Prophecy.co.za will be down this weekend

**Firestar** · 19-05-2011, 04:59 PM

Hi Everyone,

Prophecy.co.za is going to be down for a large part of this weekend, for a much needed upgrade of our shop software, as well as the going live of a new skin for our shop.

We will post updates on various places, including the following:
Blog - Prophecy Blog
http://www.twitter.com/prophecyza
Prophecy.co.za | Facebook

We do not yet know 100% what time the site will go down, or how long it will stay down, but you can watch the links above for updates, as we go along.

Thanks for your patience this weekend. I'm sure you'll all like the new look of the site!

**SCHUMI_4EVER** · 19-05-2011, 09:28 PM

incase you're wondering what my edit was I just fixed the twitter url (apparently propehcyza does not exist on twitter

)

**Firestar** · 20-05-2011, 10:31 AM

Eish, ok. Thanks

I always spell prophecy wrong (propehcy).

**mugen** · 21-05-2011, 02:21 PM

Nice update, the site is way more responsive now. But, how do you sort by price now?

A suggestion, give some sort of incentive for reviewing items you've bought. I've lost count of the amount of times I ended up at Newegg while looking for product reviews.

You could also show the average review score in your item list.

**SCHUMI_4EVER** · 21-05-2011, 02:25 PM

IMO it should auto-arrange by price anyways (in other words you shouldn't even need to tell it to arrange by price)

Also personally I think the buy now button is rather oversized and squeezes the price and description a little too much.

**Firestar** · 22-05-2011, 11:22 AM

Thanks for the suggestions. We are still working on the site, and thing will still change in the coming weeks. I didn't even notice that there isn't a price sort. I've been a longstanding supporter of default sort by price, but I've been outvoted every time.

I'll take up the battle (axe) again

I also think the buy now button is too large. For now, it has to stay, though (it's complicated). I'll make notes of these things and see what can be done to fix these issues.

**Firestar** · 22-05-2011, 11:23 AM

Also, the problem with reviews is that we simply have too small a market here. You'll see very few reviews anywhere in SA. However, there are ways around this, and we will look at it again in the future.

**SCHUMI_4EVER** · 22-05-2011, 03:20 PM

Originally Posted by Firestar

I've been a longstanding supporter of default sort by price, but I've been outvoted every time.

How on earth do you keep getting outvoted? It's just plain the most logical way of arranging things. People buy components with a budget in mind which means each specific component has a budget as well which means everyone who comes to the site will arrange by price and then pick say a graphics card somewhere between R2K and R3K or pick a case between R500 and R1K or they'll put everything together and notice they have about R400 spare so they'll take a look at all the keyboards and mice up to R400 to check if they could add something nice to the mix still like perhaps a Sidewinder X3 mouse.
When picking PC components arranging alphabetically just doesn't make sense since most customers don't want a specific item but rather one that fits their budget.

It's not the same as say buying books or movies online or even games where you'd arrange by alphabetical order because people are probably looking for a specific title and thus need to find the title in a way that's easily manageable. Which means if for instance they were looking for the book "Ice Station" by Mathew Reilly they'll either arrange by author and check under M or they'll check under I. In such a case it wouldn't make sense to show them all the books under R200 in ascending order of price for instance since most of the time customers won't be looking for a book to fit their budget but rather a specific book.

I really don't understand how any other view points can win over this simple truth.

**kab123** · 22-05-2011, 03:37 PM

Ooi when the site going up? I wanna buy sh!t. You gotta move since I have a few beers in and mah arse is itching

**Artagra** · 22-05-2011, 10:39 PM

The site is up guys

Otherwise, if you spot a bug please email us on bugs@prophecy.co.za

We are giving away an iPod Nano to one random person who reports a bug, and we don't anticipate too many bugs so the odds are good!

Tell us what you think about the site!

**SCHUMI_4EVER** · 22-05-2011, 10:48 PM

it's impossible to use, well not impossible but horrendously impractical till arrange by price is returned

**Artagra** · 22-05-2011, 10:50 PM

Yeah I know

add &sort=3a to the end of the URL to make it sort by price.

