A hot topic of discussion has been the order in which cards are displayed on shopping pages.  Many posts and explanations have been made about the "most popular" formula as well as relevancy for search results.
 
Those remain the same and can be read in this thread:
http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/forum/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1190744140/8#8  
 
We are working on a shopping tool that will help shoppers quickly find the perfect cards.  We will not see this tool, which is along the lines of card characteristics and filters, until mid 2008.  
 
Until then, since the "most popular" formula tends to discriminate against new cards we have added a feature that gives new cards a fighting chance.
 
On all shopping pages in the upper right corner above the page counts, you'll now see Sort by: Most Popular | Newest.  The default will remain on Most Popular but the shopper can choose their preferred view on any page, at any time.
 
See example:  
http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/shopping/cb.asp?keywords=rose%20bouquet
 

Hello,
 
Thank you ! That's a very good idea !  
 
Ya

This is so cool.  Now we all have a fighting change.  
Otherwise the most popuar card will stay the most popular card, 'cos it's the first one everyone sees!

Quote from Mindy on Dec 18^th, 2007, 12:30pm:

 
Is there a reason it was decided not to apply to the artists' storefronts?
 
Shari
www.flowerswithfeelingscentral.com

Quote from Mindy on Dec 18^th, 2007, 3:35pm:

 
Hi!
 
Gosh, let me think... If I were a customer at my shop I think I would like control so I could choose from Most Popular to Newest.
 
However, being the owner of my shop I would like to be able to set the default start point either way, depending on what season it is, but would still like the shopper to be able to change from what I've set the default to be.
 
Would it be possible to give the shop owner the ability to set the default start point either way whenever they want, but allow the customer to change it once they are actually shopping on my shop?
 
Asking too much am I?
 
(fyi - I use to trouble shoot software for programmers as a past job to make intranet websites user & owner friendly.   )
 
Thanks for any help in making our storefronts less frustrating & easy to use!
 
Shari
www.flowerswithfeelingscentral.com

Quote from Kerra_131306 on Dec 18^th, 2007, 8:13pm:

 
Kerra,
 
We already have the ability to Arrange Order of Gallery when you go to the Administrative settings - Images & Cards - Arrange Gallery.  We can do that part, though the system, if I'm understanding it correctly, defaults to Newest first on the Storefronts.
 
However, having to Arrange the Gallery, Manually, is seriously a pain in the behind, especially if one has A LOT of cards.  I don't have a lot, but the ones I do have, moving the Christmas cards back to the top since that is the season it is now, was seriously tedious, time consuming and a royal pain.  If someone has LOTS of cards measure that feeling 100 fold.
 
Let me know if there is any other way we have control of our shop that I might have missed.
 
Shari  
www.flowerswithfeelingscentral.com  

[quote author=Kerra_131306 link=1197930794/0#11 date=1198040390][quote author=Shari_132735 link=1197930794/0#10 date=1198040135]Quote from Kerra_131306 on Dec 18^th, 2007, 8:13pm:

 
Wow, that's weird.  I just manually arranged my shop so all my xmas cards were first since it is that season.
 
Then I did what you said Kerra, I typed in my store name Flowers with feelings central,
 
The cards that appears first said it was in Most Popular Order, so of the 40 cards that I have on my shop that only 2 have sold anything to date, it showed my mom's Holiday Cottage as 1st which that is the first card that sold, and then the other card that had sold was in the 5th position and 3 other non seller cards were in between and after.
 
So what decides the most popular order when one does a scenario such as that?
 
Is there some logic to that?  I am confused...

Hi all,
We will add to our to do list giving shoppers and artists some type of "sort by" setting.
 
The ideal way to manage your store with todays tools (a better Manage Gallery Tool is on our to do list) is to put seasonal sellers in your Featured Products and only change that on a regular basis.  Ideally you'd position the Featured Products module above the Product Gallery so it is seen first.
 
Since manipulating many cards within your Product Gallery can be a bear, you should group them in most logical collections and not move them around throughout the year.  Allowing smaller sub-Galleries is also on our to do list.  
 
Cards in your Product Gallery are shown in the order in which you have set them.  New cards default to the top until you manage your gallery and move them to a different spot within your gallery.
 
As for search results, storefront or GCU wide, results are always shown in order of most relevant.  Most Popular has a an influence when any cards are equally relevant.
 
A search on artist name can produce varying results.  There may be words in your artist/storename that trigger relevancy in other cards in addition to your desired results ie: flowers, feeling, etc.
 
Leta,
We've had "favoriting" a store or artists on our wish list for some time now, it just keeps getting bumped down the list  Thanks for suggesting.
 
