New shop.LEGO.com response

It's good to know that LEGO officers are reading our comments about the the new site.
I've talked to the Hungarian Customer Service of LEGO Shop at Home.
They are also experiencing problems with the new site, especially applying the "welcome promo discount". The IT department is working on resolving the issues.
She said that all feedback regarding the new site is helpful to them, so encouraged me and all the LEGO community to report any bugs, issues or concerns of the new site through their customer service pages on shop.lego.com.

in my case, Add to Wish list is not working

It must be nice to have the CEO of LEGO a regular visitor to Brickset! :)

My "add to wish list" hasn't been working for over a year on the old site. That it wasn't working on the new site...was no surprise.

I just looked at it for the first time. Mobile site is a huge improvement in my opinion.

Nothing we want done will be done.

There are two bugs, which are quite irritating:

1. When you will start to scroll down the main page, then after reaching the "Experience the VIP treatment" panel (panel with the red minifigure), then the browser freezes for 10-15 sec. It's no matter which browser I'm using - I'm able to reproduce this issue on every browser. Page loading performance issues?

2. It seems that the new page has some issues with responding to events. For example: after clicking on the "Check order status" button it takes about 10-30 sec for loading the data. Database performance issues?

Tested on: Intel i7 3,33 GHz, 16 GB RAM, SSD, nVidia NVS 5400.

It's a shame... I hope in a solution in short time.

God almighty it's slow! In Firefox the whole browser stops responding at multiple points when scrolling down the page - presumably as each section loads. That's not images doing that, it's something that the code is doing. Images would load pretty quickly.

And it does it on every single page. I suspected that most complaints here were probably overblown, but I'm sorry to say it's close to unusable. I didn't even go too deep into it to test other things out because of that.

EDIT: Forget that. I have Adobe Flash disabled by default, and when I enabled it the site sped up a lot. I guess it was waiting for Flash to work before...

The p*** poor site is now p*** poorer than ever. They should check out some of the better functioning websites out there for examples of what to do. Sites such as Ebay, Amazon, etc. Make LEGO information easy to find, with quick loading pages and with the site being always reliable, and the people will come. Remember, people are using computers, phones, tablets etc to shop online and with many different browsers.

Adobe Flash. Software based in the late 90's/early00's with more security flaws than Donald Trump on cocaine. PASS.

"Nothing we want done will be done.

Exactly! They will fix a few bugs, but the horrible design and 'click, click, click, click,click,click' o find anything will never be fixed.

If the Lego group is reading this I will appreciate that they worked on the issue of the whislist not adding sets.

I've been a web developer for fifteen years. If there's one thing I've learned it's that any time you change anything about an existing website, app, or program that has any kind of user base, you'll be barraged with negative comments about how much people hate it. I don't mean to undermine or trivialize all of these negative comments. It's just part of the business and I'm sure the development and design team are taking them with a grain of salt. The fact is that quite often the only feedback you ever get is negative (or at best "constructive"), and I'm sure they know that these kind of complaints are always representative of a vocal minority. A site like the Lego shop has probably hundreds of thousands of visitors. If a few hundred complain about the redesign, that's a pretty trivial percentage.

I personally haven't had any problems with the new site. I think the design is much more modern and visually pleasant than the old version. Specifically, I don't know why comments are referring to Flash - I dug through the source code, and I haven't seen any flash happening anywhere (even though you might be surprised how ubiquitous it still is). Without adding any additional functionality, though, I'm not sure why TLG wanted to invite the inevitable "change is bad" storm.

Rule of Website Redesigns: there's no point redesigning your website to look nicer without upgrading the servers and such behind the scenes. If you don't have more computing power to make your new design work, then there's no point redesigning it.

tl;dr: fix your bugs and servers BEFORE redesigning your whole website, not AFTER.

We can argue if it's a bad sign (Which I think it's hideous and only good for 5 year olds on iPads that shouldn't be shopping anyways.). The bigger issue is instead of making things easier to find, they made it harder. Why do we need a retired theme section? What happened to Top Sellers? That's the issue. I can get buy the hideously ugly and large BS that takes up the homepage (Why such a big thing for VIP?) but it's just not user friendly.

Huw, thanks for the update. Can we leave comments and feedback here as well that we want to make sure Jorgen reads, or should we go back to the previous post? I have discovered something about the Wish List problem. It would be really great if LEGO would add a feedback button on each page for reporting bugs and issues, like they have done with the LEGO Ideas website when it first launched. That was very helpful.

