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What we have here in the new build-your-own section of the SaabUSA website is a classic cock-up that just may point to why GM is currently in financial distress.
If you’re reading this from the offices of SaabUSA then please look away now. You might be responsible for this and I’m going to give you a good kick in the internet gonads. If you’re reading this from the offices of SaabUSA and you choose to continue reading, then maybe you know the person responsible for this – please kick them in the gonads on my behalf.
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A while ago, my employer had a company vehicle called a Mitsubishi Magna. It had the most uncomfortable seats in all autodom. I remember sitting on them and thinking to myself that it was unbelievable that someone in authority could sit in that seat and then sign off on it as being OK for production. Those seats probably lost thousands of first time customers and thousands more in repeat business. A car company just can’t afford to stuff up something as fundamental as a seat.
Today, Wulf sent me a link to the new Build-Your-Own section of the SaabUSA website. They held up the addition of 2009 vehicles to the website because they were re-vamping this section of the site, so I was looking forward to checking it out.
When I clicked on it, I thought it looked a bit clinical to start with. It was when I started to progress through it that my jaw slackened. Like the Mitsubishi Magna seats, I just can’t believe that someone in authority at SaabUSA saw this site, used this site, and then thought that it was acceptable for potential Saab buyers to use.
Let me start at the end.
This is what a Saab 9-3 in Titan Grey with 10-spoke wheels and a black interior looks like when you Build-Your-Own at the Saab Australia website:
As you can see, the color and trim options are shown with your actual vehicle’s exterior and interior represented on the page. I chose those wheels and they appeared on the car.
Similarly, here’s a Titan Grey sedan with ALU73 wheels (again, chosen by me) and a parchment interior – all shown on the Build-Your-Own page at Saab UK:
Now, here’s a Titan Grey 9-3 sedan from the Build-Your-Own section of the SaabUSA website.
I chose 18-inch wheels but I have no idea if that’s them because the wheel size didn’t change when I clicked it. I don’t even really know if they’re the wheels I’ll get as there was no visual representation of the wheel to click – just a check box.
I’m also unsure as to what my interior will look like as there was no examples to see on the BYO website. Being safe, I chose black, though you’d never know as you can’t see it.
And in case you didn’t notice, Titan Grey now looks like Laser Red. As does Black, White, Nocturne Blue and Snow Silver. They all look red because the representation of the car doesn’t change color anymore, no matter what color you select (and no, there are no color swatches to see what the different colors look like anyway).
Effectively, the site allows you to see the price and a rough specification level. The car doesn’t look like the car you’ll order (unless you order Laser Red) and the BYO site doesn’t give you a printable document that details the equipment you’ll get on the car, like the other sites do. US Saab customers would be better off getting a visual of the car from another country’s site and then coming to the US site for a price.
Another bugbear is that the site has been dumbed down. Instead of assuming that people are intelligent and know what their Saab models are, it asks them if they want a “4-door car” or a “Station Wagon”. In Saab-land, these are called a Sport Sedan or a Sport Combi. Why dilute them so they can be understood by the great unwashed? You’re trying to be a premium brand, aren’t you?
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The big question, of course, is how much did this cost? How many tens of thousands of dollars did they pay to a company somewhere in the US or wherever to actually make their site worse than what it was?
That’s the big joke here (if only it were funny).
SaabUSA’s website (and most of them, really) was in need of a clean up but the old BYO site used to do all the things that the UK and Aussie ones did. It gave you a visual representation of the way you’d configured your car. Pick Snow Silver and the car would show up as Snow Silver. Pick a parchment interior and it would show you a parchment interior.
This site has cost them thousands of dollars and it does nothing to show the premium customer what they’re about to spend their tens of thousands of dollars on.
Again – I cannot believe that someone at SaabUSA actually saw this, used this, and allowed it to go live on the internet. It makes me shudder to think they’ve paid someone for it.
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There’s one possible get-out clause for SaabUSA here.
It was noted by a number of websites recently that they had no 2009 cars on their web page. This gave fuel to speculation that GM might be about to put Saab on the block. When asked about the issue, SaabUSA stated that the 2009 models were not on the site yet because they had engaged a new contractor to build this BYO website and it wasn’t ready yet, but would be soon.
This is the result.
The get-out-of-a-gonad-kicking part could be that they’ve just slapped this thing up there, even though it’s half finished, in order to give people an idea as to what’s going on. That is, the BYO site’s still a work in progress but they figure something’s better than nothing, however incomplete.
That’s the get-out.
If this is the final product then someone ought to resign.
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A final question – why don’t they just use the same engine to power all their BYO websites? It’d be much more cost effective. In fact, they could use ecomonies of scale to build in all sorts of groovy features and apply them globally.
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25 responses so far ↓
1 ctm
// Nov 15, 2008 at 7:57 pm
It’s very weird that the use another layout for the US site. The Swedish one looks like the Aussie one, and I thought it was the same all over the world.
