HubJub closing down

turkeytickler

Damn shame that, brilliant shop and fantastic service - will be sadly missed...

http://www.hubjub.co.uk/

Ravewar

Allow me to introduce myself as the the new owner of Hubjub. I hope that, as the new custodians of Hubjub, we remain approachable and continue to be of service to the fixed and single speed community.

Whilst Hubjub has been trading for the last few months, we have been quiet, with our heads down and grafting hard, but now the work is starting to pay off. I can announce we have finished a total redevelopment of the Hubjub site. This new site coincides with our re-stocking of the Phil Wood range.

Moving to a new system has altered the appearance, which we understand will bring mixed feelings with a site as beloved of its users as Hubjub (and yes, we were fans!). It had to change: Drew the webmaster was managing okay but the whole show was hand coded and keeping on top of broken links was almost a full time job. We have worked hard to keep the charm and character of Hubjub as best we can. The new system will hopefully free us to focus on rebuilding the catalogue and writing those descriptions people actually like to read. The new design makes it easy to add new brands or products, so we can experiment with new products, and catalogue more of the stuff Hubjub has always done off-list.

Notwithstanding our aim to have a more comprehensive catalogue of the best stuff we can find, along with occasional curveball products, we aim to continue fulfilling special orders. We might be out of the way here in Llandrindod but we share our town with the National Cycle Collection, so if there is a vintage part you can't identify or find parts for, maybe we can help! In the meantime we value your thoughts on the new site.

Best,
David

kieranb

one comment on the link above, will this be the home page? Hope not! If it is I would at least get rid of the colour boxes around the text for the product names and the view product. Look at raph's home page. Your home page should appeal to your target consumers have a few inspiring pics/witty prose etc

Hoopdriver

I second the motion on that home page. Not inviting in the least. Looks cheap.

On a brighter note, I am happy to hear someone is resuscitating HubJub

Ravewar

Thanks kieranb and Hoopdriver for taking the time to comment. Presumably the link you followed was that for the hubjub site not the bike museum! On the whole feedback from "target consumers" on the LFGSS thread has been positive but there will always be room for improvement.

Coloured boxes, we will take comment on board, in defence I would like to say lime green was always part of the HJ palette. We are looking at displaying more description on the front page: this is a technical problem to resolve, but quality descriptions were always part of the HJ way and we are keen to get there. The template driven system is necessary to make hubjub more flexible but requires a lot of work to make it look and behave right, but hopefully you only need do this once.

kieranb wrote:

one comment on the link above, will this be the home page? Hope not! If it is I would at least get rid of the colour boxes around the text for the product names and the view product. Look at raph's home page. Your home page should appeal to your target consumers have a few inspiring pics/witty prose etc

MountainMonster

Very poor website. I specialise in custom CMS systems and web branding, and this would be something I would never consider of giving. Looks boring, no description, and I can't even find an address for the shop or anything. Very poor if you ask me.

Should you need help sourcing a better site, please do let me know. This appears as if amateurs have bought HTML for dummies and tried from there, I'm sorry if this is very critical of your site, but when I see company web pages with no effort put in (I'm not saying you haven't, I'm just saying it appears so), I really find to see why anyone should visit the site again, let alone buy anything from it. Remember, your web page is your face to outside people, and you really need to rethink your online branding strategy and make it look professional.

napoleond

MountainMonster wrote:

Very poor website. I specialise in custom CMS systems and web branding, and this would be something I would never consider of giving. Looks boring, no description, and I can't even find an address for the shop or anything. Very poor if you ask me.

Should you need help sourcing a better site, please do let me know. This appears as if amateurs have bought HTML for dummies and tried from there, I'm sorry if this is very critical of your site, but when I see company web pages with no effort put in (I'm not saying you haven't, I'm just saying it appears so), I really find to see why anyone should visit the site again, let alone buy anything from it. Remember, your web page is your face to outside people, and you really need to rethink your online branding strategy and make it look professional.

Perhaps get someone you know to sort out your signature

Beatmaker

NapoleonD wrote:

MountainMonster wrote:

Very poor website. I specialise in custom CMS systems and web branding, and this would be something I would never consider of giving. Looks boring, no description, and I can't even find an address for the shop or anything. Very poor if you ask me.

Should you need help sourcing a better site, please do let me know. This appears as if amateurs have bought HTML for dummies and tried from there, I'm sorry if this is very critical of your site, but when I see company web pages with no effort put in (I'm not saying you haven't, I'm just saying it appears so), I really find to see why anyone should visit the site again, let alone buy anything from it. Remember, your web page is your face to outside people, and you really need to rethink your online branding strategy and make it look professional.

Perhaps get someone you know to sort out your signature

Lol

edhornby

best of luck making the business remain a going concern

I would agree with the other posters, the odd size boxes that means the pictures don't line up and the blue underlined links in a non-consistent font are the bits that need sorting, the rest you could live with

[edit] there are black and white text that needs to be consistent (I would vote for white that matches the logo) and there are different shades of green in the boxes - the 'view product' links are kinda redundant, you could lose them and it would make the site simpler for admin and customer

'categorys' should be categories

hope this helps

ricky1980

Like the top banner and company logo and the site colour scheme. But really don't like the colored box on the product names.

The site looks like it was from early days of e-commerce. If you are looking to have a Retro site to go with the vintage parts then I suppose its your decision. But I would add richer content flash or Java based browsing and go for some art deco type theme or those rally old curvy bike frame theme.

Good pleasant colors and need to bring the site content to date.

Good luck with the business

MountainMonster

Beatmaker wrote:

NapoleonD wrote:

MountainMonster wrote:

Very poor website. I specialise in custom CMS systems and web branding, and this would be something I would never consider of giving. Looks boring, no description, and I can't even find an address for the shop or anything. Very poor if you ask me.

Should you need help sourcing a better site, please do let me know. This appears as if amateurs have bought HTML for dummies and tried from there, I'm sorry if this is very critical of your site, but when I see company web pages with no effort put in (I'm not saying you haven't, I'm just saying it appears so), I really find to see why anyone should visit the site again, let alone buy anything from it. Remember, your web page is your face to outside people, and you really need to rethink your online branding strategy and make it look professional.

Perhaps get someone you know to sort out your signature

Lol

LOL, I hadn't even noticed the codes were there. Thanks for letting me know, I never read my own posts.

delstron

Typo - Categor(ies)

Ravewar

Thanks edhornby, ricky 1980, it might not be easy to line up the pictures but we can add it to the "to-do" list. And yes Delstron, that Categories typo needs fixing, now the technical stuff is addressed I will ask my colleague to fix it!

Hubjub was lovely back in the day, being as it was totally hand coded it was very much about the design and quality of description, not just a catalogue of stuff. We aim to bring back that feel.

Ravewar

Of course we got the obligatory twitter feed for you to try to find the limit of our knowledge on fixed and period stuff @Hubjub_fixed.

Lots of Phil Wood stuff now, come have a look!