Shop management improvements - what do you want?

I have some development time reserved for shop management improvements. And I would like to know from you guys what you want me to spend my time on.

This is only a first step. Please don't expect the world. I can do a lot of small improvements now. Or I can limit it to 1 big improvement.

Let me know. Please be specific on what you would like to see.

I will report back into this thread about the developments. I will keep this thread open for 1 week to capture your ideas and wishes.

Thanks!

- Robert

Robby,

I know what slows me down, is how long it takes the pages to load. I'm pretty sure it's the render that is the biggest culprit in that speed. If there were a way to select a lower res or even no image at all. And I know the button didn't act 100% properly but I'm not seeing the next item button. That way I don't have to go back to my designs to pick the next design. Even better, a next shop item button, to skip over my stock of not for sale items.

Mike

1. I would love to see a (large maybe even scrollable) spreadsheet/list type interface for changing
properties multiple objects at once.
It doesn't have to be pretty, but it would be very handy for turning multiple models on/off or adding material restrictions.

2. I would love to see the option of a banner for shop section. perhaps a description/bumper/sub-shop page.

3. Extra view states would be handy :
- List and allow ordering (current show and allow ordering)
- Do not list. Allow ordering. (by private/direct link (initially just model nr, pehraps later something more fancy)
- List only
- Show only (same private link thing as above)

4. An option to hide "unavailable" models from our own view of our model listing. (so we can see better what the customer sees, without logging off/switxhing browser. etc)


That's it for now

Cheers,

Stijn

Some small and some big wishes

Image Handling
- generate pictures for the items from different angles per default
- or alternatively allow to change the viewing angle of the generated picture
- allow the generation of deep links to this images (currently it's a script with paramter). Many forums don't allow this.
- beautify pictures which have not the normal picture ratio
- allow pictures for different materials

Material classes
- allow material classes for shops defined by the owner, so that we can do material changes for many objects in one step

Better Navigation
- faster page load
- better placement of next/previous buttons (bart knows that)
- link to shop home on every side when logged in
- stay at the item when ordering so that I don't have to move back from the basket

One type of Input Field for Html
- Formatting tools like in this window for every input field: shop description, item description

Sell objects
- Allow not public visible objects which are nevertheless orderable. (For example by providing the link to specific customers) (see also virtox).
- Interface to buy or transfer money(paybal or earned by markup) to vouchers which could be given to dedicated customers of a shop.

Statistics
- Weigths for polularity, so that each shop owner can customize the calculation formula to his needs.

LIst (as virtox)
- of the properties of your shop items, even changeable would be great.

3d Objects
- possibility to download the uploaded file
- or store a MD5 checksum of the uploaded file to verify which version has been uploaded to shapeways (I have a lot of versions, sometimes I'm not sure)

Model page
- new layout of the model page. It developed during the time by adding new functionality. Maybe it's time to change the layout ...

Woody64

My wishes:

1° Statistics: buyers country, buyers referrer, top 10 referrers for every shop item.

2° For object A , you need to buy 2 parts in wsf, 1 part in alumide. I would like to see some kind of part grouping, to allow the buyer to know the total price and allow him to put the entire object in his shopping cart in one operation.

I'm new to Shops, but I do have a feature request for custom orders:

In the case of making a custom model for a customer, I'd like to be able to allow them to view and order their model, but not anyone else. Right now you can set a model to be viewable by either only yourself or everyone.

Perhaps there could be a way to make models viewable to only certain users? Maybe by putting in their email address in the model details? That way when they're logged in (which they have to be in order to purchase anyway), the system would know that they are allowed to view and purchase the model.

Could we somehow set a recommended/default/preferred material per model ?

I have some designs which I wish to mainly market in bronze,
but I still would like to leave open the material options.

So it would be cool if the galleries could show the price for the model in the preferred material, instead of just the lowest or wsf price.

Edit : Oops request was already here

One big thing: composite models/part grouping <-- Hugely important to me

Smaller things, in order of importance:
- Proper image resizing/handling. Things look especially bad in IE.
- More options for formatting
- Possibility to include or send a message to customers (assembly instructions/thank you note)
- Stats about customers
- The ability to give out model-specific discount vouchers (towards our markup)

I Think that the "To Do" list for Personalized orders should be first.

I have My Designs page set to show 10 rows (so that I can see all my models) but that makes it difficult to see the To Do list, which in my opinion, is the most important item on the My Designs page.

I was trying to change the designated section of one of my models within my shop and I can't find a way to do that after I have created the listing.
Am I missing something or there really isn't an ''edit'' option available??

It used to be possible to add models to shop categories after uploading them, but since the latest update, that no longer seems to be the case (at least not in Internet Explorer).

Neither in Firefox

As Virtox mentioned here before, the things in this thread.
https://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=msg&goto=1671 3
might be relevant.

which are:
# A "Default" material for a model without necessarily making it unavailable in anything else.
# material dependend markup.

Thanks for all the feedback.

I will close this topic now. But feel free to open another one to keep discussing.

I will keep you posted on what we will take on to improve shop management.

In any case I will put all requests on the wish list so we won't forget if we would not choose any particular feature for this iteration.

Again thanks for your feedback. I love it!

Best,

Robert

Hi guys,

Again thanks for all the feedback.

The idea now is to improve the way you can define the markup and materials for your show. Please the screenshot below.

The idea is to create a single interface where you can select the materials in which your model is available and set the markup including the effect on the pricing.



And yes it looks a *lot* like the idea Virtox gave us. Thanks for that!

Let me know what you think!

Robert

Wonderful. Change it to have the possibility of material specific mark ups and I'll love it even more.

Agree, even better if we have material specific mark-ups. Or rather even a set price, and let the mark-up be calculated from that.

I like the idea of being able to set the price and letting the markup be calculated from that. I had the image of a couple of boxes where you'd be able to change the markup or the final price, and if you changed the markup the price would change, and if you changed the price, the markup would reset automatically. Sort of like altering dependent fields in a spreadsheet.
That way, you could choose to either make a specific amount of markup per model, or to have neat set prices.
I can see how this would be particularly useful if you have a series of models which match but have slightly different masses, and you wanted the prices to match.

The thing I'm not sure about with the set prices, though, is the tax issue. Tax varies according to the location of the viewer, so the price you see isn't necessarily the same price they see. But then I guess the server does those sort of calculations automatically anyway, and it's just a matter of reversing the process.

Andy

Yes, this looks perfect!
No more playing with adding/removing materials
very slowly...and also that each material could have own mark-up
would be very nice!

I think that material images and the whole way how to show materials
should be changed. This is crucial for everyone but the most for the consumers
who's not familiar with Shapeways. Of course the best would be photorealistic rendings from the object, but I understand that's something for the future. But maybe now when you go over the material button it would make bigger image
over it!? And this image would be of course a real photo of the material. Every material would be the same shape/shapes, which shows round and straight surfaces, such as ball, cube and cylinder. Also there could be dimensions below the objects to understand scale.

Best,
Salokannel

This looks great Salokannel!