Why does the D&D website hide its merchandise store?

[CroBob]

Even things I've done before, I don't go to Wizards often, and will probably continue sporadic visits at best. It's never taken me less than a few minutes to find what I'm looking for, unless I was directly linked from elsewhere. It's not unheard of for me to visit the site and it take long enough to find what I'm looking for that I forget what it is I'm looking for anyway.

 

[Jester David]

I've reviewed their website quite a few times on my blog, with the most recent time being here:
http://community.wizards.com/the_jester/blog/2012/05/12/reviewing_the_website_iii

I think the website has gotten better, but it's still not particularly good.

edit: the "New to D&D section" is pretty amazingly bad. The writing is terrible, there's a glaring typo that has gone unfixed for five months, and it hasn't been updated to plug the latest season of Encounters, suggesting the entire section of the website has not been looked at since February. And this is where they want people brand new to the game to go, this is where they expect new income to come from...
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Feature.aspx?x=new/learntoplay

 

[Evenglare]

I don't like the site much either. Especially now that they dropped 4th edition completely, they don't have a clear business plan anymore it seems. Especially since the holiday catalog came out there is 1st edition books, 3rd edition books, editionless books, and NO mention of 4th edition books. It's a complete mess.

 

[Hussar]

Then again, RPG gaming websites as a whole are horrible. Most are in desperate need of some decent web design fu. WOTC's is almost good in comparison. Which is pretty damn bad.

 

[delericho]

WotC's D&D site is a nightmare in general.

Agreed. As far as I'm concerned, anything that isn't linked to from ENWorld might as well not exist on Wizards.com.

 

[ferratus]

I don't think you can blame it on website design alone guys. Look at Paizo's website for example, which is much, much uglier and perhaps even worse if you are talking about finding specific articles and blog posts and such.

But they have right front and center, taking up the entire front page, stuff to buy. Stuff to buy along the top, stuff to buy along the side.

It just looks like they are there to do business. WotC on the other hand... looks like a fansite.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I don't think you can blame it on website design alone guys. Look at Paizo's website for example, which is much, much uglier and perhaps even worse if you are talking about finding specific articles and blog posts and such.

But they have right front and center, taking up the entire front page, stuff to buy. Stuff to buy along the top, stuff to buy along the side.

It just looks like they are there to do business. WotC on the other hand... looks like a fansite.

Well, that's because Paizo sells direct to the customers, whereas the D&D site is just general info. So the merch on the D&D site is a much smaller reason for people to go there, and for what WotC wants to let the people know about. You really can't compare the two sites based on that.

 

[TerraDave]

The D&D website bad? It used to be worse.

And you can still reach it with www.tsr.com

WotC use to sell directly from their site and spun that off years ago.

The stuff they have adds for...is not actually made by them or sold by them.