Author: indieAdmin

Thanks for all the input everyone. For now, I think it will be easiest for me just to implement a word filter on listings to be uploaded to google products. Just so you know these are the words (in the title) that will cause a listing to be filtered out: Shipping, Policies, Feedback, Info, Sizing, Pricing, Update. Please let me know if you think of any other words that should be filtered out. If any promotional / informational listings slip through, all HC listings will be removed from the google products database, so we need to work together to keep them out. Please feel free to continue to list info, etc. in your listings rather than the info pages, just make sure one of the above keywords is in the title so they aren’t included in the google products feed.

Also, several people mentioned that the info pages don’t work for them. Could you email more details on this to support [at] hyenacart.com? Thanks for the help!

Hi all,

I need to ask everyone a favor — I recently received an email from the google products team that our feeds have been removed. The issue is that people are including shipping info (e.g, Free shipping) in their listing titles OR creating listings that describe store policies and announcements. The favor is, please remove all references to shipping price from your item titles, and please move all policies and announcements to the info pages section (rather than making them listings). I am also going to create some filters for what gets included in the google product feeds to remove listings with certain words in their titles (e.g., shipping, policies, etc.) Thanks for your help with this!

Hi everyone,

I’ve been thinking we could try something new with the HC facebook page. How ’bout if you have special sales, promos, etc. that you would like to tell our >1000 fans about, you email ’em to me and I’ll post a handful throughout the day on the page? We’ll see if I can keep up!

So here’s what to do: please email a short message which includes the sale, promo code, special stocking, etc. to hyenacart [at] gmail.com, but please, please, set up the subject line like this: “Facebook promo: 07/01/2010” (with the correct date inserted, of course) so we can keep my in-box semi-organized. You can send a day or two ahead, just make sure the day of the promo is inserted in the subject line so I’m looking at the right messages on the right day. Don’t forget to include a link to your store!
Ready to give a try? Let’s go 🙂

Hi all,

A few of you have noted that you could no longer submit your Google Base feeds into your Google merchant account. That’s because Google recently changed their submission process. A url must now be ‘claimed’ by a single account, and then all future listings submissions must come from that single account. Thus, I’ve recoded the system and *all* active HC listings are now submitted to the Google Product search database on a daily basis. Unfortunately, that leaves you no way to check on the status of your listings (impressions / clicks). If Google comes up with a way for me to download that information into a file or database, I’ll work that in to make it viewable to you. In the meantime, I can tell you that we currently have 28,868 items listed, and that we’ve had up to 160 clicks and 700 impressions per day.

Thanks everyone!

Happy Sunday everyone!

I’ve just added a few features to image handling for those who are hosting images on the Hyena Cart server:

• You now have a choice on thumbnail image sizes: from 125px to 200px in 25 px increments. You have this choice both from the java and non-java tool
• Images will no longer be blanket-deleted after 3 months. They will stay on the server as long as your store has a paid date within the past 6 months, and the item has been active in the past 6 months (i.e., end-time is less than 6 months ago and quantity is greater than 0). Note, images you’ve uploaded previous to today will still get deleted after 3 months, but those uploaded from today forward should stay put if your store and the listing remains active

A few other things to note:

• I know image quality on the thumbnails is not ideal. I can’t seem to control this (I have all image quality variables set to max). I’m hoping the larger thumbnail sizes will help with those who have had issues with blurry thumbnail issues
• During the next few months of transition, if you have older images already uploaded, they won’t show up in the image uploader tool even though the images to exist and will show up in the store ok. If you do want to change these images, go ahead and upload your new ones, and the old ones will be overwritten
• Remember, if you wanto to upgrade to image hosting, you can do so via your Store Settings >> Request changes page

Thanks everyone. Let me know if you have any issues with this upgrade. You can comment here or email us at support [at] hyenacart.com 🙂

Thanks for your input in deciding what to work on next for HC. The facebook app won out and I have two apps ready for you to try out:

• My HC Store: This one is for sellers: http://apps.facebook.com/hyena_cart/
• My HC Faves: This one is for shoppers: http://apps.facebook.com/hyena_cart_faves/

Give them a try and let me know how it goes.

Two things to note:

• With My HC Store, the items that show up are only your in-stock items (quantity greater than 0)
• Facebook won’t render images with spaces in their url’s. So if you have spaces in your photobucket folders, for example, they will have to be renamed (no fun, I know)

Thanks again, everyone!

