indieCart Seller's Blog

Hi everyone!

Hope the flowers are blooming and the weather is getting warmer where you are!

OK — a couple of updates:

1. I’ve commissioned Andrea of WANTED Web designs to put together some templates for HC stores. She’s done a fantastic job (as we all knew she would). To access these templates, go to your Shop Config / Store Profile page and follow the directions. I’ve tried to make them as user friendly as possible. The HC test stores have never looked so good: the HC Standard store is sporting the beautiful Brown Wisp design, while the HC Multi store is looking dashing in Black and Grey. You’ve got 6 lovely designs to choose from, so let’s put an end to plain Jane HC stores 🙂 If you’d like to use these as a jumping off point, feel free to edit these templates at will. And if you’d like a couple of tweaks to make them yours, feel free to contact Andrea directly. She’d love to help out!
2. I’ve added a WYSIWYG editor for product descriptions in both HC Multi and HC Standard. What the heck is WYSIWYG? It stands for “What you see is what you get,” and it means you now have a nice, word-processor-like formatter for entering your product descriptions. Those who would prefer to use raw html, there’s a little icon at the bottom right of the editor window that lets you view and edit the html code. This is a java script, so you need to make sure java is enabled for your browser. If this is a problem for a lot of people, I may need to make this an optional thing, but for now, we’re all switched over to the new editor.
3. Finally, I’ve heard quite a few complaints about the image quality of images uploaded to the HC server. I’ve tweaked the code a bit and hope it improves things. If not, would you mind sending me some examples of how your images are getting degraded with the uploads? Maybe I’m just insensitive to it, but I never notice anything when I upload my own images. Thanks!

If you have trouble with any of these new features, please post to this thread on the forums.

Thanks everyone!

Those of you who have been around a while remember that I did a survey of both our sellers and customers back at the end of 2006. The survey responses were so helpful in determining where I needed to be spending my time improving HC, that I’d like to repeat the exercise. I would greatly appreciate your responses as both sellers and buyers. The customer survey links will appear upon first logging on to HC, and on the My HC and purchase history pages. The vendor surveys are accessible through your vendor pages when you first log in. There will be one winner drawn randomly from both the vendor and customer surveys to win $10.

Thanks to all those who have already responded! I hope you’ll take advantage of this time to help shape HC’s future. I value the opinion of each and every one of you 🙂

Hi all,

Due to all the server issues we’ve had lately, I had a utility installed that gives me a view into what the server spends its time doing. Thanks to this helpful little program, I’ve realized that the server spends a *huge* amount of resources dealing with banner ads. Every page refresh on the forums, the calendar, and Spots’ Corner was causing the server to work at counting the number of impressions each banner was receiving.

So, I’ve done two things to address this:

• I disabled the function which counts banner impressions. I realize this makes it difficult for sellers to monitor their banner effectiveness, but the trade-off is increased server function across the *entire* site, so I’m hoping you agree it’s the right thing to do.
• Secondly, I’ve evened out the monthly banner ad fee to $10/month across the board (previously, some of the ads were $5/month). Again, I hope you agree that this is a reasonably move, considering the calendar averages over 7,000 hits a day and the forums see over 30,000 hits a day. In addition, this price increase will make the banners work harder financially to reflect their load on the server. Don’t forget — you can still use HC$ to pay for banner advertising, effectively making it free, if you do enough talking on the forums 🙂

One other little note — I’ve added functionality for both HCS and HCM so you can see the email addresses of all the bidders on your auctions (see the main stocking list on your vendor pages — the # of bids is clickable on HCS, and the work “Auction” under stocktype is clickable on HCM). I hope this will enable sellers to contact bidders as needed. I’ve put some thought into allowing sellers the ability to delete bids, but it’s a tangled thing to do logistically, and I will hold off on that for now.

Thanks all — there are some exciting things in the pipeline, including a site redesign and a feedback system for Spots’ Corner, so stay tuned!

