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Comment by jhwhite | Hacker News Reader

It seems like there's customization options that should be present. Like for backpacks, there's different sizes. What if I'm going out for a 3 day trip as oppose to a week long trip?

And for sleeping bags, different bags are rated to different temperatures. I've got two bags, one for warm weather camping and one for cold weather camping.

Is all of this suppose to go in Optional Specifications?

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At the moment yes. Most of our customers are new to outdoor sports and don't know what specifications they want. They're also generally going car camping and only in the summer, so it's usually not a big deal at all. Putting it up front will freak them out and make choosing harder. The way it works now, if you are experienced enough to know exactly what you want, you can tell us.

I do agree though that this part of the flow isn't perfect, so we'll work on this. Perhaps for different items, giving examples of what optional specifications people COULD write in? E.g., temperature for sleeping bags, capacity for backpacks, etc.

In some ways you do want to freak people out a little. There are people that are a danger to themselves because they haven't the first clue what they are doing. They don't know that they need a good cold weather sleeping bag and not just some "sleepover sack" from Walmart. People can die when they don't know what they are doing or what they need. The stories I've heard from a couple SAR friends of mine... shudder

A well balanced freak out certainly =)

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