**Pada** · 23-05-2011, 12:26 AM

The new look is really fantastic, but I have to agree with the others on:
1) Buy button being too big
2) Missing sort functionality

My vote also goes to sorting the lists by default from cheap to expensive.

**Firestar** · 23-05-2011, 11:48 AM

I agree with you 100%. However, I'm still being outvoted, so there's nothing I can do, until I can convince them of my tactical and intellectual superiority

**SCHUMI_4EVER** · 27-05-2011, 02:19 PM

Ok so I see you guys temporarily set it to arrange by price by default, that's great. I'd love it even more if it wasn't a temporary change but a permanent one. (seriously I'm tired of arranging by price every damn time, if you're getting outvoted on this how about you put it up for a customer vote FS?)

Two more things I noticed however.
The new shop is no longer parsing links in the same way. It used to parse with the details of the product, now it just parses with what seems to be the homepage name. Personally I think the old way was better and it would be nice to see a return of that method.

And 2nd and this was already a "problem" with the previous shop site but it really doesn't make much sense featuring out of stock products (I mean showing them in the featured products section). Can't you guys put some sort of filter in place that auto-removes/replaces the item if it shows out of stock?

**Firestar** · 27-05-2011, 02:53 PM

Originally Posted by SCHUMI_4EVER

Ok so I see you guys temporarily set it to arrange by price by default, that's great. I'd love it even more if it wasn't a temporary change but a permanent one. (seriously I'm tired of arranging by price every damn time, if you're getting outvoted on this how about you put it up for a customer vote FS?)

Dude, you don't even know what I'm going through. Votes are not always indicative of what a customer wants, and are often just plain wrong (since it depends on where the vote is cast - forums is a no-no, since it's just a sub section of our customer group -, the wrong question is going to give skewed results, and many people won't vote if it's not something they care about, even if they prefer something).

Look, we've made it temporary now, but the plan is to one day make it so that it remember's a customer's preference and keeps everything sorted that way. I'll find out how difficult that is to do, and ask if this can be done at the same time as the fix. No promises though. Also, it's possible that we'll keep it this way by default and only add the name sorting as an option (no promises again).

Originally Posted by SCHUMI_4EVER

Two more things I noticed however.
The new shop is no longer parsing links in the same way. It used to parse with the details of the product, now it just parses with what seems to be the homepage name. Personally I think the old way was better and it would be nice to see a return of that method.

Yea, we know about this one. The page title is not set correctly. It's supposed to be the name, but currently just give that static thing (which sucks). We're working on it.

Originally Posted by SCHUMI_4EVER

And 2nd and this was already a "problem" with the previous shop site but it really doesn't make much sense featuring out of stock products (I mean showing them in the featured products section). Can't you guys put some sort of filter in place that auto-removes/replaces the item if it shows out of stock?

Yea, this one is a bit more difficult. Not sure what we'll do about this, but I'll add it to our list, and see when we can get to it. Thanks for the tip!

**SCHUMI_4EVER** · 27-05-2011, 03:01 PM

Originally Posted by Firestar

Look, we've made it temporary now, but the plan is to one day make it so that it remember's a customer's preference and keeps everything sorted that way. I'll find out how difficult that is to do, and ask if this can be done at the same time as the fix. No promises though.

That would be an interesting way of doing things. I appreciate looking into it. Shouldn't be too hard to store some sort of variable in a cookie (kind of like picking an alternative theme on forums that allow that).

Also, it's possible that we'll keep it this way by default and only add the name sorting as an option (no promises again).

This in my opinion would be the PERFECT solution.
Just keep in mind it would also be useful to in addition to this default behaviour of lowest to highest also having a highest to lowest sort function so people can find the premium products easier if cash is no issue.

**mugen** · 30-05-2011, 09:12 AM

When you are on a product's page, the breadcrumb links(Prophecy.co.za >> Computer Cases >> Mini-ITX / Micro-ATX Cases) don't appear.

Not as big an issue as having no sorting by price, but it does make navigation easier.