I am very sorry for the downtime tonight. I was really optimistic that the code changes I made would make these super-stockings possible. They certainly improved things, but the server eventually succumbed to the 400+ ravenous hyenas.

I’ll be working with our super-sellers to come up with stocking strategies that will prevent downtime in the future. Thank you for your patience as we work through this.

Also — those of you who are still trying to access the Mutt store. It has currently been disabled to keep the server stable. It will come back online when Michelle has had a chance to unstock her store.

Thanks everyone and sorry for the inconvenience.

Hi everyone,

I realize we have been experiencing some server slowdowns and other issues which have caused HC to be inaccessible from time to time. These are related to some hyena stockings with extremely high traffic loads. I’ve contacted our host to see if we have any options to prevent this from happening in the future. If this isn’t possible, I may have to ask some of these mega-supreme-hyena sellers to use different stocking strategies to even out the load. I’ll keep you all updated as the options become clearer.

In addition, the database that counts users online seems to be corrupted. I’ve disabled the “Where the Hyenas are” feature until we can get that fixed. You’ll also notice that on each individual store page, the number of shoppers online isn’t listed. Hopefully that won’t last long.

Finally, the feedback system seems to be working well. Thanks to all the loyal hyenas for leaving such glowing feedback for all of our sellers 🙂 I’ve just realized that auction and lottery sales have not been showing up in shoppers’ purchase histories. I’ll be working to get that fixed in the next week or so. In the meantime, feedback for those types of sales will need to be left in the feedback forums, the old fashioned way.

Thank everyone. I’ll be sure to keep you posted!

OK — based on all the input from last December, I’ve implemented our new feedback system.

Here’s the scoop:

• The buyer can leave feedback for a transaction from his / her Purchase History. The “Feedback” link now takes them to a user-friendly form in which they can fill out comments on customer service as well as a product review.
• If the transaction was a negative one, the buyer can mark it as such. In this case, the seller will have the opportunity to respond to the negative feedback. The buyer can then make a final comment about the resolution of the transaction and has the option to remove the negative flag. The entire conversation will be viewable from the Store Feedback page.
• At the top of the Store Feedback page it lists the total number of feedback comments a store has received as well as how many of these comments were negative. If a transaction was negative at first, but was then resolved, it is not counted in the “negative” total, but is marked resolved, and, as mentioned above, the entire transaction comment history will be viewable.
• HC Multi shoppers who do not have an account or were not logged in at the time of purchase will receive a link in their purchase confirmation email which they can use to leave feedback.
• Sellers, you will see a new column on your order history page for Feedback. It will show whether or not feedback has been left for your transaction. In the event that a buyer marks a transaction negatively, you will see a “View & respond” link which will give you a form in which to respond to this feedback.
• When negative feedback is left, a sellers responds to negative feedback, or a buyer enters the final resolution comment on a negative transaction, the other party will be emailed as a head’s up.

In addition, I have added a flagging system for sellers to use to flag buyers who do not honor HC’s purchasing agreements.

• To flag a buyer, use the Flag link on your order history page. You will be asked to describe the situation.
• The flagged buyer will receive an email, with a link to a form in which he / she can respond to the flag. The buyer will also see the Flag on his / her purchase history page.
• The buyer can respond to the flag using the form link.
• The seller will then have the option to remove the flag, with a final comment on how the situation was resolved.
• The flags will not be publicly viewable, but the HC admin will monitor them for shoppers with a history of bad shopping behavior. If a shopper is flagged too many times, he / she will be blocked from further purchases on HC.
• As in the feedback system, when a user is flagged, responds to the flag, or when the seller makes the final comment, an email will be sent to the other party.

To test out the system further, feel free to make purchases from the HC Multi test store: http://hyenacart.com/HCmulti/ you can then leave feedback (positive or negative — I promise not to be offended 😉 ) and view it here: http://hyenacart.com/feedback_view.php?vidn=1 As the shopper, you’ll see that you can also resolve the negative feedback, even if the seller does not respond.