2 Mag-X
// Nov 15, 2008 at 8:27 pm
That’s retarted. I remember websites that changed the picture to show your selected options from around ten years ago.
Also, I don’t see why Saab would have so many different websites. It seems like it would make better sense to use the same one in every country that reads left to right, and the reverse for the countries that read right to left.
3 matte
// Nov 15, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Retarted are to kind , they kill the brand.
4 eggsngrits
// Nov 15, 2008 at 9:35 pm
First of all, there isn’t any real excuse for not using the graphics on the websites in the rest of the world. I work for a multinational corporation that had done the same thing — created a different and very limited US product website than use a very good one developed elsewhere. It turns out that our “contractor” didn’t know how to re-use the code from the other website AND had little interest in re-using other code because it would cut her contract hours. After we fired that contractor and hired someone with a real education, we now have a better site that is similar to the others.
I hope this isn’t the case with GM, but it may be.
Swade, I doubt that your “give them the benefit of the doubt” explanation of the difference as a stop gap or temporary site is correct. It’s pretty detailed for a temporary site. This is a difference that is real and has a reason that certainly isn’t obvious and I’ll bet that it’s as arbitrary as the above example.
5 Dippen
// Nov 15, 2008 at 9:42 pm
i really hope that “design” is temporary,otherwise i will be depressed for a very very long time
6 Bjarte
// Nov 15, 2008 at 11:05 pm
No clue why they keep that site seperate, but i do know that the Global website – Build your Saab was recently put to various international sites, but i think that it’s the local Saab importers or GM that drives the website and not all of them update their sites. Like Saab Thailand is looking really ugly and old models.
I would like to see all Saab sites look like the international one, cause it’s really nice and fresh.
7 MitchbSC
// Nov 16, 2008 at 1:26 am
The former land-barge SUV owners in my area are trading in their lux-o trucks for Saabs. The vehicle prices and finance payments are similar. The gas mileage is the huge driver. CPOs are on fire. My dealer is trying to get me out of my lease every time an incentive program is released. He needs my car as a CPO.
I think SaabUSA has picked up on this. They demographic the SUV owners as mouth-breathing, knuckle-draggers who want a vehicle with high MPG who only understand they want a pretty colored metal motorized box with a steering wheel, gear shifter thingy, radio, seats, and 4 wheels.
SaabUSA can’t afford to be elitist anymore. They need butts in seats and will dumb down the brand to get them there. Of course, we’re dealing with marketing and contract website programming. One stupid sentence in a meeting by GM marketing to the effect “make it easier” results in a website that’s barely functional to display model features as selected.
8 Charles
// Nov 16, 2008 at 2:09 am
Stupid. But typical GM.
My question…now can you not get an Aero unless its XWD? Thats how I’m understanding the BYO section.
9 Ryan M
// Nov 16, 2008 at 2:58 am
As one who develops multi-national websites, it’s quite a fair bit more complicated than you’d imagine, but it’s hardly impossible, and it is a whole lot easier to re-use code than to re-write whole websites…so what I am saying is that, I am not sure why it’s this way.
It’s almost certainly a management problem though, with GM USA or Saab USA using 1-web developer whilst the rest of the world uses a different one.
10 Wulf (NW Michigan, USA)
// Nov 16, 2008 at 5:07 am
I don’t know who’s leading Saab USA these days but it looks like they have no clue what they are doing in the RenCen (no offense to the few good men that work there). The regular 800×600 Flash website probably looked good 5 years ago but not these days. It appears that Chrome (www.chrome.com) has a large customer base but I am not impressed with their solution for Saab USA.
As far as pricing goes.. $46K for the least expensive 9-3 with a V6? Why can’t they offer a 9-3 Touring with V6 for $33K? Now one of those would have a chance against the German competition.
I really would be interested to know more about the thought process at Saab USA and why they do things the way they do. At least the advertising is changing for the better.
11 2-don
// Nov 16, 2008 at 5:21 am
It’s sad that someone makes a lot of money to keep stuff like this from happening and yet…. it keeps on happening. Why don’t they get it! It’s things like this that bring down the brand. SAD!
12 jchan2
// Nov 16, 2008 at 7:33 am
For 2009 models, Aeros only come with XWD. Likewise, to get a V6, you also have to buy XWD.
The upside is that now XWD can be bought on the 2.0T models.
13 jchan2
// Nov 16, 2008 at 7:35 am
While the BYO site looks pretty stupid, the ‘09 brochures don’t look that shabby, actually.
And yes, for 2009, to get a V6, you must buy XWD. To get an Aero, you must buy XWD as well, but to get XWD, there’s now a 2.0T model for that.
14 Ben
// Nov 16, 2008 at 10:38 am
Has anyone seen the new Audi BYO site? This is the level the SAAB BYO needs to be at.
