The CraftStar Monday Update

Hello

Hope you all had a lovely weekend and raring to go for the new week.

I wish I could wave a magic wand and give you an exact time when we can shout to the world that The CraftStar is fully GO, but I don't have one of those (can anyone make one???)

As you know, I have hired a new technical team following the unsuccessful launch of Phase 2 of The CraftStar.  While they're doing a great job getting things fixed and moving forward, they have one hell of a battle to face.  Picking up someone else's code and running with it is not easy.  Everyone codes in different styles .. and the code they picked up was a challenge.

They have already completed some major fixes: shop URLS, item URLS, security, search functionality, the list goes on.

Main priorities right now are SHIPPING and PAYPAL.  The first team coded shipping as an admin function.  This obviously is not the way things work, so the guys are having to recode the whole CART functionality.  You may have noticed that SHIPPING has shown up on items, it now needs to be connected to the cart (and templates added.)

PayPal is working, however the system is only sending out PP notifications, which in my opinion, don't have enough information on it to run your businesses properly.  The guys are coding BUYER and SELLER emails that will be sent, with exact details of what's sold, to who, etc.  I decided not to activate PP until that was completed so as not to confuse anyone as to what's sold.  I have been told by the team that this will be ready "at the beginning of the week."

Direct Checkout (Credit Cards) is working and has been for a couple of weeks.  When we get sales through credit cards, the payment takes 2 - 5 days to clear through the system, and then I release the money to the seller's PP account or bank account - whatever the seller prefers.

There is a huge list of fixes that need to be done ... and the guys "push" out as much as they can on a daily basis.  Some of these are noticeable to you (as in SHIPPING), others are behind the scenes tidy-ups that are needed to connect everything together.

We are not charging listing fees until we have both PP and DC as options for payment.  My thoughts on this are:  list away while it's free!!   When things are more solid, we will be kicking in our ad campaign so it would be great to see full shops for that!  This will be in time for holiday sales and the team has a great promo plan ready to go.

Thank you for sending through the issues you're coming across .. these are very helpful to send over to the team.

Again, I wish I could give you an exact date ... but I'm tied to what the team are tackling.  I know how frustrating this is ... believe me please when I say that.  While some shops have gone quiet, we're getting a bunch of new users too.  That's encouraging.

I will admit I have debated over the past few weeks whether all this frustration, stress, and frankly embarrassment, is worth it.  I always come to the conclusion (with help from Kim and my mom) that YES it is.  I truly believe the site in my head and heart is a great one ... and I do have the faith needed in this team to bring it to light.  I will NOT give up.

If you're hanging in there with us, I can't tell you how much I appreciate and admire your patience and encouragement.  I promise we're doing as much as we can, as fast as we can.

I'll update you as soon as the big fixes are "fixeds."

Thank you.

Bethan