I'm actually a bit surprised people are reacting in this manner. I agree it's not the best website, but an upgrade is an upgrade no? Like most other successful product offerings (think a new Iphone) there are always bugs and problems in the beginning - give it time people!

As for the fact that the CEO is reacting, wow, shows you how customer friendly the company is and how focused he is on furthering the brand even more.

The Pick A Brick section is now rather tedious. There is now a very lengthy category list to scroll through with new terminology that isn't particularly clear.

When you select a category, it shifts to the top of the list, which is nice for organization, but the Apply button is at the opposite end of the list, at the bottom. You then have to scroll back to the top of the page to see the search results. Lots of scrolling.

A lot of these categories are empty, it would be very helpful if they displayed a number of elements beside the category so that we know its not empty. Or maybe not even display empty categories.

For example, Beams w/shapes, Body shells, Circle, Oval with gap, metal, freeform, freeform with cap, freeform with gap, electric parts, can bottom, can lid and bags foil are all empty.

Good to read that Jørgen Vig Knudstorp has noticed our grumbles: I'm sufficiently optimistic to wait patiently for some improvements in the near future.

While you're reading this, Jørgen, would you care to comment on the "piece count" filter? What sort of customer thinks "Well, I was thinking about a CITY set, but it absolutely, positively, has to have between 250 and 499 bricks!"

I wasn't going to comment on this article, but ShauvonM's "haters-gonna-hate" post annoyed me. Rexy had clearly written "received an overwhelmingly negative response from the majority of Brickset users" yet ShauvonM decided he could dismiss the magnitude of our moaning with such baseless assertions as: "these kind of complaints are always representative of a vocal minority" and "If a few hundred complain about the redesign, that's a pretty trivial percentage."

On Tusday I succesfully placed an order with discount and freebie. Today I can't even log in to check order status :-D

Actually, can we get an elaboration on "received an overwhelmingly negative response from the majority of Brickset users?" The original front-page post about the new site has 99 comments, and not all of them are negative. The only post I can see in the forums has 11 comments, and not all of them are negative either. Since this is such a high-profile site, I'm sure there are quite a few more than 99 users (that post about the new shop has over 11,000 views). Since 99 comments can't possibly be a "majority of Brickset users," are you receiving a lot of complaints via email or other direct messages? Why are people complaining directly to Brickset about the problems they see in the official Lego website?

Anyway, just a bit more clarity on where this overwhelmingly negative response is would be helpful, I think. We don't want to feed any trolls and blow this out of proportion.

New site seems to work fine for me. I'm using Chrome with Flash disabled. No problems with loading images or scrolling, and the wishlist is working for me. I do agree with skypirate's comments on pick-a-brick, it is really annoying to select from a list for search and get zero items back. Either displaying a piece count or eliminating the empties from the search options would be a big improvement.

So just for the sake of clarity, because this is the Internet and the Internet is really good at making a Big Deal of things, we're talking about an overwhelmingly negative response from the majority of comments on the last post (and this one, to be fair). This is much less than the majority of all Brickset users, and a tiny percentage of all Lego customers. Again, I don't want to diminish the significance of any problems that users are having. The Lego Shop website has one simple task, to make buying Lego as easy as possible, and for a lot of users it seems to be failing at that task. I just wanted to make sure we had the big picture, and play Devil's Advocate. Perspective is very important.

@ OuterRimTradingCo. and others:
I think we should not assume that Jørgen is really a frequent visitor of this fantastic site.
But the good news is that he was yesterday evening after an eMail popped up in his inbox ;-) and he reacted lightning-fast and very grateful.

Even though I have recommended to the IT department of LEGO (via customer service) that they should check the comments here and with the first news article on this site, I would like to encourage you all to report any errors and bugs and any uncomfortable features of the new site via the contact form at https://wwwsecure.us.lego.com/en-us/service/contactus ... those IT guys need our direct feedback, otherwise we have to live on with this faulty site.

Last but not least one thought, not to excuse LEGO (they really failed with this rollout), but maybe to explain the situation:
I do not know whether the new site was really programmed in Denmark respectively by LEGO themselves or by a third party. But if it was done in Denmark we might have a cultural problem behind this all.
From my experience as a member of the Executive Board of a German-Danish group of companies I know that Danes have a slightly different approach to projects. While we Germans e.g. make plans, plans, plans and then start realising them, my former Danish colleagues started with a vision and then more on a trial-and-error basis. Please don't get me wrong: I am not saying that one way is better than the other! BUT if we talk of Danish web-designers they maybe choose this Danish approach and we are now the witnesses of the trial and error ... Of course this should not have happend with an international group like LEGO, but maybe we should be a little understanding (only a little ;-) ...). Be sure in the IT department right now the "tree is burning".
So let's help those guys - for the sake of us all - and report each and every bug - be it minor or large - to them ... !

