indieCart Seller's Blog

Hi everyone,

I wanted to make sure all bath and body and edibles sellers are aware of this: you must, by law, have an ingredients label on all of the products you sell. I am not an expert in this area, so there may well be exceptions to this that I don’t fully understand, but as a general principle, you really should include an ingredients label if an item is to be ingested, used as a cosmetic (including lotions or creams), or is a soap with therapeutic claim (e.g., good for dry skin). If you want more info, here is a link to start with: http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/cos-lbl.html . As a shopper of the yummy B&B offerings on HC myself, I would also add that having an ingredients statement on your listing is important as well. It helps people with allergies avoid ingredients that could cause issues, and also gives a level of confidence in the product.

Please ensure that your products are correctly labeled with ingredients and strongly consider adding an ingredients statement to all of your listings.

In other news, there are several exciting projects in the works which will hopefully get rolled out in the next few months including an improved search, the menu bars mentioned in this post (don’t worry, I’ll give a chance for you to give feedback before it’s totally complete), and some new very cool store templates. We’ll also be running another ad in Mothering as well as the Summer issue of Brain, Child. Thanks everyone, for hosting your stores on HC!

Hi all,

Just wanted to notify you of a few HC Multi features I’ve added:

1. Shoppers now have a space during checkout to leave comments. They can also leave comments during the Paypal checkout process. These comments are all added together and recorded in the database (viewable on the order details page)
2. On your order detail page (as a seller), there is now a field where you can record notes to yourself regarding the order. These are only viewable by you, the seller.
3. The shipping method chosen is no longer shown in the Buyer’s Memo field, but it continues to be shown in the order details table (to the left of the shipping amount)
4. The order details have been added to the email that gets sent to both the buyer and the seller

Please email the support desk at support [at] hyenacart.com if anything seems to be working incorrectly.

In other news, the CPSC has issued a stay of enforcement of the CPSIA. What this means is that you should still do the due diligence to ensure that your items are lead-free, but the testing and issuance of certificates is not necessary until next year (and work is ongoing to amend and improve this law). Please continue to remain in contact with your goverment representatives and request the changes detailed in this earlier post.

Thanks everyone!

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to give you fair warning that there will be a print ad (our first, woohoo!) for Hyena Cart in the “Home Delivery” section of the March / April issue of Mothering. It will look something like this:

I was originally going to make it a surprise, but then I decided you all might like some advanced warning so you can make sure to have some items in-stock. I believe that issue will hit the newsstands on March 1. We’ll see what happens 🙂

In addition, I’ve posted some buttons and banners on the HC Marketing page. Please consider posting these on your websites, blogs, forums, etc.

So how does all this marketing activity square with our fears regarding the CPSIA? Here’s my personal opinion (not official HC policy or anything — just my take as a shop owner): I am doing the due diligence to ensure that any products I sell are lead-free. The more research I do, the more I realize that cloth, wool, thread, etc. are as lead-free as it gets. These materials just don’t contain lead. Nor do any of the commonly used acid dyes (Prochem, etc.) contain lead. Thus, I will continue to list my items as I always have. Maybe with a little extra information explaining why they are lead-free (I mean, that’s always good to know, right?) But I am not going to let a poorly written law render my perfectly safe items illegal. Law makers and the CPSC are realizing the flaws in their document, and, I believe, are working to correct them. But in the meantime, I am going to continue with business as usual, whether they correct the flaws before Feb. 10 or not. Here’s a great link that was posted on the HC Forums a little while ago. It is a letter to the CPSC from the House of Representatives. In this letter, the House urges the CPSC to add an exemption to the law for “… children’s books that have no unusual components or materials beyond those of an ordinary book,” and “… children’s apparel that consists entirely of dyed or undyed fabric that is unlikely to contain excess amounts of lead and does not include metal, plastic, or painted components that may contain amounts of lead in excess of the law’s limits.” This would be in addition to the already proposed amendments which would exempt gemstones, untreated wood, and natural (undyed) fibers.

Thanks everyone!

Hi everyone,

By now, many of you have read or heard discussions regarding the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) which is scheduled to take effect on February 10, 2009 (this link will take you directly to the government’s informational page). I’ll quote from Jen Taggert’s blog, The Smart Mama, as she sets up the background very succinctly:

On August 14, 2008, President Bush signed into law the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA).  It was drafted as a toy safety law in response, at least in part, to the numerous recalls in 2007 for lead in children’s toys and jewelry.  It was also drafted in response to the tragic death of a 4 year old after ingesting a charm that was almost pure lead.

It was designed to be a toy safety law, but its reach is much, much broader.  And, like all broadly written, reactionary laws, it has very significant, it appears largely unforeseen consequences.  Like perhaps putting out of business thousands of small manufacturers of children’s products, including some of my favorites – the small manufacturers of reusable cloth diapers, natural wood toys, handcrafted costumes, and innovative children’s products.

I want to address two specific points with regards to this legislation: 1) how will this specifically affect what you sell on HC / will HC be making any changes in reaction to this law? and 2) what actions can you personally take to keep this law does not negatively affecting your business?

