Category: All HC Users

Rather than set up forums, I’ve added an FAQ page to the main HC site.
I’d love if you could read through it and let me know if you have any
other questions you’d like answered. It’s mostly for wahm’s, but some
customers may find it useful as well: http://hyenacart.com/hc_faq.php

As long as I’ve just updated the mailing list, I have another question
for you all. Do you think it would be worthwhile to have a Hyena Cart
forum? I actually don’t get too many how-to questions, but if you had
any, I could answer them there and everyone would have access. We
might also be able to share some tips on how to make stockings as
successful as possible. Just a thought. I won’t go through the
rigamarole of setting one up unless most of you are interested.

I’ve been a busy bee and have just added the ability to categorize
store items. This is mostly geared for those of you with a large
number of items up for sale at the same time. Categories could be
different sizes, different products (e.g., diapers, soakers, and
pants), or, if you’d like to run a mini-congo, different wahm’s. I do
think those of us who stock fewer than, say, ten items at a time,
should be able to get by without categories. I think it’s beneficial
for the customer to see as many products as possible on one page.
However, if there are too many, it can be overwhelming and difficult
to scroll through. So if you’re in that situation, just contact me and
I can get you switched over to a categories store. It’s not an option
that you can choose from your current stocking pages. I need to get
you set up with a category-store and stocking page. But I’d be happy
to do if for anyone who contacts me. There’s no cost to switch, and
the monthly charge is the same.

To take a look at a store with categories, go here:
http://hyenacart.com/Test_cat/

If you don’t have graphical buttons for the various categories, the
links can be plain text rather than images, as seen here:
http://hyenacart.com/Test_cat/index_text.php

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions and let me
know if you’d like to switch over.

Also, I’ve had several people asking about having their store
integrated into their site the way it is on KSS and MDF. The
only way I’ve thought of to do that is for your site to be hosted
by me, through 1&1. I may offer this option someday, but
it’ll probably be a while before I get around to it. Just something to
keep in mind for the future.

I’ve made just a few more little changes on HC lately. The first is
that when you define shipping options, the last one is always checked
by default on the product details page. So if you have three options,
the third is checked. If you have only one, then it is checked.
Insurance defaults to “no.”

The other thing is that I’ve added a field called “ordering” just
under where you enter the item title on the stocking page. You can
just leave it at 0 and things will work as they always have. But if
you want your items to display in a particular order, then you can set
the “ordering” to any integer you like. Multiple items can have the
same ordering number, too, so you could have all your smalls be 1’s,
all your mediums 2’s, etc. Items with the same ordering number are
sorted by active times.

You don’t need to include shipping in your prices anymore. You can
enter shipping prices for first class, Priority, FedEx, or UPS plus
include the option for insurance (USPS only — I can add it for FedEx
and UPS if some of you would prefer). I don’t have the shipping prices
shown in the tables on your stocking pages, but I can if you’d prefer
that. Seemed like they were pretty wide already, so I didn’t
necessarily want to add more columns. You can see the options and
prices you’ve chosen when you click on ‘Edit’ for an item.

Please read about how it works on your marked up stocking pages and
give it a try. I’d love if you could find time to test stock and
purchase a few items and make sure it’s working correctly.

I’ve just had a little spare time before the move so that’s why I’m
doing all this development stuff. I promise not to bombard your
mailboxes so much in the future.

I just wanted to let you know about a new HC feature — the stocking
calendar. This is a quick way for you to check and see if your
stocking is interfering with anyone else’s, and also a nice link to
send to your customers so they can see at a glance who’s stocking.
Only items with preview set to 1 will show on the calendar. If you
have items that sit in the store for a while, you might want to bump
the active times into the current month once in a while so your link
stays on the current calendar.

http://hyenacart.com/calendar.php

Let me know if you have any questions or problems with it (I think I
worked out all the bugs, but if you stock something and it doesn’t
show up, just send me an e-mail).

Also, FYI, I fixed the % bug. If you put a percent sign in your title,
decription or shipping info, it will automatically be changed to the
word “percent.”

This is more FYI, it shouldn’t change the way you stock or anything.

Morwenna was noticing that one of her customers seemed to be getting
inside info on her surprise stocking items. I thought about it, and I
*think* I know how this customer was figuring out what items were
being offered when. If you look at the link of an item when you’ve
clicked on its title (the page with the e-mail box and the “Buy Now”
button), the path is something like:
http://hyenacart.com/Test_account/prod_details.php?id=3

That number at the end (in this case, 3), used to be generated
numerically. So if you just stocked item 12, your next item would be
13. If you were previewing your items, everyone would have access to
the links and there’s no problem. But if you were stocking a surprise
item and e-mailed your group about it, a very persistent customer
might start trying the link and replacing the number with the next few
digits above your last stocked item, and get a sneak preview before
you intended it.

So I just re-coded it so that the id number is now a randomly
generated 5 digit number. That should prevent any customers from
trying to guess at id numbers to get unintended previews.

I just tested it and it seems to work fine. Please let me know if
anyone runs into any problems.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist 😉 I’m bothering you again today to let you
know you can now have cents in your prices (it used to be whole
dollars only). Give it a try. I edited a bunch of files at once, so it
wouldn’t hurt to stock and purchase a test item to make sure I didn’t
switch your files with someone else’s (I don’t think I did, but you
never know).

LMK if you have any problems.

Just wanted to let you know I’ve added the option of changing the
background color of your Hyena Cart store. Dana and Meredith have
already taken advantage of that (see
http://hyenacart.com/KnitwitzBaby/ and
http://hyenacart.com/HiddenPearlCreations/ ) and it looks pretty sharp
🙂 I think it looks better if you choose a lighter color since the
table background is white. If you’re interested in changing your
background color, just send me the hex code of what you would like (we
can try a couple if you aren’t sure). Here’s a page with hex codes for
colors: http://html-color-codes.com/

Also, I’ve recently realized that it’s against the Paypal user
agreement to split payments between a personal and business account
when accepting business related payments. I’m going to leave the
option of separate funded and credit card payment buttons to use at
your discretion, but just wanted to let you all know their policy:

“PayPal account holders may not split payments between a Personal
PayPal account and a Premier or Business PayPal account by directing
buyers paying with credit card to pay their Premier or Business
account and buyers paying with PayPal balance or bank account to pay
their Personal account. If we find that you are splitting payments,
you will be asked to pay the fees you attempted to avoid. Personal
accounts are for personal use only. If you would like to do business
through your PayPal account, you must use a Premier or Business account. ”

Thanks so much for your business 🙂 Please let me know if you have any
questions, or suggestions for new features 🙂

I just spent a little time changing the cart a little. You’ll notice
the changes when you log on to the stocking page. You can now specify
the Paypal addy for each item (it will still default to the Paypal
addy you gave me, so you don’t have to fill it in for each new item).
Normally, you wouldn’t change that, but if you get a different addy,
or want separate addy’s for funded and credit card, or even if you
want to host someone else’s product for them (as long as it’s not too
often), you can do it now. You can also run a charity raffle like I
did in the KSS store with separate funded and cc Paypal buttons, and
add a charge to the cc Paypal to cover the fees (this is normally
illegal, but I think it’s justified in the case of charity). You can
also change the e-mail addy that receives purchase notices, in the
event that you change e-mails.

Also, I’m going to add a special storefront for charity raffles
sometime today, so if you are interested in running one, you could do
it in your own store, or together with other wahm’s (Pamela of Wooly
Wonders originally contacted me about this, so I’m pretty sure she’ll
be running one).