Unique Choice is back!

[aarontunes]

We've just done a soft launch of the new Unique Choice on the website. These UC blanks are now being offered in a completely different way, so forget what you "knew", and embrace the "new".

You'll now add UC items to your cart separately. Then, when building your custom body or neck you specify "Unique Choice" as the lam top or fretboard.

Only fretboards are available currently. This will give us a chance to work the kinks out.

You can find the links on the bottom right of the "Hardware" menu.

EDIT: and BTW, the only people we are announcing this to for now is you fine folks. We'll wait until it's a little more tested before doing a big marketing push.

 

[ghostrider25]

 

[Tipperman]

I was just looking at doing another build, and wondered where that feature had gone. Very cool. Hope you are well, Aaron. All my best to you and the rest of the folks at Warmoth.

 

[Schneidas]

Ok I was waiting for this as an excuse to build a new neck with you guys, so tried to do this but I never actually get to the page with the "Unique Choice" fretboards.
I choose a neck and use the "Unique Choice" as a fingerboard, but the system never leads me to the Unique Choice page.
I got all the way through to shipping and entering credit card details but it never actually let me choose my unique fretboard.
Am I doing something wrong? Where can I find the page with the unique boards?

 

[stratamania]

Ok I was waiting for this as an excuse to buid a new neck with you guys, so tried to do this but I never actually get to the page with the "Unique Choice" fretboards.
I choose a neck and use the "Unique Choice" as a fingerboard, but the system never leads me to the Unique Choice page.
I got all the way through to shipping and entering credit card details but it never actually et me choose my unique fretboard.
Am I doing something wrong? Where can I find the page with the unique boards?

Under Hardware as mentioned above. But here are the links.

https://warmoth.com/hardware/unique-choice/standard-fretboards

https://warmoth.com/hardware/unique-choice/universal-fretboards

 

[Schneidas]

Doh!

Thanks Stratamania!
Ah, missed this in Aaron's post

 

[WrongPickguard]

Excited to see this is coming back to lam tops soon-ish.

 

[Hodgo]

Ok I was waiting for this as an excuse to build a new neck with you guys, so tried to do this but I never actually get to the page with the "Unique Choice" fretboards.
I choose a neck and use the "Unique Choice" as a fingerboard, but the system never leads me to the Unique Choice page.
I got all the way through to shipping and entering credit card details but it never actually let me choose my unique fretboard.
Am I doing something wrong? Where can I find the page with the unique boards?

Something tells me your experience will not be unique, and the new process will frustrate quite a few customers. Having to leave the order form is… well, not awful, but not great UX design.

 

[aarontunes]

Something tells me your experience will not be unique, and the new process will frustrate quite a few customers. Having to leave the order form is… well, not awful, but not great UX design.

Yep, we know it's not as streamlined as it used to be, but the old model is not sustainable. It HAS to change, so the options are 1) don't offer UC, 2) change the way we offer UC, and this is what we came up with.

We provided all kinds of instructions on how to do it. At the bottom of every product page there are instructions, and there is an info page like this one for every category of products: https://warmoth.com/unique-choice-guitar-fretboard. The links for these are in the left side of the main menus.

And again....this is a soft launch. We'll make refinements as we go to make the process more obvious.

 

[Hodgo]

Yep, we know it's not as streamlined as it used to be, but the old model is not sustainable. It HAS to change, so the options are 1) don't offer UC, 2) change the way we offer UC, and this is what we came up with.

We provided all kinds of instructions on how to do it. At the bottom of every product page there are instructions, and there is an info page like this one for every category of products: https://warmoth.com/unique-choice-guitar-fretboard. The links for these are in the left side of the main menus.

And again....this is a soft launch. We'll make refinements as we go to make the process more obvious.

First problem: you want people to read the manual

I don’t mean to complain too much because I have no insight into the inner workings of Warmoth or the website, and certainly I mean no offense.

Professionally speaking I am spoiled. I work in big tech and spend every day working with an army of software developers who could easily solve the problems of wanting to offer UC woods while simultaneously improving the UX, all while making ongoing maintenance of the website easier for your admins and smoothing the gap between the customer and the production side of the house…. but we pay those guys millions and millions of dollars a year to do that for us.

