Digital BW, The Print

Is anyone having trouble ordering from the MIS website? I choose one
item, then I click "continue shopping" but when I get to the shopping
cart, the first item is no longer there, and I am forced to start a new
cart. I want to order six items but no matter which one I start with
it gets deleted. I end up having two or three separate carts, with
a new shipping charge each time, as if there are two or three separate
shipments.

Also, it's quite hard to find what I want ...  I go to the search
engine but that doesn't always work either. It's one of the most
confusing websites I've ever used.

I ordered something from there on Wednesday and had no issues.

Mark
http://www.stillrivereditions.com

On Jul 3, 2008, at 10:05 PM, Paul Whiting wrote:

> Is anyone having trouble ordering from the MIS website?

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Mark Savoia
<mark@...> wrote:
Thanks, Mark... what browser are you using? I'm using Firefox, I
wonder if that's the problem. When I read my local paper on line, I
find that it 'forgets' where I was on the list of news items on the
previous page. Think I'll try Internet Explorer and see how that goes.

Regards,

Paul

>
> I ordered something from there on Wednesday and had no issues.
> 
> Mark
> http://www.stillrivereditions.com
> 
> On Jul 3, 2008, at 10:05 PM, Paul Whiting wrote:
> 
> > Is anyone having trouble ordering from the MIS website?
>

Safari.

Mark
http://www.stillrivereditions.com

On Jul 4, 2008, at 9:52 AM, Paul Whiting wrote:

> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Mark Savoia
> <mark@...> wrote:
> Thanks, Mark... what browser are you using? I'm using Firefox, I
> wonder if that's the problem. When I read my local paper on line, I
> find that it 'forgets' where I was on the list of news items on the
> previous page. Think I'll try Internet Explorer and see how that goes.
>
> Regards,
>
> Paul

That type of thing usually happens when you are not accepting cookies.

I usually block cookies, so I have to actively set the browser to 
accept cookies from the site.

Just ordered from them a couple of days ago.

Best,
Michael

you might try clearing out your cookies and starting again to see if 
that resolves the problem.

i agree it's an extremely confusing, poorly designed, helter-skelter 
website. i've mentioned it to them but they've paid no heed. i called 
them recently and even their own reps are confused. you'd think they 
would be able to guide you to the right products. instead they just 
get exasperated if you ask them too many questions.

not a smooth purchasing workflow at all. too many hurdles and 
friction points for the consumer. products are scattered all over 
creation so buying experience turns into a frustrating scavenger hunt 
nightmare. they're putting too much of the onus on the consumer to 
figure it all out. there's no logical product placement and no 
separation of products from solutions (i.e., roark).

clearly they don't have a cohesive sales & marketing plan to properly 
route buying traffic towards the shopping cart (like aisles in a 
grocery store). on top of it all, they don't even seem to care that 
they've lost sales. oh well...


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Whiting" 
<paulmwhiting@...> wrote:
>
> Is anyone having trouble ordering from the MIS website? I choose one
> item, then I click "continue shopping" but when I get to the 
shopping
> cart, the first item is no longer there, and I am forced to start a 
new
> cart. I want to order six items but no matter which one I start with
> it gets deleted. I end up having two or three separate carts, with
> a new shipping charge each time, as if there are two or three 
separate

> shipments.
> 
> Also, it's quite hard to find what I want ...  I go to the search
> engine but that doesn't always work either. It's one of the most
> confusing websites I've ever used.
>

Thank you for the tips ... I tried clearing out cookies but no luck.
Then I went to Internet Explorer instead of my usual Firefox. All was
going well, I had six items in my shopping cart but when I went to add
the last item, the site started a whole new cart with just that one in
it. And it took me 20 minutes to find that last item! What I wanted
was UT-QUAD-4-K, 4 ounces of Eboni ink. What makes this doubly
confusing is that the same ink is also listed as ESC7400-4-K. I tried
the site map under bulk ink, pigment ink, b/w ink so forth but no
luck. Finally I looked up the catalog number from a previous order and
did a search on those exact codes. If I hadn't had those catalog
numbers I don't how I would have found that ink. But, like I say, when
I added that item to the shopping cart all the previous items had
disappeared.

I'm glad you agreed with me on this site, I was beginning to think
something was wrong with me. I've spent between and hour and a half to
two hours trying to place this order!