As for the old feedback system:

• All feedback left in the forums is still intact and is counted towards the total number of feedback comments.
• The forum feedback system will still be kept running (for now) for trades and sales made through emails, PM’s etc.
• Note that on the buyer’s Purchase History page, if feedback is left under the new system, it will be marked as “Done.” If feedback is (or was) left in the forums, it will look like feedback still needs to be left. Please ask your shoppers *not* to C&P forum feedback into the new system as it will be double-counted and duplicated on the feedback page. However, if you have had shoppers email you feedback or leave it via the “Comment” function, now would be the perfect time to ask them to go back and leave it via the new system.

Three more comments (sorry for the novel!)

• If you have an HC Multi and have shoppers who have past transactions in which they *didn’t* log in, they will not be able to leave feedback for these under the new system. They will need to use the forums. Moving forward however, for all future purchases, even if a user does not log in, he / she will be able to leave feedback via the link in their purchase confirmation email.
• For those of you with multiple storefronts (i.e. one in a congo, and one standalone), I am still putting some thought into how to combine the feedback for all your stores on one page. For now, feedback left at your congo, will be separate from feedback left at your standalone store (except for forum feedback, which should show up in both if you have everything linked up already).
• ETA ~ I will also be working on the feedback system for Spot’s Corner. It will integrate the feedback from the forums and set something up similar to the store feedback system.

One last thing — those of you with HC multi who are using product listings as information items (about me’s, policies, etc.) — make sure to mark these with quantity of 0. Otherwise, if you have no shipping listed for them, it is possible for a shopper to put your info item in his / her cart and then check out with no shipping on the entire order. Just something to keep in mind.

So, clear as mud? I think this will be a very simple system once we start using it. Please encourage your shoppers to use the new system for all purchases from here on in rather than the forums (this will give the mods a much needed break too!). Just tell them to go to their Purchase History pages and leave feedback from there.

Thanks everyone — please post all bugs to this thread: http://hyenacart.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=72356

Oh, just as a side note — as I researched feedback systems, I came across an interesting journal article which claims that text comments are a much better reflection of actual store performance than “crude numerical ratings.” If anyone is as geeky as me, you can check it out at: http://isr.journal.informs.org/cgi/content/abstract/17/4/392

Are you sick of hearing about Spots? I’m sure you are. I’ll try to keep this short.

Here are the new new Spots rules:

Please use Spots for:

1) Bookmarking items for future drooling and / or purchase (these can be special items or everyday items)

2) Highlighting something so special and amazing that you want other shoppers to see

Please do not:

1) Use Spots as a means to advertise, market or promote your business

2) Solicit Spots from shoppers or friends for any particular listing (your own or otherwise)

I am not going to be prescriptive about who’s items you can and cannot Spot. Just please use your judgment in following these guidelines.

There has also been some confusion about Spotting amazing items versus run-of-the-mill items. Either type of item is totally fine *as long as* it fits in with our new Spots rules.

As a gift for putting up with all this Spots nonsense, I’ve increased the number of Spots retained for each shopper from 10 to 20. Hopefully that makes up for some of the mental stress and silly emails regarding the “Great Spots Debate” 😉

And just a little update — I’ve been progressing on coding our new feedback system. Hopefully it will be installed within a month or so.

Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I honestly had no idea that changing the Spots policy would cause so much turmoil. It seemed to be the simplest way to keep Spots from becoming overrun with spam. I see a few options moving forward and would love to have your opinion here. In the meantime, the restrictions on Spotting are lifted. Please do keep self-promotion to a minimum though. Thanks!

Hi everyone,

Just a quick note to let you know of a policy change regarding Spotting items. I originally intended Spots to be a way for shoppers to give kudos to great HC sellers as well as a way to bookmark items for later. It’s come to my attention that many HC sellers are using Spots as a way to promote their own stores and congos. From here forward, I’d like to reserve Spots for the original purpose. Please be respectful and understanding of this change. If Spots continues to be used for self-promotion, I will most likely need to remove the “Most Spots this Week” list from the calendar.

Thanks!