Getting Fed Up With Thai Online Stores

[ernest1966]

This post isn't about my inability to read Thai, or the fact I am residing in Thailand. It's about when a web site offers a language option that doesn't bl**dy work (and I don't care if it's because I use Opera), this is a rant about web sites, that don't work, as they should.

Case in point is BigItShop. Change to english, goes back to the home page. Then reselect the page I was on. Back to Thai.

Sort it out, for gods sake, its a bloody joke.

And if your web design team do not do comprehensive testing for IE 6, IE 5.5, Opera 7.xx to 9.xx , Firefox, Safari etc then they are not doing their job right.

Jesus, micky mouse or what!

List other web sites that don't work please... Maybe someone will actually contact them and tell them to get there act together...

Ernest

Edited March 31, 2009 by ernest1966

[imaneggspurt]

Most thai businesses that do have a website dont use it,.i have emailed amongst others TOYOTA,MITSUBISHI,AND HONDA, others are accessory dealers that also dont reply .for the life of me i dont understand why they have websites unless they are given them by suppliers,but they veiw them as an ornament, and the staff with a 5th grade education dont have the brain to use it,.third wold country ?.yessir and they love it that way,.

[webfact]

Maybe someone will actually contact them and tell them to get there act together...

Save your time and power for more important things...

An example to think about. I wrote at least 25-30 times to the webmaster of THE NATION to inform about a very annoying

bug on their web site. Do you think I ever received an answer or the issue was corrected? And the answer is?-------------- NO!

Thai Webmasters are very busy in installing flash and trash into their pages rather than care about if a "farang" can read their site in English or not.

An this is not MHO only!

Edited March 31, 2009 by webfact

[ernest1966]

yeah.... I know.. I was gonna comment about the fact that they wouldn't listen to a farang anyhow... but that;s taken for granted  

Ernest

Edited March 31, 2009 by ernest1966

[jeffer]

Opera and Big IT website user here.

I'm just wondering if you might have cookies turned off. I've just checked and no problem with English as I navigate from page to page. Even in English there are still some Thai bits but it's only "read more from the manufacturer" type sentences. When I switch to Thai I get a version with much more Thai on the page. I'd be more worried as to why there is so many items marked "out of stock" lately.

My current rant about Thai websites is why bother having a contact e-mail if no one bothers answering. I'm talking international companies where simple questions like e.g. I want to buy 10 x product X, please tell me some of your retail outlets at Pantip Plaza or Fortune IT, or, is product Y from your company sold in Thailand?. I want to buy their product but they can't even tell me where it's sold. Being international companies you know they have people who can read English. I did ring one company where the nice lady I spoke to couldn't tell me one shop where their own brand name products were sold. She did ring me back later with the names of several shops but when I went there they didn't sell anything from that company. No wonder I keep spending my money in Singapore.

[ernest1966]

not the cookies, got them turned on (if i had them turned off i couldn't log in and post messages)

Ernest

[Langsuan Man]

I'll add my rant but is directed to online banking.

Why am I always their Beta tester?

Case in point. SCB (Siam Commercial Bank) listed MaxNet internet service as one of their "accepted" billers. But no matter what I did my online account could not pay my internet bill. Calls to the help line did no good, emails were just wasted bytes.

So I saw an article in the paper about their President so I wrote a snail mail complaint directly to her (finding the right postal code was another whole story)

a couple of days later I received a phone call from one of her assistants who took my information and got back to me a couple of days latter.

Their web site was not set up to read the & in TT&T.

LSM

[webfact]

I'll add my rant but is directed to online banking.

Why am I always their Beta tester?

Case in point. SCB (Siam Commercial Bank) listed MaxNet internet service as one of their "accepted" billers. But no matter what I did my online account could not pay my internet bill. Calls to the help line did no good, emails were just wasted bytes.

So I saw an article in the paper about their President so I wrote a snail mail complaint directly to her (finding the right postal code was another whole story)

a couple of days later I received a phone call from one of her assistants who took my information and got back to me a couple of days latter.

Their web site was not set up to read the & in TT&T.

LSM

Let me add one of my experiences someone can face...