As you see, we have lots on our list!

Hi Kerra,
To arrange the order in which your cards display in your storefront Product Gallery it is still a drag and drop one by one process using the Arrange Gallery tool.  There is not yet an automated way to help you arrange them by category.  
 

We are testing a storefront "sort by" for shoppers in the Product Gallery (Artist's Choice, Most Popular, Newest).  A few more changes will be made and reflected early next week.  At that time it will be announced on the GCU Newsboard.

Well, I'm not sure this is working as expected.  I went to rearrange my gallery and the cards are shown on the "arrange page" with the latest cards "first" causing artists to move them "down."

Hi guys,
I'm not sure about this, but didn't Mindy say the new arranging tools were 'for the CUSTOMER'?  Perhaps then, the 'Artist Choice' is simply the way we had chosen, by dragging and dropping....but then if the CUSTOMER is familiar with our store they may choose just to see the 'NEWEST' or perhaps the 'MOST POPULAR'.  
So what I am saying is, that if I read this correctly--these new changes are not for us the ARTISTS, they are options for the CUSTOMER  in our store.
Anyone else read it this way???
Have a good weekend.
SueB
 
Quote from Corrie_131338 on Mar 15^th, 2008, 12:37am:

I see the new sorting for customers.  I gues this isn't really what I was thinking of.  I mean we can leave our stores with newest as the default or do our own arranging and that's "artist's choice" right.  What's the deal with "most popular?" I don't really care to have the cards in MY store listed by how "popular" they are. . . why? So shoppers can validate their purchases?  
 
I thought an improvement to organizing OUR stores would be something WE could do ourselves, like: choosing categories WITHIN OUR OWN STORES so that once a shopper was there they could for instance find all birthday cards by said artist, or landscape, whatever.  Or have a customer be able to search categories WITHIN a store.
 
Also, is there some way we can turn OFF this option to search by newest and definitely most popular.  
 
Thanks-
Ernestine

Quote from Mindy on Mar 14^th, 2008, 4:45pm:

 
Hello,
Thanks for your feedback, valuable.  As I stated we are TESTING this.  It is step #1 in gallery view options.  
 
The Artist's Choice, which is the default, reflects the way you have arranged your your gallery via Arrange Cards.  If you have not arranged your cards, then it defaults to Most Popular.  I'm hearing more people would like that second default to remain as Newest.
 
We will make that correction.
 
Shortly we will offer artists the ability to set the default giving you individual flexibility.
 
As for overall gallery management, which is one reason why many artists are not arranging their galleries, YES, we are working on a better tool for you to arrange and organize your gallery.  It is currently being worked on.  
 
Did I miss anything?

Mindy and Shaun -
 
The "Artist's Choice" default in our case is *not* showing what's in the Arrange Gallery nor is it showing Most Popular. It's creating a majority view of a selection of our adult-oriented naked birthday cards - which doesn't thrill us, as who wants that to be the first thing customers see? - one ballerina party card and an Easter card.
 
We don't usually use the Arrange Gallery feature because it takes forever to load and is extremely clunky to use. However, checking it for our store does result in seeing the newest cards on top, so those should be the ones in Artist's Choice, right? But they're not. Why the discrepancy?
 
Corrie
http://www.corrieweb.nl

Quote from Corrie_131338 on Mar 18^th, 2008, 12:29am:

 
 
I agree with Corrie here... for "Artist's Choice" I didn't have my gallery/store "arranged" a specific way.  Always NEW on top.   Mostly everything that showed for me was from Christmas and previous... I mean WAY previous - I've been here a year and so were many of those designs!  I didn't arrange my gallery that way.
 
After reading Mindy's post I went to my "Arrange" and as suspected, my cards were arranged as new/recent listed first.  (clearly incongruent) So,  I clicked onto "SAVE" and now it appears it's the way it "should" be.  I checked it under another browser and it came up the "correct" way also.
 
Re's "Most Popular"... I see they are mostly cards I've sold.  Older sales generally are showing first and new and recent sales are pages away.     There is absolutely no rhyme or reason to the "Most Popular" view and I for one am not a fan...  
 
Glad to hear it's just being TESTED, Mindy!  
 
Best,
Donna
 
 

Quote from Corrie_131338 on Mar 18^th, 2008, 7:21am:

 
LOL ... thanks for giving me a reason to chuckle here today, Corrie!  
 
I'll weigh in as well ... I don't like nor do I understand the Voo-Doo logic of the Most Popular sort.  
 
