Announcing the Scif Store

Some of you may remember that over the past 18 months, we have carefully considered putting together a large, scalable storefront application for anyone to come in and sell stuff on DG. Every time we got serious about it however, we ultimately rejected it and the project never was carried through to completion.

About a month ago, however, after careful planning and long consideration, I decided that the time was right for me to put this application together finally.

And, thus today I announce the birth of Scif Store. It's a fully enabled e-Commerce system, with automated cart and checkout system.

What many of you don't know is that if you have purchased from the DG Store in the past 2 weeks, you were using Scif Store.

What does this mean?

It means that anyone can have their own store now. I programmed it so that anyone can go right in and start setting up their catalog of products, immediately and without even having to go through an approval process.

We have 5 stores already being set up (Mine, Trish's, PlantRanch, and 2 DG members who will be selling their own wares). Anyone can have a storefront on this system, and in fact anyone interested is encouraged to go take a look and maybe even set their own up.

The full details can be found on the front page of Scif Store: http://store.standardout.com/

dave

Wow Dave! This is big news!! I had no idea this was in the works. Anyone can sell?? So if I wanted sell a ... ummm... a rusty old watering can I bought at a yard sale - I could put it up with a price on it? Or is it geared more toward selling a product that I could supply for a while?

hey Dave, where can we see the stores already set up??

Cool Dave!

I've been up to my neck in alligators lately and just haven't had much time,but fully intend to set up a store.

How about hand dyed fabric and tomato plants ya'll??

This is good Dave I was thinking of selling some good quality limited edition prints of my paintings but didnt know if there was enough interest. This is good news. Think I might give it a go.

Dave, you mentioned that this is for stores in the US. does it include us in the UK and indeed rest of the world too? I have already sent paintings to the states and would like to continue.

Sue,

Yes, indeed you could use it to sell one-time items. There is an inventory field for your products, so just type a 1 for the inventory, and as soon as 1 is sold, the product will no longer be shown. Give it a try and see what you think.

psilo: Right now, we are limiting the usage to U.S. people, however we will be working to service our friends in the U.K., Canana, and other countries. The biggest issue is billing and shipping costs, which are currently customized for U.S.->U.S. transactions. I will contact you directly when this changes.

dave

why would billing and shipping costs be incurred by yourself. surley that would be taken up in the seller/customer transaction? or am I not understanding what you mean? BTW just went to the registration page and it says I am already registered. confused now.

tiG: Currently the DG Store is the only one that is live and running, everyone else is still working on theirs. Calalily is very close to being ready - her store is looking VERY NICE and my guess is she'll ask Trish to push the "activate the store" button very soon.

dave

dave, are any of the stores active? all I could find was the setup page.

I'm working on it, lol. I was so tired last night, I had to quit so I wouldn't make a mistake. All I need to do now is weigh the products for shipping and I'm good to go.(oh yeah, and inventory the hostas and daylilies)

tiG: Scroll up to the post above yours (we posted at the same time)

psilo: Use your DG username and password to login.

Regarding the shipping: You are misunderstanding. The shipping cost is paid by the customer, of course, but the system calculates the shipping based on the weight of the product, and uses US Postal prices to know how much to charge the customer (on your behalf) for the shipping.

This is an automated process, and I have to think through how to handle it for non-U.S. folks, where you will want different prices for shipping.

Does that make sense?

dave

:) thanks!!! I have a lot of my cake store supplies that I need to sell, I will get them all together and see if maybe Trish thinks this is something that would work on here.

Dave, could you add the foreign shipping in one of the checkpoints? Don't forget if it's foreign plants coming to the USA, they have to have a phyto.

thanks Dave I understand now. I wouldnt be sending plants only prints, and I have to work out the best way to print them anyway. Thanks for your patience and I hope we get online soon!

DG just keeps getting better and better. Thank you for how hard you work on behalf of all the people here.

Calalily, yes, foreign shipping can be handled in the checkpoints (in fact, that is how I am doing it on the DG Store - see the cookbooks).

And that's the solution for anyone selling something with variable shipping rates. Set the weight to 0 (so no shipping costs are added up) and then add checkpoints for the various shipping options.

