Minispares Website gripes
Turbo Mini Forums

Is it just me or is the minispares website incredibly hard to use?

Im particularly looking at the shop area. Many many moons ago it was different and a lot easier to use, but now so many items come up that it is near impossible to find what I want quickly and easily.

Thus one decides to search and 100 million articles about nonsense appear when I am only trying to search the shop, and as a default it only shows 10 of 102 items.

Gavin if you're reading this could you suggest that they improve this, maybe by inserting some relevant subcategories, or take it back similar to how it was when it was the same as the minimania site.

I cant be the only one who has issues with it, can I????

E.g On my search for drop gears:

Select gearbox
Start flicking through, get bored
Page 2
Page 3
Select 50
Page 2
Scroll back to the top, select category
Hmmm it doesnt really fit any of those. I suppose performance gears
Select 50
"I want an off the shelf complete set, not single items. I wonder if they do such a thing"
Search drop gear
"Hmm only the idler has come up"
Search Transfer gear
"Hmm only the idler has come up"
"Stuff it, ill do some work instead"


Perhaps one could click on the gearbox section, then immediately be offered some relevant subcategories relating to the components, with the option to view all

What are other peoples thoughts

Yes, I agree it is awkward.	39 Votes - 0%
No, Nic your just becoming a miserable old man	8 Votes - 0%

I was confused looking at drop gears. I mailed them in the end so that they could tell me what I needed...

Actually ive just figured it out

What it needs is to be able to search within categories, not the whole site.

E.g. I am looking for an output shaft seal for my cooper, flange type

So I go to gearbox
Get bored of looking
Type in "Flange" into the search box
61 results come up

Ordering online is convenient as I end up doing it when in bed when im not thinking and spend too much, but their site makes me give up so I either come to my senses, or just ring up min-its the next day

I TOTALLY agree and can not understand why they have made it like they have. its hopeless!

do they acutely sell them as a set or do you have to buy them individually I still don't know confused.com ?

The search is much better than the navigation thing - I never use that.

I don't think they do the drop gears as a set. Just indidually as input, idler and primary.

I don't believe their 'also bought' section and find it a waste of space.

We don't do them as a set due to the ratio combinations. Taking your example of 'flange' (typical nic lol) if you search for this on the home page you get 61 results, if you then click on drivetrain you get 48 results and then a drop down menu of the sub categories eg drive flanges. Any other comments welcome, we're always trying to improve it.

The trick is to get a part number from Moss, then search on that.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

I personally think it's tricky to navigate.

I reckon transfer gears and gubbins should maybe be in their own category.

Perhaps you could do a 1:1 kit. one with the timken and one without, as i would imagine this would be the most common purchase.

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing half of.

Find the site impossible to navigate and find things, only ever function I have ever used is the search, and then that's hit and miss. The sites about as organised as my garage.

**edit
just out of interest I saw the picture for the rose petal alloys, ad assumed they stock them(which they do). But I try searching "rose" or "petal" for them and don't get any hits.

Edited by CR# on 26th Nov, 2009.

Your right its woeful to find what your looking for.

Do you use the link posted above? Would more sub categories help?

Another pet peeve of mine is that items will show in the search but when you select the item it is out of stock.

Something to show its out of stock on the search screen would be useful. If you can find it that is. lol

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing half of.

the moss website is much better for searching, but their service doesnt seem quite as good tbh

"Turbo's make torque, and torque makes fun"

"did you know you can toast potato waffles?"

Edited by Nic on 26th Nov, 2009.

The best way to find things on a poor website is to use google! put in the part you are after and then mini spares, we used that trick with are website at work before they re did it.

i have stopped using the site tbh, always get an error at checkout, it blames my firefox cookies but its the same on my phone too

when i sign in....

Edited by Brett on 26th Nov, 2009.

Yes i moved to the darkside

Instagram @jdm_brett

Medusa + injection = too much torque for the dyno ..https://youtu.be/qg5o0_tJxYM

I've always found it difficult to use, finding the part I want seems to involve looking through pages of search results which are displayed 10 items per page. If I'm looking for standard parts I get the part numbers from the somerford catalogue which I find is really well presented and so well detailed. For performance parts I just allow a lot of time! The extended navigation has improved things and certain items are not too difficult to find now.

To be fair to Minispares I find the Avonbar website worse, it has huge lists of products often with no detailed description or pictures.

If you scroll down you can select either 10, 20 or 50 products per page which makes it slightly easier. One of the main problems i think is the shear number of parts (around 10,000) which makes it hard to find some parts.

I love minispares –hate the site! errors and almost impossible to find the parts, will always mail Gavin in the future and let him do the job finding the stuff, he he

gavin@minispares.com

Edited by G13B on 27th Nov, 2009.

internationally known as "big" swede