So while I know a better experience is possible, I would never claim it’s feasible for Warmoth - nor do I want to pay any more for the products y’all offer to offset additional development costs.

(But I would like a custom Meadowhawk already, pretty please)

 

[stratamania]

The way the unique choice is set out on the website seems to me to be a perfectly feasible and satisfactory solution.
It's a guitar part website, not a mobile phone app for the masses.

 

[aarontunes]

First problem: you want people to read the manual

I don’t mean to complain too much because I have no insight into the inner workings of Warmoth or the website, and certainly I mean no offense.

Professionally speaking I am spoiled. I work in big tech and spend every day working with an army of software developers who could easily solve the problems of wanting to offer UC woods while simultaneously improving the UX, all while making ongoing maintenance of the website easier for your admins and smoothing the gap between the customer and the production side of the house…. but we pay those guys millions and millions of dollars a year to do that for us.

So while I know a better experience is possible, I would never claim it’s feasible for Warmoth - nor do I want to pay any more for the products y’all offer to offset additional development costs.

(But I would like a custom Meadowhawk already, pretty please)

Yes, you've nailed the real issue. All things are possible with the resources of Amazon. Unfortunately, Warmoth doesn't have an "army of developers" and "millions and millions of dollars a year".

Given the complexity of our product, and how complex our website must be to offer such a complex product, I feel we do a pretty good job given the limited resources we have.

And so again, our options are 1) don't offer Unique Choice at all or 2) offer it in this new way.

 

[ghostrider25]

I actually like the new way because it's way easier to see all the options. I realize this is a beta type of setup. I'm sure there will be UX improvements to make it more intuitive (i.e. redirecting the customer to that page once they've completed the custom form with UC selected).

 

[electric__steve]

The search feature on the site works pretty well. You can search for unique choice and see all of the options at once: https://warmoth.com/catalogsearch/result/index/?q=Unique Choice&product_list_limit=36

Right now, after you click Add to Cart, you get this window:




That looks like it should work pretty well. Perhaps "Proceed to Unique" choice should be the first option.

If it's still confusing to some people, maybe just drop the "Continue Shopping" option entirely. Make "Proceed..." a mandatory step.

I do like having the full gallery view; I think this is a definite improvement for browsing all the available fretboards.

 

[electric__steve]

One area for improvement: "Proceed to Unique Choice" needs to filter your neck choice against Universal and Standard fretboards. I spec'd out a bass neck, and PUC took me to see both Standard and Universal fretboards. I was able to add a Standard to cart, and go through the first screen of checkout without any error message.

That's definitely going to cause some customer grumpiness when people have their orders canceled because that didn't have compatible parts.

 

[AleForce1]

I actually like the new way because it's way easier to see all the options. I realize this is a beta type of setup. I'm sure there will be UX improvements to make it more intuitive (i.e. redirecting the customer to that page once they've completed the custom form with UC selected).

I agree. When it was available in the "Build a neck" page you didn't get to see a large enough image of the unique piece of wood, or it was hard to figure out which one you looked at. The new option is easier.

 

[aarontunes]

FYI, we have just released the first of the Unique Choice Lam Tops. We are wading into this slowly, so don't expect a massive selection of high dollar tops quite yet, but they are coming.

 

[WrongPickguard]

There are some really nice lam tops now!

The site says "To have this Unique Choice lam top used in the construction of your custom body, simply add it to your cart. Then choose ‘Unique Choice’ as the lam top wood when configuring your custom body."

But I don't see any option for "Unique Choice" yet.

 

[aarontunes]

There are some really nice lam tops now!

The site says "To have this Unique Choice lam top used in the construction of your custom body, simply add it to your cart. Then choose ‘Unique Choice’ as the lam top wood when configuring your custom body."

But I don't see any option for "Unique Choice" yet.

Ah....now see: this is why we are rolling it out slowly!

You should see it now.

 

[AleForce1]

The unique choice selections keep getting better. Almost wished I didn't place a custom body & neck order a few weeks ago.