Annoying Change to Carzone

-Chris-

[rant]

Has anyone else noticed this?

It used to be that if you were looking at a car (e.g. Passat) on Carzone and there were LOADS of them, you could choose to have up to 100 results per page, meaning if there are 83 cars, there are only 1 pages to sort and scan through.

Now they've gotten rid of this drop-down, and so if you're looking at the same 83 cars, you'll have to look through 9 pages for the same amount of info.

It means I'll have to rely on judiciously filtering my searches, but that doesn't stop this change being a massive pain in the ar$e.

Carzone! If it's not broke, don't bloody "fix" it!!!!

Here's what I'm talking about:



[/rant]

xabi

I dont use carzone anymore, use this instead http://www.driving.ie/contentv3/ It has the same car list but better search engine.

X.

bazz26

Yep http://www.driving.ie uses the much simpler old carzone search engine.

Don't bother with the new carzone anymore. It is totally unuser friendly these days.

Owen

Don't get me started Chris :pac:

biko

As above, I use www.driving.ie/usedcars only now

-Chris-

Thanks all, I think that'll do much better for my searching.

My frustration still stands though - why are Carzone so determined to make using their website as hard as possible??

xabi

-Chris- wrote: »

Thanks all, I think that'll do much better for my searching.

My frustration still stands though - why are Carzone so determined to make using their website as hard as possible??

I think they were taken over by Autotrader and since then the page is gone to the dogs.

X.

Owen

-Chris- wrote: »

My frustration still stands though - why are Carzone so determined to make using their website as hard as possible??

Ask your Carzone rep. But I think what's happening is that people who work for Carzone who are very computer literate are designing and discussing these changes. What they need is an Internet moron (Aka, any family member of mine) to come in and wiggle the mouse to death in frustration in front of them. Then they'll understand what an average user needs and wants.

-Chris-

I wonder if there's any usability testing done with punters or if there's any consultation done with anyone external before they implement these changes...

BigZack

Not likely. Sites like this are only interested in finding ways to make more money from their advertisers. Also, I heard that their traffic stats have taken a serious hit so maybe these changes are designed to force you to make more clicks pushing up their page impressions?

Have you tried searching for a particular vehicle in google recently? You have to go to page three on this search before you come close and that's only motornet.ie!

http://www.google.ie/search?q=peugeot+407+for+sale+in+galway&hl=en&start=0&sa=N

The other thing that annoys me is how the home page says 68404 vehicles available but when you click 'show cars' it drops to 50,266.

Stephen

^^ Nail on the head there. You having to click through 9 pages of results instead of 1 = 9 times the ads.

Eoin

In fairness, the old system didn't allow you to select multiple models or locations without manipulating the querystring, so that is one clear improvement. I like the way the sliders can give an instant idea of the availability of a set of cars.

For less experienced users, I don't think the new system is all that bad, but they should have kept the old one available.

I've noticed that they seem to have removed the link that allowed you to search for other x models in y year though.

-Chris-

BigZack wrote: »

Not likely. Sites like this are only interested in finding ways to make more money from their advertisers. Also, I heard that their traffic stats have taken a serious hit so maybe these changes are designed to force you to make more clicks pushing up their page impressions?

But that's fundamentally flawed - if people don't enjoy the site, they won't use it and revenue'll be lost. Pumping up the page impressions is short term-ism at its worst.

Watch this video if you have the time. I think everyone who has a customer facing process should watch this - lately I want to grab the Carzone decision makers and strap them to a chair Clockwork Orange style and make them watch it.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4101280286098310645

BigZack

My guess is they will they do anything it takes to squeeze another euro out of your pocket. Even if it does compromise the user experience.

Having said that, fair play to them - they're making money in a recession! More than can be said of most players in the motor industry at the moment. 36 dealers dead and buried so far this year.

mickdw

Does anyone use Carzone anymore? Its so bad and also seems to be very slow at times. I also use the old carzone (Driving.ie) I dont know what they are up to tbh but they will go bust. I know Their system is running driving.ie but if they continue this they will damage the name so much that they will disappear. You simply cannot easily find the car you want

Big Nasty

Of the other non carzone driven sites which has the best layout / is easiest to use do people think? I.e: If another site had Carzone's content which one would you prefer it to be?

DonJose

-Chris- wrote: »

why are Carzone so determined to make using their website as hard as possible??

I'd say its all down to advertising. Carzone and any other website that display banner advertising get paid a cpm rate or cost per "mille" thousand impressions. So the more pages that are viewed, the more they earn in advertising.