HC Blog

I’ve been meaning to do this forever — a list of our stores broken down by main product. So I’ve just added a field to your profile pages, at the top of the optional choices. Please choose a product type when you get a chance, and as soon as a good number of us are listed, I’ll make this page live on the HC site:

http://hyenacart.com/poweredby.php?list=3

I listed a few of you (hope you don’t mind) to check that the code was working properly. I’ll work on formatting, etc. when I see how our stores are distributed (lots of soaker stores, I know). I have 6 main categories, but let me know if you think I forgot something and you don’t really fit in anywhere.

I’ve altered the way order details are shown, both to you and the customer, and I think that the cart is much more understandable and professional looking. Rather than just listing the subtotal and shipping prices, and naming off any choices that have been made, the orders are now listed in table format. To see what I mean, make a test purchase here:

http://hyenacart.com/Test_cat/

(this item is a really good one to test: http://hyenacart.com/prod_details.php?id=39740&vid=1 )

New orders will look a little different than old ones. For orders placed before the update, you’ll just see the subtotal and shipping; and choices will be listed in the comments box. For new orders, each choice will be listed as a separate line item, with quantity, unit price, and total price listed. It is much more readable this way, and it should be much clearer to your customers what they bought and how much it cost. In addition, their payment page now reads much more like a traditional invoice. In fact, you could now print out the order_details page as an invoice.

Note that customers can change their shipping options after they make their purchase (sometimes they don’t have time to click all the right buttons in desparate hyena situations ), and that’s why I don’t report shipping options in your confirmation e-mail.

I’m hoping to add discount codes next, since that’s been a popular request.

I just wanted to let you know what the “CGI limits reached” is all about in case your customers are asking you…

The server is just a computer, and although computers are fast, they are not infinitely fast. So if several hundred customers are all clicking ‘refresh’ at the same time, it is just too many simultaneous queries, and the server throws up that error message. I’m actually quite pleased that the server is robust enough to keep chugging away at it and continue processing as best it can rather than crashing and dying. There’s nothing you or I can do to keep this from happening. It’s just too many customers trying to buy the same thing at the same time.

You can answer inquiries about whether a particular customer got an item or not by asking the customer to check her order history. If the item appears there, then she has successfully purchased the item. In addition, there is a link to the payment page listed in the table.

Oh, and one other thing I’ve been meaning to mention. HC can only prevent overselling on items where the quantity is set to 1. If you list something with qty higher than that, it should work under normal circumstances, but it is possible to oversell by one or two if there’s a lot of demand. So if you anticipate a hyena -frenzy, it’s best to list your items singly.

Thanks everyone!