New GSM Cold Steel Website Live

I

insta9ves

Joined
Apr 3, 2007
Messages
2,060
Looks like the new website is live: https://www.coldsteel.com/

They also have new logo:
cold-steel-logo-01_1607027612__33201.original.png
cold-steel-icon.gif


I'm not a fan of the blue color theme, would prefer a darker blue hue but honestly i like the look of the new short C/S logo like (ZT) and i hope they started using this short one for blade billboarding.

BTW doing a quick analysis of the website I can say that GSM sure got their IT budget right, and i suspect they have a dedicated ecommerce/web team running their websites. From the tech perspective they are doing many things right to make it relatively security and high perf. They have a new hosting, and they are also using a new CDN, DDoS and WAF protection via Cloudflare(Bladeforums also use Cloudflare). I tried doing a quick probing of their website and my test "attack" are getting caught by their WAF.

I would say from a technical perspective, this new website is definitely a step up from the old one.

Stats for nerds**:
HTTP/2 enabled
ECDSA cert
TLS 1.3 enabled (even though they score B on ssllabs because they still run TLS 1.0 & 1.1 and no HSTS)
CDN via Cloudflate
DDoS protection via Cloudflare
WAF via Cloudflare
Bigcommerce backend
WPT result: https://www.webpagetest.org/result/201216_DiFX_24bcb0fa5bd451b3a58b49a460fb469b/1/details/
SSLlabs test: https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/ana...teel.com&s=104.26.14.60&hideResults=on&latest

**Disclaimer: I'm not associated with GSM in any form. I'm just a CS fan that also does internet for a living. I'm not shilling for GSM, and like many of you, I also hate this acquisition.
 
BTW for those of you who had an account with the old website, i suspect you won't be able to use that right now given that they've moved to a different ecommerce platform. I suspect that they are either going to start at a clean slate, or are in the middle of migrating those account data.
So i suggest waiting for a few days or weeks and check back to see if your account has been migrated to the new system or not. If not, you may have to create a new account.
 
DocJD said:
;) That's cool , but hope they can make some good knives too ! :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Well who knows, maybe they'll burn all their money on marketing and IT and have less on actual product development. It's not the first time large companies have done that.
 
insta9ves said:
Well who knows, maybe they'll burn all their money on marketing and IT and have less on actual product development. It's not the first time large companies have done that.
Click to expand...
:eek: I do see new various models , big fixed , in 3V . Out of stock , but hopeful sign to be in the catalog ! :cool::thumbsup::thumbsup:
 
I like the look and feel of the new site. I noticed they have cold steel Face Masks - never noticed that before. I also like that you can sort by - Price ! ! ! The old site you could not sort by price (so weird). I do wish you could sort All of their products, at the same time, by Price. Also the Warranty now says - "Lifetime Warranty" (I didn't read the Actual warranty).

Knife sharpening, plain or serrated, is $5. I assume that is $5 per knife ?
 
Its only been 2 weeks since the 'announcement'.

So let's recap:

The Holiday sale is over
Almost all of their products (throughout the intranet) are either sold out, or indefinitely on "back order from the factory"................. what does that really mean?
Cold Steel isn't filling "in stock" items on their own site. Order 12/9. Credit card charge 12/10.
Still no knife!
Their warranties are null, and void
There is no longer a CS Rep here to answer questions
Nobody at Cold Steel wants to answer the phone
There are no catalogs

The only evidence that Cold Steel even exists is a website and a few left over machetes, and plastic training knives.
 
They're going though a transition; which perhaps one would have thought that they would have been working on this transition through the, ah, transition. I'll give them a chance here and wait.

It's a COVID year and also holiday season - tough time(s) for a transition. I'll give them a chance here and wait.

They do not have a legitimate representative here on BF. One would have though that they might have arranged for some continuity here ... you know, among the faithful.

Taking orders, charging credit cards and not providing order status (tracking numbers) and the like: no bueno.

No customer service rep(s) answering phones: no bueno.

Top notch website: important to some, but as an analogue guy stuck in a digital world, I say "meh."

I'm a hunter, fisherman, outdoorsman knife guy. I like knives and I like(ed) Cold Steel knives.

Overall, I'll give them a chance but, honestly, the jury is still out IMO.
 
I don't think they are concerned about previous customers, or they would staff their offices.
They will probably follow Kershaw, and Gerber formula, and take the 'Big Box' store route, but with a Cold Steel twist.
That wouldn't be terrible. At least you would be able to quickly return it if the product was junk.
 
The “about us” section makes no reference to Lynn Thompson or Andrew Demko. They say the company was founded in 1980 and bought in 2020 by GSM. I feel that at least a nod should be given to Lynn. Every knife that put cold steel on the map has a triad lock. They have an ambassador section. Demko should be mentioned somewhere.
 
115Italian said:
The “about us” section makes no reference to Lynn Thompson or Andrew Demko. They say the company was founded in 1980 and bought in 2020 by GSM. I feel that at least a nod should be given to Lynn. Every knife that put cold steel on the map has a triad lock. They have an ambassador section. Demko should be mentioned somewhere.
Click to expand...

I posted some of that stuff from the previous site in another thread and did some comparing of it earlier. It's all pretty much just copy/paste with GSM added in. They didn't bother updating what I looked at.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top