View Full Version : My take on a niche shop
Hi all. First post! :)
I installed the shop window client software a couple of months ago and have found it very hard to get to grips with. I have read the PDFs info over and over but still I couldn't figure it out. Anyway after finding this forum and reading other people's questions, I have at last managed to integrate a shop into one of my sites.
http://www.equineonline.net/tackshop/
As the site is dedicated to horses I only really wanted to dislpay equestrian related items. Trying to do this has been tricky and in the end I just ditched various aspects such as the category nav and breadcrumb trails and have created my own nav instead with direct links to products I want people to access. I intend to do some more work onthe nav and will create drop downs with links to more products to make searching easier for the viewers.
I do have one problem. The index page is a bit sparse as there is only one merchant in the equestrian category and they appear to only have 6 hot pick products. I would like at least double that. Is there a way of adding hot picks from two categories? Otherwise Mr AWIN, please can you ask mad4ponies to add some products please? :D
I'm afraid I can't answer you question but just wanted to say a couple of things.
Very nice site and welll integrated.
This is the kind of site that the Shopwindow software should really be improved for. We don't need 1001 general shopping sites. Let everyone take their own niche from it and use it well - like this. The client software should really make this much easier for everyone to have their own take on niche markets.
Best of luck with the site.
Thanks for your comments Bud. Having looked at other people's shops, it seems to me that the best ones have been produced by people who are capable of doing a lot of customisation to the code. Many of us are not capable and certainly don't want to have to pay someone else to do it. To be honest I was perfectly happy with the old content feeds but now they have been removed I have no option but to use shopwindow. Personally I would like the content feeds to be brought back as an option for those that don't want or need such a huge product base.
Having not used the feeds I didn't realise this. That's alarming. I can see that this in no way replaces the perfectly good feeds that so many have used successfully.
A worrying situation.
IntroSites
01-10-07, 17:44
Am i missing something? in AW the datafeed link is there in the menu on the right, ive just used it without problems
Am i missing something? in AW the datafeed link is there in the menu on the right, ive just used it without problems
It's not the datafeeds I was using. It was the custom content units:
http://www.affiliatewindow.com/affiliates/shopwindow/customcontent.php
As I've already seen someone else on here say, from an affiliate program, I just want a few lines of javascript or html that I can add to my web pages. I don't want to faff around with complicated (IMHO) feeds. I don't have a database to add them to. Don't get me wrong, I think the Shop Window facility is great, if it suits your needs. I'm afraid that it doesn't suit mine.
Sorry if my post was misleading - looks like I got the wrong idea about what had been removed.
Hi fuzionit (like the site btw ;) ) ,
Our new content widgets were released as a replacement for our old custom content units.
http://www.affiliatewindow.com/affiliates/shopwindow/contentwidgets/
The new content widgets are offered in a variety of sizes and can be fully customised to suit your website (see the above section in your account).
Is this not what you were looking for (apologies if I have misunderstood)??
Adrian
SW Integration & Technical Support
adrian.botelho@digitalwindow.com
www.digitalwindow.com
Hi fuzionit (like the site btw ;) ) ,
Thanks :D
The new content widgets are offered in a variety of sizes and can be fully customised to suit your website
Hi Adrian. Well they can be customised to a degree and are great if used one at a time, but they don't work so well if you use a few at a time. For example, the middle column on my site is about 520px max. This means I can't use the 600px wide widget so have to use the 468x60px that only displays 2 products. If I want to display 8 products the result looks at bit messy (due to number of 'powered by' and 'buy nows' as you can see in this example:
http://www.equineonline.net/widgets.htm
If you fancy giving the option of one product per line (with no 'powered by') on a 468px widget that would be marvellous.
I think the Shop Window product is great BTW it's just so hard to get it to work if you are a coding numpty. Also it's not great (yet) for niche sites like mine.
Whilst I've got your attention ;) , is there any chance of Joules being added to the equestrian category? Can you ask mad4ponies to make some more products hot picks? Lastly If neither of the first two questions are possible, how can I get more equestrian related products to show on my shop index page?
Thank you!!
Hi fuzionit,
In reply to your previous questions........
If you fancy giving the option of one product per line (with no 'powered by') on a 468px widget that would be marvellous.
This is something we can add onto the development list for content widgets, but we are currently developing further templates which will be released within the interface soon. Please check this forum for updates on this.
Whilst I've got your attention ;) , is there any chance of Joules being added to the equestrian category?
We are currently reviewing the 'Joules Clothing' categories - i have just mapped some of their products to the 'Equestrian' SW category so you should see some soon :)
Can you ask mad4ponies to make some more products hot picks?
I believe they currently have 10 products selected as HotPicks.....i can however only see 6 on your site???
Lastly If neither of the first two questions are possible, how can I get more equestrian related products to show on my shop index page?
It is possible to hard code the 'product_results' box to display results from equestrian categories or merchants that carry these products (you can make these appear on the homepage by default).
Hope this helps :D
Adrian
SW Integration & Technical Support
adrian.botelho@digitalwindow.com
www.digitalwindow.com
Hope this helps :D
Yes, very helpful, thanks! Just need to eat some brain food to figure out how to do your last point :-)
Have ditched the shopwindow facility and decided to build the shop using widgets instead. Seems to fit my needs better. Will have another bash at the client software on a future general shop.