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Why is the official site so crap?

Obviously there are more pressing questions at the moment, like when are we going to sign a player, but surely the club is costing itself money on merchandise etc when it seems to make no effort what so ever to keep the site fresh and reasonably up to date.

The club shop page is an absolute joke and can be improved massively to improve revenue. NO new kit, no photos of the new kit, no training kit, or photos, a load of tosh from the play off game we lost and nobody wants.

I could go on, but compare our club shop to that of Coventry City, http://www.ccfc.co.uk/page/Home the same web site company but a hell of a difference in quality and appeal.

I guess with all this stuff coming from the chairman regularly about improving the fans experience, and improving the club as a commercial business, I dont see why the site and especially the club shop page is so pants!

We've only got so many staff, and they've probably all got their hands full with other things.

If thats the reason and the general excuse no wonder they dont make any money as a business.

Warwickgull wrote:Why is the official site so crap?

Obviously there are more pressing questions at the moment, like when are we going to sign a player, but surely the club is costing itself money on merchandise etc when it seems to make no effort what so ever to keep the site fresh and reasonably up to date.

The club shop page is an absolute joke and can be improved massively to improve revenue. NO new kit, no photos of the new kit, no training kit, or photos, a load of tosh from the play off game we lost and nobody wants.

I could go on, but compare our club shop to that of Coventry City,[urlhttp://www.ccfc.co.uk/page/Home][/url] the same web site company but a hell of a difference in quality and appeal.

I guess with all this stuff coming from the chairman regularly about improving the fans experience, and improving the club as a commercial business, I dont see why the site and especially the club shop page is so pants!

Remember that series called "Jim'll Fix It" ?

TUFC now has "Handy Andy" (Candy, not Donnelly).

If anyone can, the "Candy Man" can.

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Warwickgull wrote:If thats the reason and the general excuse no wonder they dont make any money as a business.

It's probably more of a reason than an excuse.

Fonda wrote: It's probably more of a reason than an excuse.

Well it needs improving as it's shit, and it would probably take whoever looks after the site about an hour to get it up to standard with the relevent information and images.

it is quite poor. i realise that staff levels may not be at their highest but i definitely agree that the club shop could be better. i actually think we could sell better stuff too, but thats a side issue. i was recently on the carlisle united club shop and they had last seasons shirts down to a fiver. home shirts, away shirts, long sleeved shirts. whatever you want.

the thing that annoys me a lot about the site though is the silly headlines. it seems like rather than state a fact or keep things sharp (even a good pun wouldnt go amiss), whoever writes them is intent on some misleading or cryptic sentence, usually involving alliteration, that often means you miss certain news stories because they dont sound interesting or relevant, or end up reading ones you arent interested in. happens to me all the time anyway, maybe im on my own with that but its so annoying, i wish he/she would just keep it simple.

Warwickgull wrote:Why is the official site so crap?

Obviously there are more pressing questions at the moment, like when are we going to sign a player, but surely the club is costing itself money on merchandise etc when it seems to make no effort what so ever to keep the site fresh and reasonably up to date.

The club shop page is an absolute joke and can be improved massively to improve revenue. NO new kit, no photos of the new kit, no training kit, or photos, a load of tosh from the play off game we lost and nobody wants.

I could go on, but compare our club shop to that of Coventry City, http://www.ccfc.co.uk/page/Home the same web site company but a hell of a difference in quality and appeal.

I guess with all this stuff coming from the chairman regularly about improving the fans experience, and improving the club as a commercial business, I dont see why the site and especially the club shop page is so pants!

I said more of less the same things as you on the 'Concentrate on TUFC' thread Warwickgull. Thank God others feel the same as i do. In a nutshell though if the club want to generate extra income via sales from the club shop or commercial ventures with an OS that is as effective as Jamal Easter then they haven't got a prayer!

Putting my geek hat on (i write computer software) i can tell you that the OS and the club shop are run by two different people. The company that runs all football league websites runs the OS. How exactly Torquay update news is probably quite simple but the redesigning of bits such as the banner so our players are on it is probably a bit more difficult and done by someone else. All the ads, results etc are probably updated by the company that runs all the websites. The club shop is nothing to do with this company however, it is hard to tell how it is done, the club owns the website, it is hosted locally but who and how the website is designed/redesigned i don't know but it probably costs every single time it is changed. Its always possible it is having a complete redesign for the new season and it will go up when the new kit goes on sale.

I hope it is having a facelift DerbyGull ready for lift off when the new season starts. That would be superb. I'm not holding my breath though. You say you write computer software, is that games for consoles and stuff or just programmes like office and things like that?

I write databases, the boring, less glamourous end of the software market. Never touched games really, done the odd website but nowt fancy. If it was me i would have given the shop site a complete redesign seeing as so much needs doing, it all depends at to whether that has really been on their minds over the last couple of months, my guess is it probably wasn't high on the list of priorities.

Cheers Derby. Don't put yourself down mate. I wish i knew about computers it's the future ( not garlic bread ). I struggled through Uni a couple of years ago - not with the work but the fact i had to everything on a bloody PC! Give me a trusty pen and paper anyday! If you can do what you do Derby then you've got an advantage on many of us.

One thing that I do find embarrassing on the Official Site is the "Player Profiles". It still states that we have Bevan, Zeb even Stanley also Carlisle!? The "Player Profile" bit has never been any good. I think it once got a players (can't remember who) position wrong. I hope banner gets changed soon aswell still has Wroe, Gritton etc.

DerbyGull wrote:I write databases, the boring, less glamourous end of the software market. Never touched games really, done the odd website but nowt fancy. If it was me i would have given the shop site a complete redesign seeing as so much needs doing, it all depends at to whether that has really been on their minds over the last couple of months, my guess is it probably wasn't high on the list of priorities.

SELECT from dbo.FootballClubs
WHERE name=TorquayUnited"

DELETE oldStore
INSERT newStore

Probably.

Nice bit of SQL there happy.....I have to agree with Warwick that it is poor. Style, well fair enough, it's a standard kind of Content Management thing when you look at other club sites, but is there any excuse for the current player list and stuff like that? I'm sure if we look hard enough then Rodney Jack will be on there somewhere.
Give me the username and password and I'll do it myself!