Archive for January, 2009
This month, I will mostly be making…
Posted by onI’ve been pretty quiet since the start of year, busy making plans for 2009 and Coriandr’s future. As we’re steadily approaching the end of January, it’s probably about time I started sharing these plans!
For my part, I’ll be introducing lots of new features, and improving both the visual design and usability of Coriandr. Whilst some of these new features will simply bring us in-line with what everyone expects from a marketplace nowadays, there are also some fresh new ideas that will really make Coriandr stand out from the crowd for both buyers and sellers…
This month I will mostly be making;
Featured Seller spotlights – Links to these mini interviews will become a permanent part of the front page. Each spotlight will be a custom built page highlighting a specific seller, and initially will run for a week before cycling to the next spotlight.
RSS feeds – Every shop will have it’s own RSS feed. If you’re unsure what RSS is, click here for an excellent explanation. I would love to expand this feature to include RSS feeds for product searches too. i.e. Search for “blue necklaces”, then subscribe via RSS to get updates everytime a new product matching “blue necklace” is added to Coriandr. This might not be viable with our current server setup however, so I’ll keep you posted.
Help section – I know, I know. The help section has turned into my perpetual “it’ll be ready tomorrow” promise, but it’s different this time; honest! All of Febuary will be free for everyone if I haven’t added at least 10 FAQs to the help page by the end of this month!
Shop policies – Sellers will be able to specify their own terms and conditions regarding refunds, shipping, etc. with the information appearing as part of the seller info box on item and shop pages.
Personal blog links – A lot of people end up putting links to their blogs in their profiles or on their shop welcome pages, so why not help out?! The blog links will appear alongside the “seller info” box visible on shop and item pages.
Image editing – When uploading a listing image, you will be asked whether you’d like to edit the image (using an external service) before uploading it to Coriandr. The photo-editing won’t be anything fancy (resizing and cropping for the main part) but hopefully this will be a welcome feature for those sellers without access to image editing software on their computers. The services we’re currently reviewing are Picnik, FotoFlexer, Snipshot. If anyone has used these services before and has something to say, please let me know!
That just about wraps it up for January’s feature update. Technology aside, there are a few more upcoming changes worth mentioning, but I’ll cover them a little later…
Brand new forum
Posted by onSince Coriandr started, we’ve tried to keep things clean and straightforward, which was why we chose Vanilla as our forum software. As it turned out, the old forum was too clean, and the way discussions and topics were displayed proved to be unaccessible for a lot of people…
…Enter SMF!
The new forum has been up for a few days now and a few visual tweaks aside, things are definately looking good. The amount of people visiting the forum has doubled, and things are much easier to use now that the forum layout is more traditional. If you’ve not used it yet, pop over and say hello. If you aren’t a Coriandr user yet, then get registered and join in the fun! :)
Shop Handmade UK
Posted by onThe UK craft scene gains another boost! MiaBelleJewellery has launched a handmade directory which aims to raise the profile of the UK’s handmade scene.
The aim of Shop Handmade UK is to raise the profile of handmade products and promote buying from UK based designers to support our own economy. Shop Handmade UK only launched 2 weeks ago on Dec 21st and has over 600 sellers listed in 13 categories and over 780 links to their shops. It’s in its early stages but I’ve many great features planned which I believe will help us all to promote our craft better.
It’s free to list your store, all the details about listing are on the site here: http://www.shophandmade.co.uk/add_me.htm. For updates please follow the blog at: http://shophandmadeuk.blogspot.com stay tuned for the Love Is competition.Thanks
Belinda
http://www.shophandmade.co.uk
The Love Is competition is up and running already, head over to http://shophandmadeuk.blogspot.com/ for details!
Happy New Year!
Posted by onThe vast majority of my friends and family recieved presents from Coriandr, and every single one of them loved them!
Before I go what’s planned for Coriandr this year, I want to give a heartfelt thanks to all the sellers that joined Coriandr in 2008. Launching what until late Oct was a personal project was a scary thing, but the support I’ve received has been great! More than anything I’d like to thank those who have shown Coriandr a huge amount of patience because (despite the occasional “we” slipping out) Coriandr is a self-funded, one-man-band…
Here’s to a fantastic 2009!