tradestyle.nn.ru was the website of Torgovy Stil ("Trade Style"), a Nizhny Novgorod company that sold equipment, tableware, and supplies for shops and catering businesses. Its local roots were visible right in the homepage header: it carried a phone number with a Nizhny Novgorod area code — "Tel.: (831) 296-25-82(90)" — and the email address info@tradestyle.nn.ru[1]. The domain itself sat in the nn.ru local zone, and the site's entry was listed in the nn.ru directory under "Commercial refrigeration and heating process equipment." The web archive preserved snapshots of the homepage from March 2003 through June 2013[2].

What the site looked like

The homepage opened with the subheading "Commercial and refrigeration equipment for shops and restaurants. Porcelain, stainless tableware, cutlery" and an invitation to bookmark the site or set it as the start page[1]. The top menu consisted of "Home," "Catalog," "Your Questions," "New Arrivals," "Comparison"; next to it sat a "YOUR CART" block with a counter ("Items: 0, Total: 0.00 rub.") and a "Place Order" button[1].

This was not a mere brochure site but a full online shop. Visitors were offered an account (fields for "Login" and "Password," links "Forgot password?" and "Register"), the ability to search products by name, description, or item number, use advanced search, and download a price list[1]. Side sections led to pages "Contacts," "Torgovy Stil," "Photo Gallery," "Feedback," "About the Company"[1]. At the bottom stood the copyright notice "Copyright 2010 © Torgovy Stil" and the contractor's credit: "Online shop created by: shop-inet.ru"[1].

What it sold

The catalog was split into seven sections, and the homepage showed the item count for each: "REFRIGERATION EQUIPMENT" — 73 items, "COMMERCIAL FURNITURE" — 19, "POS materials" — 333, "Process equipment" — 123, "TABLEWARE" — 789, "SUPPLIES" — 241, "CONTAINERS AND HOUSEHOLD GOODS" — 11[1]. That comes to 1,589 items in total — a sizeable range by the standards of a Nizhny Novgorod commercial website of the early 2010s.

The subcategories reveal the company's profile more precisely than any advertising blurb: display cases, chest freezers, blast-chilling cabinets, chilled and freezer tables, ice machines; shelving units, clearance bins, checkout counters; shelf price-tag holders, wobblers and shelf stoppers, product dummies; heating and electromechanical equipment, serving lines, dishwashers, coffee grinders, bar equipment; porcelain, glassware, gastronorm containers; supplies for cooks, pizzerias, pastry chefs, and sushi chefs; food containers, basins, plastic pallets, and waste bins[1]. A separate "Catalog by Brand" block listed Brandford, Brema, Convito, Icematic, Lilly Codroipo, Luxstahl, Martellato, Polybox, Polyus, Shtrikh-M[1]. "New Arrivals" featured a GAM SB4 pizza oven priced at 42,930 rubles, and "Item of the Day" was the "VT 250 Framec Italy chest freezer"[1].

The site's only news item explained why it existed at all. As the homepage stated, "The Torgovy Stil online shop was created to supply shops and catering businesses with modern trade and production equipment, tableware, and other supplies" (spelling as in the original), and the headline read: "The Torgovy Stil company has opened an online shop!"[1].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

Torgovy Stil belonged to that layer of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet made up not of portals and forums but of mid-sized corporate shops: known to industry clients, but rarely heard of in citywide rankings. In the published results of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote for 2004, the site does not appear, even though it already existed by then[3]. According to the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating from Counter.nn.ru, the site corresponds to a rating of 16 — a low but non-zero figure: it had an audience, just a narrow and professional one.

How it closed

The site spent its last year and a half frozen in place. The snapshots from November 7, 2011[1] and June 19, 2013[2] match almost word for word: the same seven sections with the same item counts, the same pizza oven in "New Arrivals," the same single news item, and the same 2010 copyright. Only the percentages changed in the poll "Are you interested in the 'Bread Box' item featured on our site?": in 2011 the responses split 29 / 50 / 21[1], and in 2013 — 24 / 53 / 24[2]. In other words, visitors still came to the site and voted, but it had stopped being edited.

The last homepage snapshot in the web archive is dated June 19, 2013[2]. Our records contain no information about the company moving to another address; the domain tradestyle.nn.ru no longer serves the site.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2011 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2013 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet voting results, 2004 (archive)