So, point 1:  how will this specifically affect what you sell on HC / will HC be making any changes in reaction to this law? In short, HC will not be taking any action at this time. The law is not clearly written, and it would be premature to do anything differently for now. If you, as a seller, wish to make changes to the items you offer, that is, of course, your choice. Just bear in mind that there is a lot of misinformation and rumor in the internet community and your best bet is to refer directly to the government’s site for answers. In addition, it seems there is still time to amend the law (more on this in point 2). Finally, a CPSC spokesperson has been quoted as saying, “There are exceptions to the testing rule for crafters making only one unique copy of each item.” (see this article). Unfortunately, this statement has been retracted. There are currently no exclusions written into the law for one-of-a-kind items.

On to point 2:  what actions can you personally take to ensure that this law does not negatively affect your business? Three things:

1. By Jan 30, 2009, follow the directions on this document to suggest changes to the law, for example:
1. Exempt products made from materials that are very unlikely to contain lead – fabric, paper, wood, etc.
2. Exempt categories of items such as books, unadorned textiles, or handmade items made in the USA and Canada.
3. Exempt products from Canada or the EU that are already certified under standards that meet or exceed the CPSC standard.
2. Write to your Congressperson, notifying them of your concerns regarding this law. This site has excellent suggestions for the content of your communication.
3. Starting tomorrow, vote for this issue on change.org to bring it to the attention of the new administration as soon as possible.

There’s no doubt that this law is a cause for concern. However, rather than panic, the best thing to do is to take action to influence the legislation and ensure that it fulfills its intentions while allowing our businesses to continue. Please consider taking the actions outlined above to protect our handmade community.

Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I would really appreciate hearing your viewpoint on a possible change to the Hyena Cart storefronts. Let me start by saying this is far from a done deal. It is in the conceptual stages, no work has been done other than a few mock ups, so now is the time to voice your opinion. Let me also ask that any comments remain positive and constructive. This is supposed to be an improvement, and something that increases the usability of the site for everyone. I am gearing up to start some advertising early next year, and there’s no point in bringing potential shoppers in, only to have them turn away in confusion.

OK – so the background is that newbie shoppers get very confused with the current HC layout. They find it jarring and disconcerting to be at HC one moment, and then immersed in a completely different design/layout in the next (I’ve heard it described as being like going to a mall, entering a shop, and then being stuck in the store, unable to see how to get back out into the hallway). On top of that, I have more functionality I would like to add to the site, and I think it’s getting more and more confusing, where to look on the store pages to find the right link / info. So I’d like to put a header at the top of the stores that contains all the relevant info for the shopper. I’m very sensitive to the fact that people want to protect the look of their stores, but I’m trying to balance this with shoppability for newbies, especially as I start advertising and bringing new traffic in.

So, with all that said, what do you think of this (shown on several example storefronts):

The “This item” menu would only be available if the shopper were viewing an item (as opposed to the main store page, or an info page, etc.) And those would be drop-down menus, so wouldn’t be expanded like that all the time I also may need to think of better titles than “This store” “This item” but that’s all I could come up with for now.

And then, of course, all the text that is currently in the store fronts “Hello Karen, you are logged in and ready to shop” etc. etc. would no longer need to be there, meaning your actual listings would be higher up on the page.

I see a few main disadvantages: 1) the addition of this bar at the top of your shop designs, but I think it’s pretty unobtrusive; 2) those of you who have designs that are seamless with your main site… well, when shoppers click through to an HC page, they’ll now see that bar at the top, so it won’t be totally seamless anymore.

Main advantages: 1) shoppers have a really consistent shopping experience as they move through the site, making it much less confusing; 2) spotting, marking favorites, contact page, etc. are all accessible in one easy-to-find location; 3) I can add more functionality and bury it in the menus, thus not taking up more real estate in your shops and listing pages.

Please let me know your thoughts!

You can join the discussion in progress on this thread, or leave a comment on the blog. Thanks!

ETA: based on the discussion so far, if I were to do this, two things would definitely be included: 1) customizable colors for the header bar; 2) a “search this store” option

Edited again to add another option:

OK — here’s another option. It’s a simple replacement of the text that’s already there — and the addition of drop-down choices when the text is clicked (or hovered over — need to think about that some more).

Advantage: no change in seamless nature of carts

Disadvantage: still takes a little hunting by the shopper to find the links back to HC, if that’s their goal. However, it’s occurred to me, after a night’s sleep, that shoppers find many things confusing about HC, not the least of which are previewing items, Buy Nows, lotteries, etc. and I have no plans to change those, so it just might be that the ‘separate but linked stores’ is just another one of those things that shoppers have to get educated about when using HC. I don’t know…

So here are images of what the integrated menu might look like — sellers would be able to adjust the color / fonts, etc. using style sheets, much as they do now:

So. let’s continue the discussion…

Hi all,

Hope your fall is going well. I just wanted to send out a quick note to adjust the policy on Featured Shops listings. From here on in, Featured Shops images will be limited to product images only (i.e., no text, clip art, etc.). One of the purposes of the images is to enhance the visual impression of the site, and I feel that the best way to do this is with great photographs of your beautiful items. Let your items speak for themselves and draw the shoppers in! I am going to leave the currently running ads alone, but any ads uploaded after this evening will be suspended if they contain text or non-product images. I will then give the seller a chance to upload a different image and restart the ad. Thanks for your cooperation!