I understand it's an important and possbily necessary tool for shoppers.  But both here at GCU and on the reminder services pages, I found it to be very misleading.  I don't understand how a card with Zero sales ranks higher than a card with 2 sales within the same category and almost equal number of clicks.  It may have to do with the fav's and ratings here at GCU, but my feeling on this is that, while I like, respect and admire many contributors here ... it's the opinion of the people who buy cards -- expressed by their purchase of them -- that outweighs all other factors to me.  
 
We already have the "Best Sellers" feature.  If you want to have a feature like that within the individual stores, fine.  I'm not crazy about that idea either, but at least one can make sense of the ranking order.  I'm just utterly confused as to how cards with 3, 4, or even 5 individual sales (not bulk) are ranked below cards with 0 sales.  
 
Hopefully, this "test" will not be the final version of the option.  Anyone else mystified by how their cards are ranked as Most Popular within their stores?
 
On the good side, I do like the "Artist's Choice" option, but there has to be an easier way for us to configure the arrangement.  I spent 2 1/2 hours re-arranging cards on Sunday, only to find out the script timed out as well.  
 
Guess we all have to concentrate on "The Force" until we see what's going to happen.  
 
Teri
 

Quote from Corrie_131338 on Mar 18^th, 2008, 7:21am:

 
LOL  
 
We should have this sorted out by the end of today.  Looks like the Artist Choice field is in fact pulling in the wrong cards.  We will modify the sort so that it correctly pulls in cards from the Arrange Gallery tool.  If your gallery has not been arranged, then it will be sorted by newest cards.
 
Our apologies for the confusion!
 
Shaun

An update on this feature - later today you will see a refreshed version that defaults to Artist's Choice, this will show your arranged gallery with new cards coming in on the top like before.
 
If you have not arranged your gallery this will be sorted by Newest, again, like before.
 
If your gallery does not seem to be showing properly, please let us know and we will take a look at your store.  Corrie?
 
This feature, gallery sorting including the Most Popular sort, was specifically requested by artists:
http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/forum/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1197930794  
 
We have executed this piece first as it is a far less complicated task then the new Arrange Gallery tool which is quite complicated and is being worked on in parallel.

Just so that I don't mis-understand:  If you arrange you card that's what will show up ("artist choice"), second default is by "newest", then the dreaded "most popular."  BUT, if you upload new cards and don't have the chance to reorganize (and save) your shop, the most recently created cards will show first going back to the last time you organized (and saved) your gallery? not the other way around, where the latest uploads come AFTER the latest organized site.
 
Just curious.
 
-Ernestine

Quote from Ernestine_131365 on Mar 18^th, 2008, 10:22pm:

 
Correct on most fronts.  Yes, Artist's Choice/arranged gallery first and Newest if you have not arranged your gallery.  
 
Most Popular is not a default, it is only a choice that the shopper can choose.
 
Yes, the latest/newest cards will appear before the arranged gallery.  Logic follows that most likely you are creating new cards for upcoming holidays/occasions and it's nice to see new cards appear on the storefront.
 
On a different forum topic artists seemed to be split with some artists prefering new cards to be added at the bottom and others prefering them to be added to the top:
http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/forum/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1203763665/2#2

Quote from Mindy on Mar 18^th, 2008, 11:51pm:

 
Yes my 30 new cards are showing first, which, I don't beleive should have automatically happened as I have not done a "save" under arrange gallery in recent days.  The "sort" experiment apparently went and effectively did a "save" of the "backroom" arrangement, now requiring me to go in and move those 30 cards down and out of sight and get the ones I had up on page one back in place, some of them are my Easter Cards that I did a month ago.  I'm sure I am not alone!  
 
I think last night's "fix" could have been done without messing up prior saved artist choice arrangements.  You guys need to be a bit more careful in your zest to implement suggestions or it will triple your work and ours fixing things.
 
TOM
 
=================
UPDATE
=================
It took about 30 minutes to move 30 cards and I did a Gallery SAVE, and on first check, the storefront is back to the way I had it.  THEN, I go over to another completely different computer, pull up the store, and the sort default is NEWEST. Grrrrrrrrrrr ...... temper, temper.
 
I then select ARTIST CHOICE, the cards come in as I have now arranged them, I close the browser, come back in and the default now is ARTIST CHOICE.
 
Seems the default for Artist Choice is not working unless a shopper selects it then it may "stick."   It should always come up as Artist's Choice right??????  I don't want new cards showing up "on top" of my arranged Artist Choice gallery.  They didn't before!  Otherwise you've created a hybrid of artist choice and newest.  Almost all of my newest cards are going into non-holiday categories as I build up my library, so I don't want them "up front" until I put them there.  This only makes common sense.