HC Blog

Hi all,

Just wanted to let you know that the new search function has been installed on the site: here. As you’ll see, you can now sort search results by price, stocking time, ending time, or alphabetically by store name. In addition, searches can now be filtered by stocktype. Finally, there is now a store-level search that allows shoppers to see which stores carry the item they are searching for, and allow them to expand a store’s listings dynamically. Give it a try and see what you think A few notes on the listings that show up in the search table:

1. only stores with paid dates within the past two months are searchable
2. only listings with end times within the past two months are searchable (also HC Multi items with undefined end times)
3. for HCS stores, only items with preview set to 1 or stocktimes in the past are searchable (in other words, items you’ve set for future stocking, but don’t want previewed won’t show up)
4. for HCM stores, only items with “Show” checked will be searchable.

If you have any items that should be showing up in search but aren’t, please drop us a line at support@hyenacart.com and we’ll take a look at it.

In other news, Prudence at Cuddlebug Cloth brought the Pay it Forward movement to my attention. She outlines the idea on her listing here. I think it’s a wonderful idea and would love to see more PIF listings on HC. And remember, we have three-letter search now, so shoppers will be searching on “PIF” Let’s spread that good karma around!

Finally, I’d like to update the HC categories (i.e., the ones listed on the main page). Please comment here with suggestions. If we have enough stores to fill out a category, we’ll add it in. Also, if you have suggestions for more tag words to include on the search page, please post those as well.

Thanks everyone!

Hi everyone!

I’m excited to announce that the new storetop menus are now live across all HC stores If you get any questions from your customers about how to use the menu, or what features it includes, please point them to this page.

In other news, there are three gorgeous new store templates to be found on your Store Settings >> Profile page. They were designed by the very talented Kandace of Kandace Wright Designs. Check them out — they are something else!

I hope to have another exciting announcement regarding the search function in the next day or two. Stay tuned!

Thanks for shopping/selling HC

Phew! I’ve done a lot of debugging on the storetop menus and they are just about ready to be rolled out. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, please check out this post.

Please please check your store designs with the new menu. If you have design issues, and would like me to fix them, please post a link to your store in the comments to this post, a description of the issue, and give me permission to tweak your design to fix the issue.

If you’re a do-it-your-selfer, you can try the following fixes for the most common problems:

1. Mysterious white bar at the top of your store (below the storetop menu). This is caused by setting a margin at the top of the page. The margin needs to be zero’ed out. For example:

   body { margin: 37px 0px 10px 0px; }

   needs to be changed to this:

   body { margin: 0px 0px 10px 0px; }

2. The storetop menu is too far to the right. Some of the links don’t show on the page. This is caused by a

   body{text-align:center}

   style definition. If this is removed, the issue will go away

3. You use white text for your links, so the storetop menu, being white on white, is not very useful. You can add this style definition to your style sheet:

   .navhc a, .navhc a:hover {color:#000000;}

   where you can change the color to whatever you desire, and the link text will then show up correctly.

4. Your store table is wider than your design: check your Store Settings >> Profile page, and ensure that the “width of storetable” value is not too large.

Remember, if you would prefer not to make these changes, please comment to this blog post with permission for me to make the changes for you. The menus will roll out in a week, so again, please check your store designs!

One last note: many of you have commented that the menus seem too small and inconspicuous. My hope is that, since they stay at the top of the browser window no matter how far down the user scrolls, that they will be noticeable because of that.

Thanks everyone!

Whew! I have been working for what feels like months on the storetop menus and they are finally ready for beta testing. What I mean by that is that I have not rolled the change out across the site yet, but I’ve created links that allow users to turn them on and off and try them out.

What are storetop menus?

They are menu bars that will appear at the top of every store that allow the shopper to navigate through HC much more easily. In addition, in Firefox and Chrome, the menu bars stay fixed at the top of the window, so no matter where you’ve scrolled down to on the item listing, you can still see what time it is, and access all the features of the menu.

So what are these wonderful new features?

• There are drop-down menus so the shopper can navigate to his/her My HC and other utility pages
• There are drop-downs to navigate back to the HC calendar or search page
• There are store-level drop downs that can take the shopper to the store’s feedback page, main page, mark the store as a favorite or share the store via social networking sites like facebook, twitter, etc. There’s also a new store-level search page to search through the listings of a single store
• There are item-level drop downs which allow the shopper to spot the item, share it via social networks, or my favorite new feature: we’ve partnered with MyRegistry.com to allow the items to be added to a universal registry list (along with items from any other site on the web)

So, how do you access this amazing new menu?

Click on this link to turn the menu on site-wide: http://hyenacart.com/calendar.php?stmenu=1

After clicking on that link, all the stores will have the storetop menu.

If you’d like to revert back to non-storemenu view, you can click on http://hyenacart.com/calendar.php?stmenu=0

Please leave comments, questions, and bugs under this blog posting. I’m especially interested in having you test this on your own store, to confirm that the menu does not conflict with your store’s design. I’ve tested a lot of stores, but obviously, I can’t test them all. I know of two bugs that will need to be fixed via modifying a store’s design. If, in your style sheet, you define a body tag margin at the top of the page, it causes a horizontal white bar to appear. Zeroing out the margin fixes this. Also, any store with white or very light font will not work well with the menu since it has a white background, so we’ll need to put a quick fix in. I have an idea how to do this, but need a store to test it on, so please send me a link if this applies to you.

In addition to the store menu, there are a few other enhancements:

• Slight reformatting of product listing pages to make them more readable and user friendly (in HCS, price is now shown up by the title, and time left until stocking is listed at bottom of listing)
• Stores with paid time longer than two months in the past will show up as inactive. This is to prevent sales from stores where sellers have not listed in a while (we’ve had both annoyed sellers who assumed their listings would expire with their paid time, and annoyed shoppers who have purchased items from old stores)

I’ll add more if I can think of it, but that’s the main gist. Please let me know what you all think. I’ve had the menus turned on for a week or so now and find it much easier to navigate. Plus, I’ve had a ton of fun sharing links via facebook and twitter. Which reminds me, we’d love to have you join the HC facebook page, fan page, and follow us on twitter.

Thanks everyone!

*ETA* OK — known bug — the drop downs are not working in IE. Will get that fixed as soon as I can figure it out! Fixed that error. Please refresh a few times if the menus are looking funky

It’s just non-stop updates lately, huh?

OK — first of all, if you log into your vendor page and go to Product Listings >> View/Edit items, you will see that there is now a column called “Spots.” This column shows you the number of Spots that listing has received. So far, people don’t seem too opposed to having this number be public, so that may come with the new storetop menus, but we’ll see how it goes. In addition, I’ve updated the shoppers’ My HC pages to allow the capability of deleting Spots. I was hesitant about doing this at first, but have decided it makes the most sense to give the shoppers the ability to organize their lists as needed.

More updates to come soon. Thanks everyone!

Hi everyone,

Just a quick update for HCS sellers. You’ve probably noticed that the comments never come through on your order emails. That’s because the email gets sent out immediately, even before the buyer has had a chance to enter comments. I’ve just altered the order confirmation email to clarify this point. In addition, if the buyer does enter comments, an additional email will now be sent to the seller to alert him/her. Recall that you can always see the full details of the order (including comments) via the order history page.

Also, I’ve posted a poll on the forums regarding showing the number of Spots a listing has received — whether to keep it private or show it publicly. Please respond when you get a chance: poll

Thanks everyone!

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!