Keep on building!
Michael :o)

Yea This New Look Is Crappy I Want The Old One Back This One Is Stupid Slow

core function lost with the new site: can not check my orders placed! link in new order confirmation email does not work and there is no orders option in the menu! omg this is so lame..

LLC just look at bricklink site with endless filtering options when browsing items or shops, which despite of the much more users and more massive database is still much faster and more ergonomic.

Perhaps Mister CEO would also like to provide some answers regarding the disparate pricing between territories? Because so far *nobody* at TLG has managed to come up with an explanation.

It's really simple : why are some regions hit with massive pricing penalties?

@ShauvonM - you say you've 15 years in the industry, that's a piece of legitimizing that's bound to ruffle feathers. Since we don't know you, and vice verse, that type of intellectual coercion is useless at best.

In your 15 years, did you ever need to determine what was preference, what was objective, how those relate--and what you'd do about it?

Your narrative casts people on this post in a weird light--they "just don't like change". Right? Except tons of people actually said "this is slow" or "this used to work and doesn't any more". Some more people said "they still haven't fixed X" or "it's ugly"...just while we're all so focused on accuracy.

Did you use the site yet? Did it work for you? I'm interested in that. If you're more perceptive than me, more qualified? I'm not interested in that. To the point of telling you so.

For me it's working OK (crap computer - older IE browser). I used to search for something and NOT get any relevant hits...or I'd get punted back to the main page. Now I can search for "tower" and get 3 sets with that word in their name. I can search for '41134' and get a result for the "Heartlake Performance School". That's my brief feedback. Unbelievably the search didn't used to work--now apparently it does.

Having a hard time finding 'Seasonal' sets on the mobile site. Am I missing something?

EDIT: Nevermind, found it. Still, clicking the link only takes me back to the shopfront again.

I don't know if anyone else of having this problem, but on mobile there is no add to cart button from what I can see. Only a add to wish list button which does not work.

It's working fine for me. No major issues. It even looks a bit better than before without being a complete change.

It is funny how people are scared of everything new. But as usual on the internet you only hear the voice of the minority of people being unhappy.

@CapnRex101 looks like the new site killed off some feeds, or changed how Brickset gets data as well?
Or are we just lucky in Norway with left over SW units;)
Both Slave 1 and Ewok Village set details pages here now says gone 31.8, while store has them (had me worried a few seconds)

I'm finding using Pick-A-Brick very hard to use. And load times seem to be longer as well. Not liking the new and improved. Please do something about it Lego. Why change something that is working fine or was there problems with the old. I didn't think so. that's my two cents worth.

I don't think it's a matter of people immediately fearing things that are new than things not working as logically as possible.
I also cannot find the seasonal sets. I'm not even sure they're in any discoverable category. And honestly, if I have to do a web search to find a set number or the correct name to find a set, then it'll probably bring up a store where I can buy that set and I'll buy it there with less hassle.
There needs to be more recursiveness with categorizing products. If a keychain is a keychain but also in the City theme, throw it in both headings or you will lose impulse purchases. That sort of thing.
The Order Status area took me forever to find on day one, because I expected it to be under my account settings. And for a lot of people, seeing how many VIP points they have is less effective than how much money those points translate to. I don't care that I have 682 points, for example, show me how much money I have to "spend".
The new way to search/sort/categorize on the left hand size requires more clicks and bumps back to the top of the page than before, and also takes up far too much screen real estate.
And on the buggy side of things, when clicking between categories under sets, I am having the hardest time getting the site to switch between categories. A good portion of the time, it just keeps reloading the same category.
Personally, if it's too difficult to find something, or too long of a process, I'm not going to buy from there. And I have a pretty good frustration tolerance. But I had intended to place an order Tuesday to use a gift card, and still haven't because every time I go to the shop site, it's just too much of a hassle and too slow. It's not that it's new, it's not fear of change, it's that it's clunky.

