Total Super Bars and Light & Tough...What would you like to see

Tilton doesnt have a current list of all bars that are available let alone a PDF file. The last catalog they put out is from 2012 and it is riddled with bars that have been discontinued, replaced, added since the catalog was printed. That is the reason for pink highlighted bars, crossed out bars, arrows to new numbers...that is my personal cheat sheet to know what is available and what isnt. I just tracked down an english version of the Tsumura catalog....it is even more confusing than the the Total catalog. It is a 2015 catalog that still has missing bars.... My homebrew spreadsheet is a big leap forward compared to what is available currently from either Tsumara or Tilton and should help make things a little more clear on what is available and what isnt. The spreadsheet is a work in progress and the bar labels need modified a bit anyway because there are versions of the total bars that i didnt take into account and i honestly thought "Total Super Laminate" would be a pretty obvious giveaway compared to "Total Super Pro"...
Total II=laminate cheap bar
Total Super Laminate=much better quality bar but still a laminate bar
Total Super Pro=the clear coated bar that everyone thinks of when they think of total bars
Total Super Light & Tough= reduced weight version of the Total Super Bar
Total II RSN= a budget friendly solid bar with replaceable nose...very limited selection of 20 and 24" 3/8 .050 bars along with one lonely 42" bar
Total Super Hard Tip=basically a hard nose version of the Total Super Bar

i will never stock the hard nose bar so it is not even going to be added to the spreadsheet, the Total II solid has 7 bars available so I am not sure how to add them into the list....was originally just going to add them under Total II but with a footnote stating they were a RSN bar and accepted standard oregon tips but afraid of the confusion that might add, adding a column jsut for them is also not very appealing since there are only 7 bars available which would result in an unneeded column for 99% of the listings.

I agree there is huge potential here for increased sales by making it easier and quicker to look up the correct bar but resources are limited for this and the cost of adding something like baileys bar lookup is out of my reach. Maybe with the addition of a excel spreadsheet that has everything listed it would make it easy later on to have a computer geek make me a lookup that functions off of the spreadsheet but for now the company building my new site wanted a pretty large sum of money to compile the info and build a lookup similar to baileys.

 

I see what you did. It's just a little confusing because the bar that their catalog calls "Total Super" isn't what you're calling "Total Super."

I'm amazed their catalog is in such a state. Now the idea of posting your hard-earned spreadsheet publicly where competitors can grab it seems less than ideal.

 

Out of curiosity, what percentage of bar sales would you say are something other than K095, D009, D025 and A074?

 

The company building the site says they can make the page that contains it a "no right click" page so others cant copy and past...they will still be able to screenshot it though.

 

Yeah, not too hard to get around that but it'll at least slow them down a bit.

 

.5%

 

I have wondered how hard it would be to add a "watermark" to the background of the spreadsheet so that anyone copying it and reusing it would be advertising my site. I am so lacking on computer skills when it comes to this stuff that it isnt even funny....my current site is a $25 a month shopify site that i added products too...I have outgrown it and it causes more phone calls and emails than its worth anymore so the upgraded site is going to have ARI partsmart lookup for jred, echo, dolmar along with a few others and be professionally done so that it looks, functions, acts like a pro site. I am still going to be the one adding all the one off, custom items on separate pages but when the time comes to do them i am going to spend the time to set up a "photo booth" and use a tripod to take nicer, more consistent pictures.

 

I don't think the watermark would help much. It's not the image that's so valuable, it's the copyable, well-organized information, because it potentially saves someone from having to do all the work you've had to do to make it. Even if they have to just screenshot it and use some OCR program to convert it into text, that's not exactly rocket science.

When I think of the sequence of decisions I'd make when buying a bar (hypothetical because almost all the bars I've got came with project saws), it would probably be...

• mount pattern,
  
• then size,
  
• then price.

That's more or less the way your spreadsheet reads too, which is good, but having to fight through that first column, with dozens upon dozens of saw models, makes my eyes cross even on a medium-sized laptop. I can't imagine navigating a spreadsheet of similar, esoteric code numbers on a mobile device, and mobile is how a huge part of your target market views the web now. I guess I'll just say it straight: I think using the spreadsheet directly on the site would be a mistake.

 

That's what I figured. There's got to be a simpler way to present four kinds of bars that make up 99.5% of sales.

 

you are probably right....especially since i am combining Tsumura, sugi, cannon which all have a lackluster bar lookup even for dealers that have the books. might be wise to continue on with my spreadsheet then track down someone that can turn it into something similar to baileys.

If people knew their bar mount it would be simple but being able to draw in the people that barely know what brand of saw they have is what i am after because the total II bars are so cheap compared to oregon double guard or proam bars. would be nice to pick up the bar sales to the beginner crowd as well as the CAD infected individuals and that requires saw models to be posted easily viewable

edit: even D176 is an obsolete bar mount to stock since picking up the bar adapters to convert it to D025.

 

It's a tough design problem for sure, especially since a large fraction of those beginners either think their saw can only take bars branded by the powerhead manufacturer, or that the only difference between bars is the length. Start talking about pitch and gauge, and heads spin. Those beginners aren't low-hanging fruit.

 

I bought one of these from you... very nice bar. Not as light or glamorous as L&T or Sugihara bars, but beautiful in its great craftsmanship.

The functionality you seek for a lookup feature needs a scripted front end for a database backend. PHP & MySQL would be my personal choice, because they're both Open Source and virtually all hosting providers support them. Since the hosted services don't cost you anything more, and the development platforms are free, you're down to the coding. Anyone familiar with developing RAD web applications is going to be familiar with both.

I can play around with a sensible database structure and a simple PHP interface to see how much work it would be, but at some point I'd need some real data to test with, fordf150 and you'd have to check progress on my test server to see if the functionality and search results were correct. I'll try to make some time to fiddle with it.

 

If your capable of doing it, I will gladly accept the help and be willing to pay because you just spoke Greek to me.

 

The smart manager knows when to delegate.

 

Ok, if that was Greek, then you'll probably need a little help... I'll see what I can come up with. I'm fairly busy right now, but I'll make some time for it. I'll PM you when I need some info.

 

The problem with that is I have only sold 2 36" bars in the last 6-8 months.... I don't think the demand is there

 

I'm open to suggestions on who can do it for me.... I understand busy so don't put yourself in a bind over it

 

I bet redbull has bought 10 or more him self in 36" from Dave. LOL

I would like to see the stihl bars in .063" to match the chains I have and the option of .404".

 

I'd like to see a Superbar on my 2166! Can't justify it right now as my current bar is fine. The saw would look a whole lot better with a Total than it does with a (free) Husky bar on it. I will probably drive up to get one when the time comes. You are only a little more than an hour away.