Regarding plants: That's your responsibility to make sure that you have all the paper work. All I am doing is handling the cart and cataloging. Legal issues like that need to be handled between the seller and the buyer (this was the main issue that stopped us from doing the storefront in the first place, and we decided to just take a hands-off approach).

psilo: Another issue is that all transactions are added up in U.S. dollars. Before I can accept other countries, I'd like to offer the seller to set their own currency (Euros, etc).

dave

I have to wait a little over 3 years before I can start using this. |P

This is a great thing anyway :) And it would be great if you'd get other currencies there. Euro and British Pound are two very important ones. It will surely be a big thing to set up everything ;)

I just saw this - neat, Dave! Going to check it out now. :)

Dave I already use paypal which uses American dollars and converts it to £ sterling when it pays me. Can this facility not be added in in some way?

Do I understand correctly from the user agreement that you run a credit report on sellers? Why is this necessary?

GW: No, you are not understanding correctly. The language of the agreement gives us the option to do so, although I hope the circumstance never arrives. With problems that we have had with various people (as is sure to happen whenever you have a sizable population on your website) we have learned to do things 100% clean and clear, and reserve rights for ourselves that would assist us in finding and correcting problems (hopefully before they become problems).

All (or almost all) stores like Scif Store have the same policy, it's a reserved right for us, but that doesn't mean that we will ever do it. In fact, I have hopes that I never once have to do it (what a pain... I don't even know how to go about doing it... If it never comes up, I'm all the happier. If it does come up, it's another tool that will help me fight someone who is trying to do something that isn't right.)

psilo: I'll respond to you in a separate post.

dave

Thanks for the clarification - I can understand your reserving that right to head off possible problems. I'm too trusting, LOL. Thanks again. :)

I have been busy getting ready...I just wish there were more hours in the day.

Dave, thanks for this wonderful opportunity.

Dave, I clicked on "External View" and I love it!!! Wow, it looks great. I'm almost finished, but have to go to work before Bill fires me!!!

psilo: I have never used PayPal for this kind of thing, but I think it is exactly the way we'll implement this.

As I said above, let me do some research here, figure out how to make this work smoothly for our non-U.S. friends, and then we can open it up for your prints and (in 3 years) whatever Evert has to sell. :)

If I invest the time in this, though, I need you to promise me that you (psilo) will set up your store when my system is ready for it. :)

dave

yes Dave. I have been looking for ways to open up to the American market as there has been increasing interest in my work. My watercolours website is not a .com as yet and my registration is not appearing in the searches. Your skif store will be a brilliant opportunity to widen my name and you have my word I will use it to the fullest Dave. Many thanks.

Sounds good, psilo. This will definitely be a good way for you to reach the U.S. market. I'll be in touch with you shortly.

dave

OK once again thankyou

Well, maybe I'll start cultivating wild Finnish flower species :)
Or making 100% natural hemp fiber ropes. ROFL

I just finished uploading 2.0.14 of the Scif Store code, and I introduces a FAQ which answers many of the questions that were brought up on this thread.

You can see it by going to the Scif Store home page http://store.standardout.com/ and scroll to the bottom, and click on the FAQ link.

dave

You know Dave you are very innovative and ingenious in your expansions here at DG. Take a bow, this is one of the best yet!
Candee

How neat! I don't have anything to sell but I look forward to browsing through the shops! Good Luck and Best wishes to all the merchants!

Yep, this is the greatest!
Hope I can get a store up and running! Not sure what I'd sell yet but I have an idea!
Great job, dave!

Wow ~ what an opportunity for us and what a lot of work by you, Dave! Thanks!!

Will there be a link on DG to the stores? How do we know who has a store? And how to get to it? (Hope I haven't missed something...).

Dave would it be possible to have a link into another website from the shop. I am thinking maybe something like selling portrait commisions through Daves and sending them to my watercolour site as a kind of reference. Let me know if I am overstepping the mark here.

A nothing detail here Dave - we're listed as Canana - which I personally like - it sounds tropical, but I presume you mean Canada. LOL

psilo: No, you're not overstepping your grounds. This is your store and you can do what you please with it. Link offsite all you want. I guess I should say there are limits to what you can link to (I don't want to see pornographic links, etc) but in general links off all you want.

Liz: Where are you seeing that? (other than as a typo in my post above) Is it on the store site somewhere?

dave