I go to https://www.smith-wesson.com/dealer-locator

I type “Orlando, Florida” into the search box, and I get this as a result:

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5 Comments

AC47spooky · March 13, 2021 at 7:10 pm

Yeah – that’s crap. I’ve noticed that kind of stuff too.

There’s a small LGS in Orlando that I’ve done business with. Buffalo Bill’s Shooting Store. I don’t know if they can help you but may be worth checking out. I used to do business with EOSS but they went belly up.

I guess you’ve already been to Shoot Straight … the 800 lb. gorilla in this market.

it's just Boris · March 14, 2021 at 6:32 am

Well, the box asks specifically for a zip code, not city and state, the first time I tried it. (Or at least it does on whatever version of the site comes up on my tablet.)

Entering just “orlan” gives the same result, as far as I can tell, to what you show above. Then, if I clear the field, it’s asking for “city, state or zip.” But “Orlando, Florida”, “orlando, fl”, “orlan” and “00000” all give the same map again.

So … It appears to be looking for a number, discarding any non-numeric characters, and defaulting to a 5-digit string of zeroes if nothing’s left. Entering “123” and “1234567” both show a map of the US and a note “no dealer found near that location.” And entering “0000” returns a map centered just north of Hartford, Connecticut. From there entering 00000 does not regenerate the original map.

Sloppy, both on the initial coding and on the testing (if they even bothered). Then again, compared to the internal website where I work this is actually pretty good. 🙂

SiG · March 14, 2021 at 9:51 am

So, I had to test this, too. When I open the page, I had Firefox ask if it’s OK to give my location. I said “this time only” and it entered (AFAICT) a random address in my zip code. I’m sure it’s not my address and I have no idea where my system got it. S&W displayed what looked to be the same map as you got.

I looked up some zip codes in Orlando and entered one chosen randomly (32810). Now it provided a map of central Florida with several stores highlighted.

As “it’s just Boris” noted, that’s some crappy coding right there.

SiG · March 14, 2021 at 10:00 am

Different topic: would you consider leaving a “Contact me” block somewhere here on Area Ocho? Some email address where people can contact you?

    Divemedic · March 14, 2021 at 3:02 pm

    Done. Link at the bottom of the page

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