> you might try clearing out your cookies and starting again to see if 
> that resolves the problem.
> 
> i agree it's an extremely confusing, poorly designed, helter-skelter 
> website. i've mentioned it to them but they've paid no heed. i called 
> them recently and even their own reps are confused. you'd think they 
> would be able to guide you to the right products. instead they just 
> get exasperated if you ask them too many questions.
> 
> not a smooth purchasing workflow at all. too many hurdles and 
> friction points for the consumer. products are scattered all over 
> creation so buying experience turns into a frustrating scavenger hunt 
> nightmare. they're putting too much of the onus on the consumer to 
> figure it all out. there's no logical product placement and no 
> separation of products from solutions (i.e., roark).
> 
> clearly they don't have a cohesive sales & marketing plan to properly 
> route buying traffic towards the shopping cart (like aisles in a 
> grocery store). on top of it all, they don't even seem to care that 
> they've lost sales. oh well...
> 
> 
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Whiting" 
> <paulmwhiting@> wrote:
> >
> > Is anyone having trouble ordering from the MIS website? I choose one
> > item, then I click "continue shopping" but when I get to the 
> shopping
> > cart, the first item is no longer there, and I am forced to start a 
> new
> > cart. I want to order six items but no matter which one I start with
> > it gets deleted. I end up having two or three separate carts, with
> > a new shipping charge each time, as if there are two or three 
> separate
> > shipments.
> > 
> > Also, it's quite hard to find what I want ...  I go to the search
> > engine but that doesn't always work either. It's one of the most
> > confusing websites I've ever used.
> >
>

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Whiting"
<paulmwhiting@...> wrote:
>

> I'm glad you agreed with me on this site, I was beginning to think
> something was wrong with me. I've spent between and hour and a half to
> two hours trying to place this order!


Try finding the Image Specialists section so that you know exactly
what you are buying. They hide it pretty wellif you try to go in
through the main site pages.

Thanks, Greg... but I hate to tell you I can't find that section! I
used their search engine, it said there were 3 results but the page
was blank. I also looked at all the drop down menus on the home page
as well as the Site Map.

> Try finding the Image Specialists section so that you know exactly
> what you are buying. They hide it pretty well if you try to go in
> through the main site pages.
>

Hellow Paul,

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Whiting"
<paulmwhiting@...> wrote:
>
> Is anyone having trouble ordering from the MIS website? I choose one
> item, then I click "continue shopping" but when I get to the shopping
> cart, the first item is no longer there, and I am forced to start a 
> new cart....

This happened to me once. I had to navigate to the item from the top
menu to keep the shopping cart in the session, but suppose you perform
a search which ends at some knowledge base page which then has a link
to the item and you try to put it in the cart, you have effectively
cleared out the session and get a newly initialized cart.

I think MIS has to do something to maintain the session id as we
navigate throughout their website. It's very possible they're hosting
the FAQ type pages in a separate server than the shopping one.

I sent them some comments on other issues but forgot about this one
until now. The comments I put in a survey after purchasing something
yesterday.

--nick

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Whiting"
<paulmwhiting@...> wrote:
>

I had to send them an email, after I asked Image Specialists if MIS
was still a dealer. There's a special page for the Image Specialists
inks that MIS doesn't like to promote.
http://www.inksupply.com/imagespec.cfm 

Considering that it should be the same ink under different part
numbers, I find it really odd that they don't index it. And this of
course really bothers me as I like to know what I am orderig so that I
know I get the same product each time I order.

> Thanks, Greg... but I hate to tell you I can't find that section! I
> used their search engine, it said there were 3 results but the page
> was blank. I also looked at all the drop down menus on the home page
> as well as the Site Map.
> 
> > Try finding the Image Specialists section so that you know exactly
> > what you are buying. They hide it pretty well if you try to go in
> > through the main site pages.
> >
>

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Nick H. Nugent"
Thanks, Nick, that did the trick... 

As long as I navigated from the top menu my shopping cart remained
intact. While doing so, looking for replacement chips, I ran across
another irritating glitch however. Under the first Accessories link,
when I clicked on Replacement Chips, I got sent to the Chip Resetter!
But when I clicked on Tools and Parts, way down at the bottom of that
page, there was a link to the chips. However the second Accessories
link got me there.

This is the most confusing website I've ever run across.

And thank you Greg, for that Image Specialists link. Now that's a
strange partnership, isn't it! And you're right, it is hidden. I never
would have found it.

Thanks to you both, I can now complete my order. Whew!

Paul

> This happened to me once. I had to navigate to the item from the top
> menu to keep the shopping cart in the session, but suppose you perform
> a search which ends at some knowledge base page which then has a link
> to the item and you try to put it in the cart, you have effectively
> cleared out the session and get a newly initialized cart.
> 
> I think MIS has to do something to maintain the session id as we
> navigate throughout their website. It's very possible they're hosting
> the FAQ type pages in a separate server than the shopping one.
> 
> I sent them some comments on other issues but forgot about this one
> until now. The comments I put in a survey after purchasing something
> yesterday.
> 
> --nick
>

I have found that if I run 2 cleaning cycles on my 2400 and then let
my printer sit over night, the MIS web site will usually work better
the next day.

ymmv

-Jeff