Before we examine the next series of Lemax Christmas and Halloween villages, I thought I’d whine a little more about our new e-commerce site. I discovered, quite by accident, that ProStores doesn’t do two things related to international shipping costs. First, internationally, they only support “automated” shipping costs for Canada. Second, they require a separate merchant-defined shipping table for each international country that you wish to ship to.
First things first, let’s address Canada. If ProStores dynamically links to the USPS site to obtain shipping information about Canada, then it doesn’t make sense to me that they can’t obtain shipping rates for any and all other countries that the USPS ships to. Unless there’s something wacky going on behind the scenes at the USPS (and that’s always a possibility), then ProStores and the USPS should be able to pass between themselves the shipping rates for any countries. (This comes from ten years as a programmer and 31 years in information technology overall.) The more we sellers sell, the more commission ProStores will rake in, so it makes good business sense to facilitate the shipping process.
Next, apparently the ProStores idea of a work-around for this is to permit merchants to define their own shipping tables for specific countries and to use a default shipping table for all other countries.
ProStores permits us to import and export information in our hosted databases. Products, customers, orders, and a variety of other information can easily go to and fro. Why not allow the shipping tables to be imported? That way, we sellers could create a spreadsheet that we could manipulate and change around easily.
Instead, we must sign into the ProStore and change the 1-pound rate, the 2-pound rate, the 3-pound rate, . . . the 44-pound, etc. for each country – 45 entries in all per country. Most European countries share the same shipping charges for packages weighing up to and including 44 pounds. I cranked in 20 different tables for 20 different European countries. Then, I added a table for Australia and another for “everywhere else.” If you live “anywhere else,” the rate probably isn’t accurate. (But all the others are up-to-the-minute!)
Guess what happens when there’s a rate change? Yes, every one of those tables needs to be updated! What a nightmare! If they’d just link to the USPS published rates available on USPS.com, then all this could be avoided. I wouldn’t have to close down my site for hours while making these changes. And you would be spared the inconvenience of another web site under construction right when you want to place an order!
Ah, if I ruled the world!
I don’t want anyone to think that Im negative about ProStores. I really think it’s a good e-commerce solution. They have most bells and whistles any retailer needs, and the features are easy to tap into. Everything’s customizable. If you know a little HTML, you can make your ProStore dance. But, straight from the box, it’s a very usable service for most retailers. As I learn more, I’ll share it.
Next time, we’ll delve into Caddington Village, the Victorian Christmas village from Lemax.
Check out what’s happening at www.lemaxvillages.com.
Showing posts with label ProStores. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ProStores. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Problems with Our New Web Site
When we left Pauline, she was dangling over a cliff by a frayed rope that was coming unwound. Strand by strand, she was nearing her inevitable plunge to the chasm below. Sorry, different story. As I recall, we were recounting the problems we were having with our new web site.
Pointing the URL from the old to the new web site went surprisingly well. Two calls each to ProStores and Register.com ironed out all the details. At 2100 CDT on Sunday, our URL began propagating throughout all the Domain Name Service servers across the globe, a process that could take 24 to 48 hours to complete. At 2102 CDT at our house we were viewing our new ProStore when we typed in www.lemaxvillages.com. Slowly we received reports from as far away as the Philippines about the new site.
The system administrator sobered up long enough to restore some capability to the wounded server, but it still wasn’t hitting on all cylinders on Monday, July 7 – the day of the grand opening. Fortunately, people weren’t complaining about slow response. In fact, most comments were highly favorable. (What? They didn’t like our old site?)
Despite two years of testing, despite trying to anticipate every contingency, when we went into production, we encountered a few bugs. We’ve always offered free shipping on orders over $350. We had also been offering a temporary ten-percent discount on all orders over $350 until August 31, 2008. We learned the hard way that ProStores doesn’t permit two concurrent storewide promotions. After missing two $400 sales early Monday morning, four phone calls to tech support uncovered a workaround, but it required the buyer to enter a promotion code at checkout time. Now, we had to notify our buyers somehow about this promotion code, which led to the second problem.