Hi everyone,

I’ve just installed a script which allows you to submit your listings to Google Base. For those of you who don’t know, Google Base is a searchable database for product listings on the internet. From their website, “Simply describe your items on Base to make them as easy as possible for people to find when they search.” I’ve put together an HC Google Base tutorial here: http://hyenacart.com/googlebase_tut.php .

So get out there and submit your listing to Google Base, already, it’s free, it’s pretty easy, and it will hopefully bring in new traffic to your store.

Have fun!

Hi all,

Just a few little add-ins based on your blog comments. These apply to both HCM and HCS:

• When you view the order details page, you’ll see a link that says “Printable page.” This will take you to a page with no extraneous html on it — just the order details. Hopefully this prints out okay and serves as a good packing slip.
• When you have viewed an order, a little gray checkmark appears next to it, so you can keep track of what’s been viewed and what hasn’t

Hope that helps! Thanks all 🙂

I am very excited to announce that the vendor pages, both HCS and HCM, have been redesigned to fit with HC’s new look. I really hope you find this as much of an improvement as I do. The pages are more usable, more attractive, and much more professional-looking.

In addition to the new look, the following improvements / bug fixes were made:

HCS:

• Added batch editing for quantities, descriptions and shipping options (see Product Listings >> Batch edit
• Added Completed, Shipped, and Cancelled options to order status in addition to New and Paid
• Changed “Add item” listing page so all the other listings aren’t shown, just the form to add the item

HCM:

• Fixed bug that didn’t allow IE users to change order status
• Fixed bug that caused IE to hang if item was added without category being chosen

Both carts:

• Drop-down menu with logical grouping of vendor files
• Changed image uploading code so images can now be added directly while creating a new listing, rather than having to create the listing first and then modify it. This also fixes the bug where tags were being lost after uploading images
• Added RSS feed to HC Blog on vendor welcome page
• Moved payment to separate page rather than having it show at the footer of every page
• Added “Delete store” request on “Make changes” page

Hopefully you can still find your way around the pages ok. I know it will take some getting used to, but like I said, I’m hoping you will eventually view it as an improvement!

Remember, you can comment or ask questions directly here on the Blog.

Thanks everyone! Have a great Hyena evening!

and as I said back then in this post, it’s “out with the old, in with the new”!

This time, we’re going from this:

to this:

and again, we can thank the lovely Andrea, of Wanted Web Designs for her collaboration in bringing this new design to life!

This redesign is almost entirely visual — the overall layout and navigation of the site is basically identical. You do now have the advantage of a nice drop-down menu at the top. You may find pages of the site you never new existed before!

*NOTE* if you prefer to view the site 800 px wide rather than 1000, you can use the link at the bottom left of the page (under the copyright info) to do so. And if you preferred the old layout, click “Classic” to be taken back to it 🙂

The main difference you’ll notice is the Featured Shops listing area, which appears on all the main shopping pages (index, calendar, category, spots, search). Everything you’ll want to know about this new feature is explained here. In a nutshell, the cost is $5 per day to be one of at most 20 listings. So you’re guaranteed at least 25% exposure time, but more if the 20 listing slots are not filled.

You’ll also notice that the banner ads that used to be at the top of the calendar are now gone. I believe this is the right choice for this design. For those of you who had an active banner listing at the top of the calendar, you have several choices:

• If you paid using HC$. You can move your listing to a different slot (bottom of calendar, top or bottom of Spots’ Corner, top or bottom of the forums)
• If you paid using Paypal, you can either move your listing as mentioned above, or forward your PP receipt to hyenacart at gmail.com and I will refund a prorated amount to you (e.g, if you had 15 days left on your banner as of 8/31/08, I’ll refund $5).

To request a move to a different slot, please log in to Banner Manage, click on your ad, and make note of the number at the end of the url link. It ends with Banners:Settings:xxxx where the xxxx is a 4 digit number. Email me the 4 digit number, and which slot you would like your banner moved to at hyenacart at gmail.com. If I don’t hear from you by Thursday 9/4, 9 pm, I will automatically move your banner to the bottom calendar spot.

I’d love to hear your feedback on the new design. Remember, you can leave comments on this blog 🙂

Oh, and one other thing: now that we have info pages for both HCS and HCM, could you please delete all listings that contain policy, shipping, about me information and move it to informational pages? It is confusing for shoppers to see informational listings mixed in with product listings when they do searches or view the daily calendar. Thanks! If you see a seller with informational listings, feel free to use the ‘contact seller’ link and let them know to make this switch. You can link them to this blog entry 🙂

Thanks everyone! I hope you enjoy the new design. If you notice any pages that don’t look right, or are acting strange, please leave a comment here or send an email to support at hyenacart.com. Oh, and just so you know, I’ll be changing the colors on this blog as well as the forums to match our new site 🙂

Have a great Labor Day!!