I’ll be looking into what it takes to make an HC widget next…

Hi everyone,

I’ve been pondering the direction of our next big HC project and there are three that I’m considering:

1) Adding Google checkout as a payment method for stores and Spots’ Corner

2) Adding more social networking capabilities for shoppers (sharing favorite store lists, spotted items, creating profile pages / photo sharing pages, etc.)

3) Creating facebook integration for stores (like the Etsy facebook tab), and other promotion tools (something like the Etsy minis that can be added to blogs, etc.)

Which of these would be most important / helpful to you?

Please respond via this poll: http://hyenacart.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=134902

Thanks everyone!

Hi everyone,

Thanks so much for spreading the HC love and telling your stories here on the blog and on the HC Facebook page. Spots has chosen the winners:

• For the newbie shopper story, Spots chose Selina and her sister. Here is Selina’s story:
• I’ve converted my sister and am moving her towards my crunchy ways! LOL! She was at my house and went to make tea. She opened the cupboard and her jaw dropped open. On top of my regular store-bought teas and loose teas from a local shop, I have about 7 bags of Healing Pixie Tea. She was quite intrigued with these and decided to try one. She steeped some Lemon Chill in a mug, using a Joyful Earth reusable bag and fell in love. She is now stalking Lisa’s store for tea and is sending her friend in the direction of JE for tea bags.

  Later that night, I was putting some Bee Balm on my dry knuckles and she checked that out too. (From Clear Hills Honey for those who haven’t tried it yet.) She absolutely loved it. She has severe eczema from a long list of food sensitivities and is very hopeful that this will help it. Carmela offered a HC$ deal last week, so my sister placed her order for the biggest bee balm possible and some yummy lotion too. I covered the HC$ portion. Carmela is such a gem for offering a great deal like that.

• And for newbie seller of the month, Spots chose Lacy’s posting:
• I brought in a new seller this month! She just opened her shop last week! http://hyenacart.com/Bijoux/ she sells jewelry!

  I knew she had a stockpile of jewelry that she had made to sell at certain events and so I suggested starting a shop!! : )

Each person gets $25 in Paypal! Thanks again to everyone who helps spread the word about HC!

Also, I have extended the special store sign-up pricing through March. That means the $10 sign-up fee includes the first month’s payment, so keep bringing those new sellers in 🙂 Thanks everyone!

This is the last day of “Bring in a new hyena” month. While we’ve had lots of store sign-ups, and many shopper referrals, only a handful of stories have been posted on the Facebook page here. You need to post in order for Spots to read your store and make his choice 🙂 If you’re not on Facebook, you can also post your store in the comments of this blog posting.

Re-posting the rules:

There will be two types of stories to post:

1. “Bring in a new shopper“: tell how you brought in a new shopper to Hyena Cart who subsequently made a purchase from an HC store. Post a link to the item your new shopper purchased
2. “Bring in a new seller“: tell how your brought in a new seller to HC. Post a link to the new seller’s store. Also, for the month of February, the $10 set-up fee will *include* the first month’s paid time

At the end of February, Spots will choose a winner in each category. The prize will be $25 in Paypal each to the newbie and the person who brought the newbie in (total of $100 in prize money: $25 to each newbie-bringer-in, and $25 for the newbie shopper and newbie seller.) Spots may choose at random, or he may choose his favorite story. It’s really hard to pin him down on these details.

Thanks everyone!

Hi everyone,

I’d like to announce that February is “Bring in new Hyenas” month 🙂

What does that mean?

Post your “How I brought in a new Hyena” to the Hyena Cart facebook discussion page: here.

There will be two types of stories to post:

1. “Bring in a new shopper“: tell how you brought in a new shopper to Hyena Cart who subsequently made a purchase from an HC store. Post a link to the item your new shopper purchased
2. “Bring in a new seller“: tell how your brought in a new seller to HC. Post a link to the new seller’s store. Also, for the month of February, the $10 set-up fee will *include* the first month’s paid time 🙂

At the end of February, Spots will choose a winner in each category. The prize will be $25 in Paypal each to the newbie and the person who brought the newbie in (total of $100 in prize money: $25 to each newbie-bringer-in, and $25 for the newbie shopper and newbie seller.) Spots may choose at random, or he may choose his favorite story. It’s really hard to pin him down on these details.

If you want to join in the fun, consider setting up a 10% discount code like “newbie10” to be used for a newbie’s first HC purchase (there won’t be a way to police this, so it will be by the honor system).

It’s not quite February yet, but feel free to start posting stories now. Spots isn’t so great at reading calendars anyway 🙂 Thanks everyone, and let’s bring in those new Hyenas!