We decided (and ProStores tech support agreed) that we needed to prominently display the promotion code on the home page and also on the checkout page. Updating the home page was a snap, but there are multiple checkout pages: one for buyers who wish to register themselves on the site, another for buyers who had previously registered, and the third for buyers who couldn’t be bothered registering. (Just let me place my order so I can get on with my life!)
Apparently, when I updated two of the three checkout pages, I put the text smack-dab in the middle of an IF statement, which caused lots of problems. That took an hour or so to resolve, but the solution made sense. The universe was once again in balance.
Not that anyone from ProStores is reading this blog, but I should probably apologize to the entire tech support staff. (This also sets the stage for the next problem we’ll address below.) They all probably needed an extra shot or two of whiskey last night to calm their jangled nerves. I wish I had a dollar for every time I asked them, “What do you mean my ProStore won’t . . . (fill in the blank)? I’ve read the manual cover-to-cover four times, and it plainly states that it will . . . (fill in the blank).”
The next issue wasn’t noticeable to buyers, but it affected us. Our warehouse is laid out with products in numerical order by SKU. We primarily handle Lemax Christmas and Halloween villages, but we also sell ornaments from Kurt S. Adler, On30 scale trains from Bachmann, some A Christmas Story items from NECA, and Toy Presidents (talking action figures that include presidents, first ladies, and notable world leaders). An eclectic mix, each cluster of which is laid out in numerical order by SKU.
To pick an order efficiently, I need a list of items sorted numerically by SKU. So, how is the ProStores picking list organized? It isn’t. The order is random. I called tech support and asked how to sort the list numerically. “Oh, Prostores can’t do that,” she offered. I protested, “Hey, wait a minute. I was a programmer for ten years. It’s a simple matter to sort things.” She retorted, “Well, then, go into the HTML code and sort it yourself.” I asked to make this a formal request for version 9.1.0.250 of the ProStores software. She gave me an e-mail address to send my request to.
Until I can get around to making this (potentially dangerous) change to the underlying code of ProStores, I’ve trained Carol to copy and paste the list into a spreadsheet and sort it there. Then she can print the page, and I’ll use it to pick the order. Aaargh!
Monday, while I was at work, Carol called me frantically. “The shipping is too low on the first few orders we’ve gotten.” I investigated, and all I can tell is that when the store links to UPS to get a shipping quote, it’s retrieving the cost to ship to a business, not a residence. UPS adds a hefty surcharge to each package bound for a residence. Also the shipping quote ignores the weight of the box and shipping materials. I had to make some quick adjustments to the shipping algorithm, but our first five or six customers got a heckuva bargain on shipping.
All things considered, the glitches we’ve encountered so far have been fairly minor. The lesson here is to test, test, and test some more. You don’t need to spend two years testing, but you need a good test plan on paper that exercises every line of code. Test the credit card payments. Test the credit card refunds. Test the reasonableness of the shipping costs. Test, test, test whatever makes sense in your case.
Cosmetically, make sure you have no broken links. (That little red “x” indicates broken links.) Insure all your products have images. Insure all the thumb-nail images are the same size and the full-size images are the same size. Anyway, you get the idea: spend a little time insuring the site looks professional.
If you’d like to see the site for yourself, click here www.lemaxvillages.com. If you find any broken links or missing images, drop me a line.
Pointing the URL from the old to the new web site went surprisingly well. Two calls each to ProStores and Register.com ironed out all the details. At 2100 CDT on Sunday, our URL began propagating throughout all the Domain Name Service servers across the globe, a process that could take 24 to 48 hours to complete. At 2102 CDT at our house we were viewing our new ProStore when we typed in www.lemaxvillages.com. Slowly we received reports from as far away as the Philippines about the new site.
The system administrator sobered up long enough to restore some capability to the wounded server, but it still wasn’t hitting on all cylinders on Monday, July 7 – the day of the grand opening. Fortunately, people weren’t complaining about slow response. In fact, most comments were highly favorable. (What? They didn’t like our old site?)
