I've been a bit quiet this week mainly because it's possibly turning out to be one of the busiest weeks of the year for me. I currently have 5 sites underway for work. Luckily they are all similar and can run off the same template files for both style as well as PHP, however it's still fun and games trying to get everything working, especially as I'm still waiting on content and photos and these were meant to be live by the weekend! However on the up side I've had 3 calls today alone from my boss pretty much saying how thankful he is of what I've done. Sometimes it's good to hear that from someone so high up.

In between working on these sites I've also been tackling the HSBC Payment Processor for secure ePayments. A client of mine has a site which was coded a couple of years back by some PHP developers that didn't understand efficiency let alone security! So I've been trying to learn the logic of their shopping cart plus learn how to get the HSBC CPI working – a feat in itself. The PDF supplied by HSBC was of pretty much no help whatsoever. In the end I downloaded the HSBC Payment module for osCommerce, installed this on a test site I have running for testing contributions, and got it working via osCommerce first. Then using the excellent write up on how the module works, I stripped the code down to run standalone. 6 hours of then trying to get that to work, and discovering, thanks to Khalid, that the hash key I'd been supplied had two letters in the incorrect case. The version I'd used on osCommerce had the hash key correct (client's fault for supplying a wrong key). After tearing my hair out all Tuesday, I've now finally gotten all of the code working, so I'm just tying up the final bit which updates the order details.

I feel I've accomplished a fair bit this week!

So, continuing with the progress on our Tattoo site…nnI've set up the product pages which pull from a database table. This makes life easier to add new products. Also, at present, the prices are displayed in British Sterling and an approximate price is shown in US Dollars afterwards. However with the ups and downs of the current exchange rate, this price in dollars can appear inaccurate which of course doesn't look good. So I've set up the Dynamic Converter, which I wrote about last month. This allows me to have my prices in UK money but for anyone who is more comfortable with seeing prices in US Dollars they also get an accurate, auto updating, price. With it being on a UK domain I think having the main price in dollars would be a bit confusing for some people, so this way I have the best of both.nnAnother part of the site I've also been revising is the content. The site contains a large links directory, however going by the stats of the site and the entry pages, loosing most of these wouldn't make too much of a difference to the overall visitors. This is good news as I want to take what was originally a grey/black hat site and change it into a white hat shopping site. I do still want a few outbound links as there are some good Tattoo sites out there and offering a selection of good links is of benefit to our visitors, however I'm hoping on having more real content ie. articles from friends who have had Tattoos, photos of tattoos and the process involved (luckily Dave's neice seems to have taken several photos over the course of having her last tattoo done!).nnOur stats show that the bulk of visitors come to the site via the free tattoo samples we have available. This leads me to my next question. How do you draw people in from viewing an image in Google images (and the page below in a frame), to getting them to go and purchase further products from you? My main thought so far has been to have a banner at the top of the page linking through to the shop area, with the banner promoting the tattoos for sale and mentioning the price for a single flash. Something eye catching that will draw the visitor in to see more, and then the prices will be enough to make us a profit but cheap enough for anyone who's interested to happily spend. Afterall, what's a fiver to most people?

Further to my earlier rant about Amazon (don't get me wrong, I love shopping and window shopping on Amazon!) I decided to email them to kinda see if they were aware of the issues I'd come across, and also put it in their minds about the option to omit Marketplace sellers from your results. Just a couple of hours later I got a reply. Emails are below, mine first:

I have a couple of questions about using Amazon and its
features.

1. Is there any way to search for a product on Amazon and omit any products that Amazon does not sell itself. It can be quite tedious going into each product before knowing that the product is in fact offered by a Marketplace seller instead of Amazon.

2. Recently, my Mother was ordering some presents from my boyfriend's wishlist. She loaded up the wishlist and clicked on 'Add to Basket' besides the two products she wanted, expecting to buy these from Amazon. Despite a book which she had selected being sold by Amazon, the book was actually added to her basket coming from a
Marketplace seller. I appreciate this was the cheapest option however if you want to buy the product direct from Amazon you have to click the product title in the wishlist and select add to basket instead. Also using this method didn't update the wishlist.