My main problem is that it's slow--definitely much slower than the old site, and in a very distracting way. Not being able to find the seasonal Vampire and Bat set except by searching on its set number is not a good sign either. Not being able to choose how many sets are displayed on a page is a step backward rather than forward. Yes, I disliked the new versions of Bricklink and Brickset when they first appeared, but in both cases the content of the site remained easily accessible and very desireable, and I quickly adapted. I am actively avoiding the LEGO.com site now. I can't be sure that means I won't buy as much Lego directly from TLG as I have in the past, but I'm certainly not going to buy *more.*

Does it still have the 25 best sellers? Can't find it, and was one of my favourite features of the old site. So much white space on every page, white space inside and outside the frames. My finger is tired scrolling and clicking.

I found "seasonal" category!
You have to click "sets", then "sets home", then "interests - shop now", then scroll down and there is "seasonal" category. And thats all, because after clicking "see products" you will see main page.

@parsom, I too also eventually found the seasonal sets after many links and clicking, but when finally clicking the seasonal sets link, it said there were 0 sets

This site has made me want to never visit the Lego.com site ever again. I couldn't find anything I was looking for. Pick-a-brick full of misspellings and strange names for elements. I can't find words enough to express how much I dislike the new design.

"but an upgrade is an upgrade no?"

Not when it's not functioning and not an upgrade. They UPDATED the website, but that's completely different then upgrading it.

The look is silly and odd. In the USA 2/3 of the homepage only shows a few things. It's something that orates (which is fine), then a huge non changing ad for the VW Buggie. If they just compacted the set, the VIP useless info and make it speaker that would change the looks for the better.

However it still doesn't change it's weirdly designed and I have to use Brickiest to find Pick-a-Brick pieces because it's search functions are so bad.

I had to look for the number of the vampire on brickset so I could order it. as has been said there is no seasonal category. since the holiday seasons are almost here this is really a pain.

I talked to Lego a few years ago about helping run their digital stuff, and the very strong message was 'it's all about game design, forget the rest'. Well no, Lego, you're supposed to be running an eCommerce store as well, so treat it like one.

This was a disappointing website upgrade. A more professional approach would have exposed all the bugs and usability problems, preventing the redesign from ever going live. It is odd considering the company's slogan is "only the best is good enough". But it's good to hear that LEGO's CEO obviously recognizes the value of the community's comments. Hopefully he can devote some extra resources to this now.

I am not against things changing. On the contrary, especially Lego LEGO.com was really in need of an upgrade - but mostly for technical stuff like reliability, functionaltity and speed. Not so much for design.

As others have said, TLG, take a look at shopping sites like Amazon, ebay, etc. that are functioning far better. Not flawless on every system of course, that is next to impossible, but generally reliable, highly functional and very fast on most relevant systems.

My wishlist for optimization of the new site:
- more info on the pages, smaller images, less whitespace, smaller fonts
- more relevant info on the set details pages (where has the piece count gone)
- less need for scrolling down all over the place (fits in with bullet point 1)
- less clicks to get to the relevant info (on the old site, many things werde found with just one or two clicks, now it is often five or more, why?)
- more topics in the "explore" section (why only "old sets"? indeed why "old sets" at all?)

There is more, but the ones above are the most important ones to me. Thank you very much for listening, Mr. Knudstorp.

@Block-n-Roll in New Zealand, 08 Sep 2016 15:03
Regarding price differences there's a small text on LEGO's Bricks&Pieces page:

"Global price differences when buying online from LEGO Shop:
Finding the right prices for a toy isn't easy and depends on a lot of considerations. To name a few, our marketing team looks at statistical data about a country's population, transportation costs, currency exchange rates, local laws and the prices of other toys. No two countries are exactly the same, so the price may be different from country to country."

In addition taxes and VAT can also cause price differences. Remember, that where VAT is applicable, the prices include VAT (e.g. in Hungary it is 27%), meanwhile the US prices are without state tax, because state tax is different for state to state, tax is added during checkout. I'm not familiar with the US state taxes, but it can be around 2 to 10%.

But yes, it is still frustrating that there are so big price differences between countries. In addition shop.lego.com Hungary is increasing prices on yearly basis. Some years ago a modular building cost approximately 35-40000 HUF, now it costs around 53000 HUF, meanwhile the exchange rate between EUR and HUF is more or less the same, and the EUR price of a modular building is constantly 150€ for 7 years now.

@AustinPowers in Germany, 09 Sep 2016 03:09
"- more relevant info on the set details pages (where has the piece count gone)"

The piece count is still available. Under the pictures of the set, there are the product details, such as item number, number of VIP points to be earned by purchasing the set, the age of the customer the set is designed for, and the piece count

@Yellow: regarding the piece count - no there isn't. I just checked several sets, and there are indeed the set-number, VIP points and age, but no piece count. At least not on the systems I checked the site with. Perhaps it's a bug that will be ironed out like the huge white spaces that often block half of the screen for no apparent reason.