I trust it is not only a Thai related matter but quite common in the 21st century with state of the art web technology everywhere...

>you have successfully filled out a form or what ever, typed your correct email address has pushed with some excitement the button SEND...

...but you don't receive a confirmation message but a warning, that you have to type your email address because it is missing!<

What's it all about? Your email domain address bears a - (dash) i.e. [email protected]

[ernest1966]

re:BigItShop... not working in IE 7 not either.

scenario. bookmark product page http://www.bigitshop.com/shopping/sata-2-h...ort_direction=0

go to this page,. itgoes back to thai, select english, goes back to home page, select prod category, goes back to thai...

Ernest

[khundon]

re:BigItShop... not working in IE 7 not either.

scenario. bookmark product page http://www.bigitshop.com/shopping/sata-2-h...ort_direction=0

go to this page,. itgoes back to thai, select english, goes back to home page, select prod category, goes back to thai...

Ernest

Same for me, selected English and still a lot of Thai in product descriptions

[ernest1966]

In the url of the web page, its passing a parameter "&sl=US" i.e session language US, this seems to get reset internally I haven't worked out at which instances.

Ernest

[jeffer]

I don't see what you see in the URL in my address bar.

With Opera right click to edit site preferences.

See if you have Java settings ticked.

Set encoding to automatic.

In cookies what is the name of the cookie you have for language?

[ernest1966]

jeffer, why do I need java enabled ? that is DANGEROUS, I think you mean javascript!

i think that the language GET var is called sl and when set to english it is set to sl=US

then whatever server side scipt picks this up and sets an internal (to the script language) var to this effect

but somehow this is being reset to the default of thai

and yes I am a geek and a php programmer...

Ernest

[jeffer]

Plenty of sites (not just Thai) require Java so all features work. I don't know if that's the problem with the BigIT site but if it is and you choose not to run Java then it's your choice, no point in complaining that the site doesn't work the way it should. It would be like driving on a poor rural road that requires a 4x4 and complaining when your 2WD sedan gets bogged. I'm not a programmer but I don't have your problems using the BigIT site with Opera.

I'm still not sure from your reply if you have any cookies for language.

[Tango7]

One of the "biggies" is Siam Paragon's website. If you go to their main URL you can choose "English" but the flash is still in Thai.

I doubt it's due to my recent complaint to them, but their main URL actually went to Paragon Department Store. The reason was because the main URL was pointing it rather than the main page we can see now. It was like that for ages. To get to the correct site, you had to edit the URL in your address box but this now seems fixed.

Many websites for large companies, department stores etc are unfinished or poorly written with broken links or re-directs that double back on themselves. There are plenty of pages with "coming soon" but never get addressed or completed. It's all very sloppy.

I have written to a number offering proof reading services but they'd prefer to spend their time and money one flash movies than creating substance and a finished site. Siam Paragon's front page has an email box at the bottom which asks for "yoursEmail"

Now, try Central World and see what happens... it doesn't work on my Chrome, Firefox or IE 8

Never mind eh..... the flash would look great if it worked !!

Siam Ocean World ..... front page has half in English and half in Thai but different topics and of course, the pricing. Thai prices in Thai to disguise how much less Thais are charged than Farangs......

One thing I've noticed is that there seems to be an unwritten code that says "Thou shalt not seek English proof reading from native speakers."

After all, look at the subway station. Billions spent on it and a sticker on the escalator that reads something along the lines of "Not lean on rail"

[ernest1966]

That's what I like to see pro-active ranting!

[torrenova]

KFC is another. English (with USA flag !) does not work. Pretty easy to navigate through the Thai but just poor implementation.

Then the food biggie. Pizza Company allows you to order online in English. NO screwed up orders (if they actually read what you order !) so few issues with them compared to nightmares over the phone. Now this company, Minor Foods Group also owns the Burger King and other franchises. Do they offer the same online ordering ? No. The result, 30% or more of the time they screw up. Do they answer emails ? No, of course not.

You know, there must be a decent consultancy job going to these people and sorting out their crap Engish.

[jeffer]

You know, there must be a decent consultancy job going to these people and sorting out their crap Engish.

Problem is, constructive criticism as a concept doesn't exist for many Thai people.