Marks List 2 of 3 of Requested Mods and Capabilities
Here is part 2 of 3 of a list of mods or capabilities that will make this the most desired and sought after cart of them all. If this cart has these incorporated into it, then you would have the top dog cart of all and I know for a fact you could pull people from al over, including specialty modders.
If you need more information, I can provide it, just let me know. I would like to also see your thoughts on these items as these have been topics of conversations of late between me and multiple people.
I had to break the list up into three parts due to the size constraints. I hope this is a help. Any questions, just shout at me, I have a lot of details.
MarkWhoo
Gift Registry: This capability would allow many people to sign into the store and sign up for a gift registry. Then go through the store and place items they like into their list. This list could be mailed to all of the friends. This could function like the basic wish list, yet also allow invitations to events, RSVP’s etc etc.
Actually make a decent Gift Registry would be nice. Xcart attempted to do this and again bombed seriously. It is bulky, hard for the end user to understand how to use it and the admin has a hell of a time trying to explain it to the customer.
To make it easier, would require the ability of the admin to add multiple styles of invitations into a gallery, then the end user can simply choose which template to use and then modify it to their specific details. This would make it greatly more usable and worth more to those who know what they are doing, but cannot due tot eh complexity of this mod. If this is of interest as it should be, I could offer many more details to make it actually a decent mod.
Image Zoomify Feature: This would be a nice feature to allow the customer to play with the image to get closer to view of details etc. A lot of end users like this ability. I noticed there was one out there that could allow this via a flash image file, yet the image was on a server that did not require downloading and left a light page so it took much less time to download. This was a great feature that allowed the detail of a huge file, yet dial up customers could see the image without the heavy load on their dial up low bandwidth connection. The mod just below could aid in this capability also.
Image Control Mod: Right now images are the greatest draw on bandwidth. They are also the biggest pain in the butt for most store owners. If I set an image to look great in the pop up, it is too big to use as a thumbnail, yet if it is also used as the thumbnail, it is simply resized and then weighs heavily on the download time for the images on the page. If I optimize my images for the thumbnails, it is too small for the detailed images.
I do not yet understand the ability of your cart, but if it is like xcart’s, it uses only two images. One for the thumbnail, one for the detailed image, yet the thumbnail is also used for the product listing which is either too small or large depending on how you set the initial image up for the cart. So, it actually requires three images, et you only upload two images.
What I propose is a mod that takes a detailed image with all of the larger info. It is uploaded one time. At that time, you have the ability to add alternative text. You have the ability to crop or do small image clean up or touch up jobs as some wysiwig applications allow you to do. Once that image has been touched up and the alternative text added, the image is automatically split into three images and resized for each one of the applications that it will be used for. All at the touch of a single upload button. It also names all images either as you request for specific product names for a greater content weight by the serp’s which is always a concern. This is a great addition to metatags and keyword listings which brings me to my next item.
Metatag, Keyword and Content Description Mod: This allows you the ability to complete the greatly required control over each page and every product to give your page a much greater weight as far as the serps look at it. Once they determine your page weight, it is then listed for a specific value in the search engines. What makes it or breaks it is the value of all of the content. If you control the link name, the meta tags, keywords and content. If you have “H†tags to surround the product names or important facts it is a huge plus. On top of it the image alt text capabilities, now you have the ability to really work your carts placement without a lot of harsh hacking to get it there through tricks with CSS or other code moving means.
Mod Rewrite Mod: this capability would allow an admin to choose either the catalog feature, or via rewrite on Linux servers, the ability to have html links that will rank much higher than php pages. If you can do this, there is no need fo the catalog feature, and you do not have to worry about the serps digging into a second level of file structure to get to your pages you wish to be crawled. It instantly make ALL pages appear as they are html and ALL of the cart then ranks high in the serps easily and there are no issues with trying to get them into the second level of the file structure to even see your pages.
Most serps will not go that deep looking for pages to crawl. Now if they all appear as if they are html, then you are racing into the higher rankings than most carts! And easily to boot.
Now if you have super control over the page appearance and it is now html, and it contains the product name, and there are metatag and keyword capabilities as well as description capabilities, picture alt text and more; YOUR CART WILL RULE!
This is a major step toward a powerhouse of a cart and huge plus for you. The problem is most engineers are coders, not SEO experts. So what you get is a cart that may or may not work as you wish, but if it is php, it is going to bomb in the Search Engines, period. No matter what anyone says, I know from personal experience, the mod rewrite rocks compared to the catalog file with html files in it. The main reason is the bots do not want to go to a level 2 file structure looking for edible html pages if they do not find them on level 1. The best method of you are to use the catalog feature is to place the catalog into the root file area, but that is so damned cluttered looking, it isn’t worth it.
If I am looking for files and the catalog is also in the root file area, I cannot find it if I have a decent sized store, lol. I will look for days for the file.
The only other thing that could make it any better is if it were an entire CSS Based cart, but that is another capability to look at. I can offer more info on this if requested, but this should be a base offered capability and choice to the catalog feature already present. This will be one of the first things I make for my cart if I am to use CSCart. It is crucial and means that much to me AND others.
Printable catalog feature: This is a huge mod. It allows all of the products you have to be printed out in an orderly fashion for your end users to look at and order if they wish OFF LINE. I have many people calling or asking for my printable catalog. I tell them where to go and they take what they want. If they like a specific category, the take it, If they want the entire product line up, they take it. I always provide an odder sheet to also print to enable them to order by phone, snail mail or hop back online and place order by numbers.
Printable Pages: This is also a plus. If a secondary page is present to allow the end user to print the product page is a huge plus. This was recently added to the xcart lineup and went over really well with my customers. It is a nice compliment to the printable catalog. I had links to enable print page, category, or catalog on all product pages.
Product Out of Stock Notifier: This mod allows a person to sign up to me notified when the product is placed back into stock. I have many collectibles in one of my stores and they are truly limited series. If I go out of stock and the item is not yet retired and I reorder it, the customer wants to be notified immediately when it is back in stock and this mod does it automatically.
Admin Notifier: This provides copies of all emails sent by the end user to also be copied and sent to the admin automatically if I so choose. This could be a button that is ticked in the config area.
I have all of my emails such as send to friend, wish list, gift registry etc copied to me. This way if it is an email about price or specific product I can do better with, I can have the ability to gain a customer instead of looking them and all behind the scenes. This is also good for busting competition that is sizing you up and they are sending themselves copies of your products. Very handy to me over the years.
More Info Button: this is placed on product page. If a person requires more info of a specific product, that info is copied to an email and their massage is attached and sent to the admin. It also captures their email address and allows a return mal be sent to them.