But there is no way anyone is going to spend MORE on a 9-3 AERO than on a TURBO-X. Per the SAABUSA site:
Saab 9-3 2.0 T XWD- $36,395
Saab 9-3 AERO- $44,380
Saab Turbo X- $42,510
And for good measure:
Infiniti G37x AWD- $35,750
Mercedes-Benz C300 4MATIC- $37,075
Audi A4 3.2 Quattro- $40,000
Cadillac CTS 3.6 DI AWD- $41,080
BMW 335ix- $41,200
I know XWD is great, but is it THAT good???
15 duffy
// Nov 16, 2008 at 10:50 am
Has anyone seen the new Audi BYO site? This is the level the SAAB BYO needs to be at.
But there is no way anyone is going to spend MORE on a 9-3 AERO than on a TURBO-X. Per the SAABUSA site:
Saab 9-3 2.0 T XWD- $36,395
Saab 9-3 AERO- $44,380
Saab Turbo X- $42,510
And for good measure:
Infiniti G37x AWD- $35,750
Mercedes-Benz C300 4MATIC- $37,075
Audi A4 3.2 Quattro- $40,000
Cadillac CTS 3.6 DI AWD- $41,080
BMW 335ix- $41,200
I know XWD is great, but is it THAT good???
16 Kroum
// Nov 16, 2008 at 11:43 am
This is a stupid mistake – perhaps they are still debugging the BYO section of the website? This, of course, is no excuse – no one puts unfinished products live.
But as someone who makes a living on the Internet, I don’t see how SaabUSA.com is all that bad. FYI, a still seizable proportion of surfers use 800 x 600, so not catering to them is unprofessional.
Wulf, as a side note, how about we get the 9-3 Aeros for free? Pardon my irony, but you are frowning at $46K for a 280 hp V6 vehicle equipped with an advanced AWD system and loaded up with features. And that knowing you’d easily get a few thousand off that list price. A 9-3 touring for $33K, or even better: a Koenigsegg SSX for $90K with cash on the hood.
17 Wulf (NW Michigan, USA)
// Nov 16, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Kroum,
BMW 335i xDrive with 300hp is $42K.
Infinity G37 AWD 328hp is $36K.
The stunning new Audi A4 3.2 265hp is $43K
No, I am not frowning at a 9-3 V6 XWD 280hp for $46K. I am laughing out loud..! Since when are Saabs rated better than all of these cars in real life so they can ask a $3K-10K premium? No offense but you lost track of the competition like the chiefs at Saab USA. 2009 is going to be worse than 2008..
Saab owners or interested buyers usually have higher incomes and are technically more savvy so I assume they would have at least an LCD these days. Not catering to them is unprofessional.
18 Wulf (NW Michigan, USA)
// Nov 16, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Ben/duffy’s posts were showing up after mine. Sorry, didn’t intend to repeat the pricing info.
19 Ron57RC
// Nov 16, 2008 at 8:07 pm
First impressions do count and presenting such a BYO site seems pretty poor to me. Even if there is an attempt to cash in on an emerging market of ex SUV owners (MitchbSC), I don’t see any benefit in alienating those customers which you already have who are considering a change and making use of the facility.
20 Rune (the other one)
// Nov 16, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Kroum: I don’t quite see how someone handicapped to 800×600 would buy an expensive SAAB… (I hate statically sized webpages anyway… It was never the purpose of HTML to be device-specific)
But! Making sure that part of the website works well for people using iPhone-like devices, that might not be such a bad idea… I dunno if 800×600 support would help then.
21 OlliM
// Nov 16, 2008 at 11:39 pm
What comes to first impressions with Saab USA BYO website I’d say cheap, old fashioned, non-functional and amateurish. Any college student with basic coding experience could and will produce more informational, functional and better selling website than what Saab USA has managed to produce.
I really hope that they don’t leave it like that.
Then again… It’s really refreshing trip to 1980’s… Isn’t it.
22 Brian Mills
// Nov 16, 2008 at 11:46 pm
Swade, If your not a big of USA then do not visit the BYO for Canada. At least the main pages are better and more in the same design scope as Europe.
23 Jürg
// Nov 17, 2008 at 8:19 am
I’m not surprised. To those kind of managers it’s more important to create their “own” stuff, than to “copy” something good. Even if the copy is better, cheaper and faster. No way. Happend to me more than once. It’s sad but true and one of the many reasons because I doubt the management capabilities of GM.
24 ChrisCam84
// Nov 17, 2008 at 11:26 am
I just visited the Saabusa.com BYO site… Oy vei, SO BAD!
25 Snotfjold
// Nov 17, 2008 at 6:29 pm
“They will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes”
One has to womder if there is anybody left at Saabusa in the first place, nobody that draws a living from working with the Saab brand would let such an abomination pass, WTF were they thinking