@AustinPowers
It's strange. I checked on my laptop under IE, Chrome, Firefox as well as on my LG android 6.0 cellphone with LG's browser, in each case I see the piece count beside set number, VIP pionts and age.

Shorter path to "Seasonal sets" - From the start page, click "Sets", then click "Interests" and then click "Seasonal". It still returns zero results, but only 3 clicks to get there. It was not obvious to me that the "Themes" and "Interests" headings toggled between two sub-menus.

I took the new site for a "test drive" yesterday and, aside from a slightly slower load time (part of which I attribute to the new graphics not already being buffered on my computer from multiple previous visits) I had no problems with it. The field for my discount was there and the discount worked, as did my VIP and benefits. Jumping back from the cart to "get more items" was a little clunky, but I like the new look and will get used to it very quickly.

It's taken a few days but I've got the hang of moving around the new site and I've already seen some fixes. It's not as slow as the first night and Buck Palace is now under architecture.
Can't find where the promos are like the current one for a free Ninjago Dragon, just a couple of Nexo ones under the VIP setting. There seams to be a lot more clicking around but maybe it's just because I still can't find things.
The discount code wouldn't show up the first couple of days but last night it did so I finally paid for the order I had in my basket and got my £10 off, only to be sent an email later canceling my order as I've already used the code!!!! Even though this is the first order I've placed in several months.
I've emailed customer services and now I'm waiting to see if they will go ahead with my order.

It's not the worst site, and it looks nice and bright but what was so wrong with the old one. The best bit I did find was being able to click on the heart to add to favorite list. Before if I looked at the items pictures it wouldn't add to list, I always had to click first before looking at anything in detail.

Oh downside no VIP points on Pick a Brick :(

@starwarsfan14: "Oh downside no VIP points on Pick a Brick :("

Customer service told me that yes we still get VIP ponts for Pick a Brick, only the system does not show at this time (system error). However when the order is shipped, the VIP points will be added. Let's see...

Its slow for everyone, good, at least that means it is not my PC. Im guessing development companies have a pact with PC companies to keep loading more crap onto sites to slow PCs down to force people to upgrade

It would be nice to enter "pick a brick" in the search bar and end up on that page, like the old site did. I don't know what page it sent me to on the new site, but it sure wasn't Pick-A-Brick.

@martinb @Paperballpark

I'm wholeheartedly convinced that it IS the images causing the lag when scrolling. These images in particular:

https://shop.lego.com/static/images/svg/shop-emails.svg
https://shop.lego.com/static/images/svg/account/check-order-status.svg
https://shop.lego.com/static/images/svg/my-bag.svg
https://shop.lego.com/static/images/svg/recommended.svg

Check out the source codes for those SVGs... nasty! That's embedded PNG data that not only severely bloats the images unnecessarily, but takes forever for the browser to scale and render. It seems like whenever they are loaded or unloaded from memory, there is significant lag. The PNGs are just faded circles that are used for the shadows under the studs. Absolutely no need to use PNGs for those: radial gradient would be preferable, but an SVG Gaussian Blur filter is also another solution that would allow a nearly identical image without the lag.

If you have Ad Blocking software (shame on you!) you can block those 4 images from loading and the pages will stop lagging, I guarantee it!

While I'm annoyed that I lost my pick a brick order in progress, I do like the easier quantity selection of bricks. Being able to select the number required before they get added to the list and then searching through the entire list to find them to adjust is a great improvement. Yet to start the order again so we'll see how it fairs. No other issues at this stage, just a matter of getting used to it I suppose.

Why list retired products on a store website? Honestly who thought that was a good idea? You type in 'seasonal' and the only two sets that come up are a fall set from two years ago and last year's Valentine's Day set. Why would I need or care about sets I can't buy? If I'm at The LEGO Shop I want to shop for things, not look at useless retired sets.

^If a lot of people are looking at specific retired sets it may prompt LEGO to re-issue those sets.

Considering it should have had at least a 1-2- years beta version for testing, this update is one huge cock-up. Probably the 3rd Lego has done this year. I would have thought this would have been a major thing, tested by all, especially CEOs and others in management. How could the general lack of usablity, the slowness of ajax & json reloads and general non-function of the site not have been noticed?

I would be surprised if this doesn't have some sort of knock-on effect for sales generated from the site. I know I have not had any luck using it and i feel like I may give up trying..