3. Also when I testing purchasing the same book from the wishlist, on going to the checkout a notice appeared saying that the product couldn't be delivered to the wishlist address. Ignoring my second issue, surely if the product is automatically added to your basket on clicking 'add to basket', and it's from a wishlist which I'd
imagine 95% of the time has products sent direct to the wishlist owner, then surely only products which can actually BE sent to the wishlist owner should be available via the wish list?!

And the response I got:

Dear Customer

Thank you for contacting Amazon.co.uk.

I'm sorry to hear about the system error that adds the items from Marketplace instead of items from retail store in the Wish List.

We are aware of this issue, and our developers are working on a resolution.

Further, we would also like to inform you that we do not have a feature at present which omits the items from Amazon.co.uk Marketplace while using our search engine.

We appreciate that you've taken the time to send us your suggestion. I have informed your comments to our developers; customer feedback like yours is essential in helping them determine what additional features our visitors and customers want most.

Again, I apologise for this inconvenience.

We hope to have your continued patronage and your valued custom.

Thank you for shopping at Amazon.co.uk.

So there you go!

Recently, whilst helping my Mum buy some presents off Dave's wishlist for his birthday, I uncovered yet another daft problem with Amazon and its marketplace. For those of you who don't know, when you create a wishlist others can go and look at it, and each product has a price and 'add to basket' button next to it. Straightforward? Not at all. For some reason, despite Amazon having a product for sale, it seems if a Marketplace seller has the same item at a cheaper price then when you click add to basket, you're adding the product from the Marketplace seller and not Amazon! To get Amazon's own product (maybe more expensive but also 100% trustworthy and cheaper in postage anyhow) you would have to click the product title to view the details of the product, and then select add to basket.

The problem with going via the title however is that it doesn't update the wishlist, whereas clicking on add to basket does, thus preventing anyone else from buying the product! Despite you saying you want to send the product to the person's wishlist.

And the best bit? When the product comes from a marketplace seller (whether it's for all or those who have chosen the option), you can't have it posted to the Wishlist address!!!!!!!!!!

Okay rant over, I'm off to cook dinner

We're going from the stage of selling 11 products from one page on our Tattoo site, to selling over 100 products, across multiple pages on the site. Currently our 'shop' is simply one page with all 11 flashes displayed. Each has a checkbox next to it and a visitor can simply tick the box of each flash they want, enter their email address in and click the submit button which saves their info and sends them off to paypal.nnHowever, the new system will list the 11 flashes, but each will link into their own 'category' type page, which then lists the single designs from that flash. We'll be setting up offers, such as buy 3 get the 4th for free, hopefully encouraging more than just the one purchase. So of course this means we need a basket system to allow for people to add to their basket, continue browsing the site and then checkout at the end.nnFor a lot of people this issue means either using a custom built solution, such as osCommerce, paying a developer to do the work for you, or learning how to do it yourself. Luckily, for me, I've written a few shopping carts in my time, so a simply basket won't take too long to code up with PHP and MySQL.nnWe already use PayPal to accept payments, so I'll implement the PayPal IPN (Instant Payment Notification) to notify the server of an authorised payment. By using the IPN it means that when a payment is made, and all checks are satisfied (ensuring the amount is the correct amount, the 'to' email address is ours etc), the server can automatically email the purchaser either the items purchased or download details. This means the site is 100% automated besides us adding new flashes as and when we receive them from the designer.nnAt this point I'm just wondering what's better. Emailing the designs as attachments direct to the buyer, or creating a download section and allowing the buyer to login and download their purchase. The latter would mean I could keep a record of them retrieving their design, proof of postage essentially. Of course, just emailing is quicker and easier, but is it as efficient when it comes to product selling?