Despite two years of testing, despite trying to anticipate every contingency, when we went into production, we encountered a few bugs. We’ve always offered free shipping on orders over $350. We had also been offering a temporary ten-percent discount on all orders over $350 until August 31, 2008. We learned the hard way that ProStores doesn’t permit two concurrent storewide promotions. After missing two $400 sales early Monday morning, four phone calls to tech support uncovered a workaround, but it required the buyer to enter a promotion code at checkout time. Now, we had to notify our buyers somehow about this promotion code, which led to the second problem.
We decided (and ProStores tech support agreed) that we needed to prominently display the promotion code on the home page and also on the checkout page. Updating the home page was a snap, but there are multiple checkout pages: one for buyers who wish to register themselves on the site, another for buyers who had previously registered, and the third for buyers who couldn’t be bothered registering. (Just let me place my order so I can get on with my life!)
Apparently, when I updated two of the three checkout pages, I put the text smack-dab in the middle of an IF statement, which caused lots of problems. That took an hour or so to resolve, but the solution made sense. The universe was once again in balance.
Not that anyone from ProStores is reading this blog, but I should probably apologize to the entire tech support staff. (This also sets the stage for the next problem we’ll address below.) They all probably needed an extra shot or two of whiskey last night to calm their jangled nerves. I wish I had a dollar for every time I asked them, “What do you mean my ProStore won’t . . . (fill in the blank)? I’ve read the manual cover-to-cover four times, and it plainly states that it will . . . (fill in the blank).”
The next issue wasn’t noticeable to buyers, but it affected us. Our warehouse is laid out with products in numerical order by SKU. We primarily handle Lemax Christmas and Halloween villages, but we also sell ornaments from Kurt S. Adler, On30 scale trains from Bachmann, some A Christmas Story items from NECA, and Toy Presidents (talking action figures that include presidents, first ladies, and notable world leaders). An eclectic mix, each cluster of which is laid out in numerical order by SKU.
To pick an order efficiently, I need a list of items sorted numerically by SKU. So, how is the ProStores picking list organized? It isn’t. The order is random. I called tech support and asked how to sort the list numerically. “Oh, Prostores can’t do that,” she offered. I protested, “Hey, wait a minute. I was a programmer for ten years. It’s a simple matter to sort things.” She retorted, “Well, then, go into the HTML code and sort it yourself.” I asked to make this a formal request for version 9.1.0.250 of the ProStores software. She gave me an e-mail address to send my request to.
Until I can get around to making this (potentially dangerous) change to the underlying code of ProStores, I’ve trained Carol to copy and paste the list into a spreadsheet and sort it there. Then she can print the page, and I’ll use it to pick the order. Aaargh!
Monday, while I was at work, Carol called me frantically. “The shipping is too low on the first few orders we’ve gotten.” I investigated, and all I can tell is that when the store links to UPS to get a shipping quote, it’s retrieving the cost to ship to a business, not a residence. UPS adds a hefty surcharge to each package bound for a residence. Also the shipping quote ignores the weight of the box and shipping materials. I had to make some quick adjustments to the shipping algorithm, but our first five or six customers got a heckuva bargain on shipping.
All things considered, the glitches we’ve encountered so far have been fairly minor. The lesson here is to test, test, and test some more. You don’t need to spend two years testing, but you need a good test plan on paper that exercises every line of code. Test the credit card payments. Test the credit card refunds. Test the reasonableness of the shipping costs. Test, test, test whatever makes sense in your case.
Cosmetically, make sure you have no broken links. (That little red “x” indicates broken links.) Insure all your products have images. Insure all the thumb-nail images are the same size and the full-size images are the same size. Anyway, you get the idea: spend a little time insuring the site looks professional.
If you’d like to see the site for yourself, click here www.lemaxvillages.com. If you find any broken links or missing images, drop me a line.
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