YoYoNation sucks - reason #1

OK so this is going to be an ongoing blog that will continue to have updated content regularily.

I have been a consumer my whole life and I purchase most of my items online. In fact, if I had to guess I would say 80% of the things I purchase in a year are purchased online. Of all the websites I have ever visited the most unprofessional website by far is YoYoNation.

The "store" is run by 2 guys who apparently work out of the back of a Waldoch van. There is a forum, a store and a blog all apparently hosted on a server that is from the 1930s. I can picture one of the guys having to go back every once and a while to turn the crank that starts the server back up.

The image you see is what you currently see on YoYoNation. Below is a cropped section what what currently appears on their production server.

Click either image for a larger look:

Yes what you see is a live website that people actually purchase items from. This happens all the time. The forum and store are hosted on the same server and every time a new product is released that is in high demand the server will crash. Yes you read that correctly the server actually crashes when a new high demand product is released. Now, I'm no genius of business but having a server that crashes when people are trying to purchase items is probably a bad thing. No scratch that, it's a terrible thing. In fact, it's the most unprofessional pile of B.S. I have ever seen in my life. Below is what you will see on the screen when this happens:

Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Too many connections in /home/patweb/public_html/include/func.php on line 43
Warning: mysql_select_db() [function.mysql-select-db]: Access denied for user 'patweb'@'localhost' (using password: NO) in /home/patweb/public_html/include/func.php on line 47
Warning: mysql_select_db() [function.mysql-select-db]: A link to the server could not be established in /home/patweb/public_html/include/func.php on line 47Could not connect to SQL db

Absolutely amazing. This is a production website that actually CRASHES when new items are released!!! And there are people that actually support this website! Granted most of the people that support it are 12 - 15 year old kids that have no sense whatsoever about what makes a good business model but still. The fact that anyone at all shops at this store is just mind boggling.

Somehow this guy, Pat, who owns this store has got an exclusive deal on most of the high-end yo-yos so it's the only place where people who yo-yo can purchase these items from. There are other yo-yo shops on the Internet who have websites that DON'T crash but somehow YoYoNation gets all the exclusive business. Now if I was a business owner who produced rare and exclusive yo-yos yeah I would probably sell my product to a business who's sever crashes all the time too. I mean it just makes sense. You want your customers to have the most frustrating shopping experience you can.