Dirtbag Deals getting supersized

I've been working on an updated version of Dirtbag Deals that has more stores, MANY more products, in several sports other than climbing, as well as outdoor clothing. All the climbing gear currently in Dirtbag Deals is also in the new system (in the climbing section of course), but now there are better filters and searching options.

Before I make the switch to the new system, I'm hoping to get some feedback. Please take a look and let me know what you think:

NEW VERSION: deals.mountainproject.com/

To be clear: Mountain Project gets a small commission from any sale that was triggered by a click from Dirtbag Deals (regardless of what you actually buy). This is one of the ways we keep the site humming along for free, and we hope it's also a service you benefit from too.

Looks pretty slick.

One small gripe:

When you're viewing a sub-category, clicking the tab for the parent category doesn't return you to the main page for that category. ie: I'm view bike accessories here, but clicking on the "Bike" tab on that page doesn't return me to the main bike page, deals.mountainproject.com/?….

Thanks Finn, that's fixed.

This may just have been me, but the bottom sort menu(i.e. price popularity, etc.) didn't work. The top one worked fine.

Got that fixed too Michael, thanks!

Add 'Mountain' to the Aid, Big wall heading?

Nick Wilder wrote:Before I make the switch to the new system, I'm hoping to get some feedback. Please take a look and let me know what you think:

Biggest problem I've found is the little girls swim diapers under carabiners, quickdraws, and slings.

I clicked one of the filters under climbing shoes(which had the number 28 next to it) and then it told me there was nothing there.

pico wrote:Add 'Mountain' to the Aid, Big wall heading?

Better yet make mountain/ice/alpine it's own category maybe? crampons and aiders doesnt sound like a good mix..!

Dan Allard wrote: Better yet make mountain/ice/alpine it's own category maybe? crampons and aiders doesnt sound like a good mix..!

actually now I see that there is an ice category already..but theres crampons and ice boots in the big wall category? hmm

On another note, personally when I shop, I usually go at it thinking "I'm not spending more than X$ on a Y" and I like to be able to filter by that. If there aren't any available that meet that criteria, then I check back and just wait till there is or if that is unrealistic I may gradually increase my limit. But I can honestly say I have never said, I want to look at jackets that cost between 540$ and 630$ exclusively. Does any one actually shop that way? I know a lot of sites do this but that doesn't mean there isn't a better way.
I do like how ebay for example has a min and max price text boxes to filter.

I also am a fan of sites that allow me to specify how many items per page I want (I accept that this may affect load times, and as the site designer you can set the max so your DB server doesn't crash but with high speed internet, I almost always want to select the max).

Additionally, I really gravitate to actually use pages that have huge, obviously intuitive previous and next buttons on left and right side of screen accordingly so I can flip through pages quickly (almost out of the corner of my eye without even consciously looking for the links). Tiny arrows and a lot of somewhat arbitrary page numbers (which mean nothing to me - there is no way for me to know what results might be on page 7 until I get there using the 'next' arrows knowing what preceded it, so why would I randomly go there otherwise?) are a major annoyances that disturb efficient flow of shopping to me.
It may sound silly as they are mere seconds or milliseconds but as the saying goes time is money and the value of the deal is weakened and ultimately I just wont use your site if I can't scan through a lot of items quickly because of small page quantities and annoyingly small previous/next arrows that require lots of precision to hunt to find and click.

my 3 cents so far..

Great feedback, it's really helpful!

In response:
- Fixed the problem where you clicked "28 items" but no shoes were returned (I needed to reset you to page 1).

- I merged Ice, Alpine, Aid, and Mountaineering together. They don't really belong together, but categorizing things is surprisingly difficult, and these particular products are some of the worst.

I have thousands of lines of code to try to get the category correct, but each of the 20+ stores uses a different system (or NO system in some cases!). So I hope minimize the "diapers on the carabiner page" problem (actually categorized as carabiners by GearX.com!)... but it will never be perfect. The products are continually changing, so even getting it right once doesn't guarantee the future.

- There are now 45 products per page instead of 36. The number is not user-selectable... but I agree that more are better.

- Next/Previous page buttons are big and easy to click. Much better!

Thanks for all the feedback. The new system just went live, but if you find any issues, please keep them coming. The new URL is deals.mountainproject.com/

Although it will probably save me money, I miss the quick view that the original dirtbag deals page allowed. A quick glance and I could see if there were any new deals or what was most clicked on (and likely a good deal). Definitely had a few unplanned purchases that started that way.

FYI I've noticed that often the links weren't current...the items I clicked on were either not available or full price.

Matt: I've changed the link in the header to land directly on the Climbing deals page. And on that page, I added two things: a short list of the most popular items, and the newest items, with links to pages of them.

Scott: I've added a "Report a problem" link to the popup window that shows the item details. We try to remove things as soon as we know they're no longer a deal, but the timing is tough right when a sale ends, or they run out of stock.

Thanks for the feedback - keep it coming!

It kind of irks that it takes two clicks to get to get to see the size of an item advertised. Everything I clicked was only available in sizes unsuitable to me and so I stopped looking pretty quickly because I assumed everything was like that. I'd be more likely to browse more if I could see the sizes.

Jim

Maybe I'm missing it, but is there a list of the member stores with links to the stores? That way if I know I want to browse a certain store, I can come here and click the link to the store, rather than google it.

Did it get supersized right out of existence? Or can I just not find it?

I think I answered my own question after reading the REI thread. For anyone else who misses the old dirtbag deals and finds their way here, I guess this is the same thing?

activebacker.com/rock-climb…

kennoyce wrote: Biggest problem I've found is the little girls swim diapers under carabiners, quickdraws, and slings.

Yeah, little girls swim diapers should be in mountaineering. For surprise thunderstorms on committing routes make you shit yourself.

Do dirtbag deals still exist? I don't see it anymore. Perhaps this is related to change in ownership?