its worth mentioning anyway...



This makes a lot of sense... i will see what i can do about this (as there is no easy setting available right now to change that feature). When my web designer is back on monday, i will ask him about how we can implement that change.


----------



## JBroida (Nov 26, 2015)

marc4pt0 said:


> This is what the bottom of your home page looks like on my tablet (android) in both vertical and horizontal view. Not sure if that's ok or not, but just thought I'd share. Outside of that I'm looking the new site. Great work Jon.



nope... something is wrong there... that is just our instagram feed, but that doesnt look good. We will look into it.


----------



## Smurfmacaw (Nov 26, 2015)

One thing I noticed and one thing I wish the site had....

I notice that if I filter for in stock in Gyutos and then sort by price (highest to lowest), it doesn't show the three highest priced gyutos. Not sure why that is but it seems like it ought to show those for someone looking for the higher end items.

The thing I wish the site showed is the lead time and price if I wanted one of the out of stock knives. If you can get an out of stock item in a reasonable amount of time I might be inclined to order and wait....otherwise if they are unicorns with shigefusa type wait times then I'm not sure I really even want to see it, or maybe have another section of "Cool knives I've sold in the past but you'll never see one in this lifetime"....sort of a museum I guess.

Otherwise, much improved.


----------



## JBroida (Nov 26, 2015)

thats odd for the filtering... i will look into why that is the case.

On the out of stock items, we will try to get the price showing as soon as we can. But lead times arent so easy. Nothing is so clear from the makers in japan. Some things are weeks away, others months, and some even years. And the ETA's are constantly changing for a variety of reasons. Because of this, i've been inclined to stop telling people when things will come back in... the timeframe i give (which was given to me by the craftsmen) is rarely correct.

On the "unicorn" knives, i think we can create a section for that probably, but i will have to consider how we might do that and how it would work. Generally, people dont like seeing things they cant order.


----------



## chiffonodd (Nov 26, 2015)

Lookin good on Galaxy S5! Much easier to navigate and definitely much improved mobile functionality. One issue though: the first time I visited the site, there was a really cheesy stock photo of what looked like a random woman customer service rep and a chat prompt. On all my subsequent visits, the chat prompt is still there but no stock photo. I dunno what was going on with that photo but it definitely did not fit in with the site or business! You guys are way cooler than that :cool2:

So congrats again and Happy Thanksgiving!


----------



## JBroida (Nov 26, 2015)

That is a newsletter signup we're trying to turn off


----------



## Matus (Nov 26, 2015)

Looks all good on Samsung Galaxy S4 mini (CyanogenMod 5.2)


----------



## LeperoftheFaith (Nov 26, 2015)

My one request would be a knife length filter, otherwise, it's a much more enjoyable website to navigate.


----------



## JBroida (Nov 26, 2015)

LeperoftheFaith said:


> My one request would be a knife length filter, otherwise, it's a much more enjoyable website to navigate.



let me see what we can do about that


----------



## Matus (Nov 26, 2015)

And what about selection of single bevel / double bevel? It would make easier to find some particular knives like single bevel petty or double bevel deba, etc.


----------



## JBroida (Nov 26, 2015)

We can do that


----------



## Smurfmacaw (Nov 26, 2015)

JBroida said:


> thats odd for the filtering... i will look into why that is the case.
> 
> On the out of stock items, we will try to get the price showing as soon as we can. But lead times arent so easy. Nothing is so clear from the makers in japan. Some things are weeks away, others months, and some even years. And the ETA's are constantly changing for a variety of reasons. Because of this, i've been inclined to stop telling people when things will come back in... the timeframe i give (which was given to me by the craftsmen) is rarely correct.
> 
> On the "unicorn" knives, i think we can create a section for that probably, but i will have to consider how we might do that and how it would work. Generally, people dont like seeing things they cant order.



I don't know, I consider the knives like Tsukasa's to be Unicorns (i.e. just try to find one for sale). I'd probably buy one if I could reliably predict delivery dates since ponying up 2500 bucks requires a little prepositioning of funds to avoid the hard bony fists of my wife (black belt in Tang Soo Do). I usually throw colored diamonds at her to get brownies but still, it takes a little pre-planning.


----------



## BeernuT (Nov 27, 2015)

Love the site. Information is right there without having to hover over it. The only thing I could add to the above conversation is possibly a filter for showing In Stock items only.

Great work

-bn


----------



## Chicagohawkie (Nov 27, 2015)

Did I miss all the Black Friday specials already!


----------



## JBroida (Nov 27, 2015)

BeernuT said:


> Love the site. Information is right there without having to hover over it. The only thing I could add to the above conversation is possibly a filter for showing In Stock items only.
> 
> Great work
> 
> -bn



We couldn't figure out an easy way to filter in stock items only, so I just made a menu category for that... Once you're there, it's easy to filter through that


----------



## tbone1004 (Nov 30, 2015)

been mentioned already but the prices going away from the out of stock items and the loss of a wishlist should be fixed. I'd just x-out the price but with the wish list back you could at least add it back and know what you are in for. The wishlist is a great feature for those of us new to the world trying to add what we think we might want or need and then move around. I know it's a lot of work on the design phase, but it's a greatly appreciated one


----------



## JBroida (Nov 30, 2015)

we have fixed the out of stock price issue... the price now shows for all out of stock items

In terms of a wishlist, we decided not to include one because far too many people got confused with the wishlist vs. back in stock notifications. We thought just simplifying it would be better in this case. However, if there is enough demand from our customers, i would gladly reconsider the wishlist feature.


----------



## JBroida (Nov 30, 2015)

Smurfmacaw said:


> One thing I noticed and one thing I wish the site had....
> 
> I notice that if I filter for in stock in Gyutos and then sort by price (highest to lowest), it doesn't show the three highest priced gyutos. Not sure why that is but it seems like it ought to show those for someone looking for the higher end items.
> 
> ...



this should be fixed now


----------



## tbone1004 (Dec 1, 2015)

JBroida said:


> we have fixed the out of stock price issue... the price now shows for all out of stock items
> 
> In terms of a wishlist, we decided not to include one because far too many people got confused with the wishlist vs. back in stock notifications. We thought just simplifying it would be better in this case. However, if there is enough demand from our customers, i would gladly reconsider the wishlist feature.



I'll throw my hand up, but there should be a way to differentiate the add to card, notify me, and add to wishlist, whether that be thru a different button location, or you add it to the bottom where you have the share links. Just put the first one as wishlist


----------



## JBroida (Jan 28, 2016)

we just added a filter for knife length... hopefully this helps out.


----------

