GCU Forum - Less Stress and Frustration For All!

Lynn_150145

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Posts: 184

Re: Less Stress and Frustration For All!
Reply #15 - Mar 16^th, 2011, 12:23pm

I must say I am truly impressed with the support from fellow artists. Maryann thank you for posting your suggestions for less stress. As a newer artist, I admittedly was checking daily for approvals based on the initital time frame that was listed, but now that it has been a few months I have adopted more of Marie's attitiude. I submit cards when the creative mood strikes, which may or may not be in line with the upcoming holiday. I have a few that I submitted prior to the last holiday and were approved after the holiday, however I feel like I now have a jump on next year instead of thinking I lost out on this year.

Happy St. Patrick's Day ! Lynn

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Peggy_137160

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Posts: 760

Re: Less Stress and Frustration For All!
Reply #16 - Mar 17^th, 2011, 7:29am

Quote from Karen_150884 on Mar 16^th, 2011, 12:25am:

... On that note, if I submit xmas cards early, I take it I can put them in my private gallery until nearer the time? I don't really want xmas cards in my store over the early summer months. Thanks. Karen.

Karen - as your store gets larger, this likely won't bother you as much. If you take them out of your public store, won't you have to resumbit them all over again later? Take a look at my store if you'd like. What I do is, the day after a Holiday, I move the cards pertaining to that day to the last spots in my store. They are still there for search engine optimization and for GCU searches (I just sold a Yorkie Christmas card about a month ago!) but are tucked back out of the way for folks that I send directly to my store.

You can move a bunch by keyword, or you can move by changing their placeholder numbers.

Works great for me this way! Hope this helps ...

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Doreen_137017

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Posts: 5273

Re: Less Stress and Frustration For All!
Reply #17 - Mar 17^th, 2011, 8:29am

Quote from Peggy_137160 on Mar 17^th, 2011, 7:29am:

Quote from Karen_150884 on Mar 16^th, 2011, 12:25am:

... On that note, if I submit xmas cards early, I take it I can put them in my private gallery until nearer the time? I don't really want xmas cards in my store over the early summer months. Thanks. Karen.

Karen - as your store gets larger, this likely won't bother you as much. If you take them out of your public store, won't you have to resumbit them all over again later? Take a look at my store if you'd like. What I do is, the day after a Holiday, I move the cards pertaining to that day to the last spots in my store. They are still there for search engine optimization and for GCU searches (I just sold a Yorkie Christmas card about a month ago!) but are tucked back out of the way for folks that I send directly to my store.

You can move a bunch by keyword, or you can move by changing their placeholder numbers.

Works great for me this way! Hope this helps ...

I believe Peggy is correct...GCU has no way to move cards in and out of 'active duty' without having to get GCU to move them back and if you moved them to Private Gallery, then they are no longer in the marketplace, so that's silly. I do as Peggy...Go to Arrange Gallery, enter keywords for the holiday that just past and Send them to the END.

Remember that for the most part, few customers browse through pages of cards in your store, they browse the marketplace where your cards are for sale.

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Karen_150884 Full Member artist Posts: 149	Re: Less Stress and Frustration For All! Reply #18 - Mar 17^th, 2011, 9:27am Many thanks, your suggestions are great. p.s sorry if I don't reply to posts straight away. The time difference can be a pain sometimes.! Karen.
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Mindy

GCU Administrator
Community Manager

Posts: 6563
Gender: female

Re: Less Stress and Frustration For All!
Reply #19 - Mar 17^th, 2011, 2:43pm

An issue that we've revisited many times over and most recently put some significant resources in place.

First, Maryann, many thanks for your wonderful advice. It will certainly serve you well and is along the lines of what we've shared with artists re: holiday cards leadtimes:
http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/forum/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1234562095

As for recent changes to improve the situation it is two fold. The first being the review process & team and secondly the artists tools & education. We have made significant improvements on both fronts.

1) added more reviewers to the team:
http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/forum/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1299193175

2) improved artist education (new videos on wiki) to understand guidelines and minimize errors:
http://wiki.greetingcarduniverse.com/index.php/GCU_University

See here re: results of origination errors study:
http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/forum/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1293693780/0#0

3) new category selector tool for reviewers and artists:
http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/forum/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1294192575/0

4) new print / margin preview tool for reviewers and artists:
http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/forum/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1297887640

5) the review team no longer corrects less than ideal card titles and keywords:
http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/forum/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1234562095/21#21

Holiday windows although making things more manageable for specific holidays don't give artists enough flexibility. Approving a few cards for each artist a week doesn't provide much flexibility either.
We see artists who submit a few cards each day and some artists who submit a large collection of cards every few months so there is a great variety. As individual business owners each artist needs to determine what cards they create and when taking the review process into consideration.

Other than FastTrack cards, cards are reviewed FIFO (First In First Out).

A few notes in reply to related comments here:
o All of your cards should always be in your store and as noted simply do some seasonal re-arranging.
o If you see cards with errors please alert the card review team or artist. Yes these errors may be been missed by the review team or remnants from the early days when no reviews were done. Shocked

All and all I think we've made some collective progres that we will all begin to see the benefits of.

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Ernestine_131365 Gold Member artist Posts: 853	Re: Less Stress and Frustration For All! Reply #20 - Mar 17^th, 2011, 5:27pm Quote from Mindy on Mar 17^th, 2011, 2:43pm: Other than FastTrack cards, cards are reviewed FIFO (First In First Out). . . All and all I think we've made some collective progress that we will all begin to see the benefits of. It's a difficult one, but you're doing a great job
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Mindy

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Posts: 6563
Gender: female

Re: Less Stress and Frustration For All!
Reply #21 - Mar 17^th, 2011, 5:51pm

Quote from Ernestine_131365 on Mar 17^th, 2011, 5:27pm:

Quote from Mindy on Mar 17^th, 2011, 2:43pm:

Other than FastTrack cards, cards are reviewed FIFO (First In First Out). . . All and all I think we've made some collective progress that we will all begin to see the benefits of.

It's a difficult one, but you're doing a great job Grin

Thank you

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Susan_142450

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artist

Posts: 522

Re: Less Stress and Frustration For All!
Reply #22 - Mar 18^th, 2011, 6:54am

Quote from Mindy on Mar 17^th, 2011, 2:43pm:

o If you see cards with errors please alert the card review team or artist. Yes these errors may be been missed by the review team or remnants from the early days when no reviews were done. Shocked

Thanks MIndy - and how would we do this? I know I'm speeding around looking for a quick and easy way to go about this - and so I'm no doubt missing the obvious. Is there a report a card section or button? Do you wish to be notified about spelling/punctuation/grammar errors on the outside AND inside of the cards?
Here's one for example - birthday is spelled wrong on the outside: 433795
I have a list of inside message horrors too.

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Joan_135833

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Posts: 591

Re: Less Stress and Frustration For All!
Reply #23 - Mar 18^th, 2011, 8:44am

Quote from Susan_142450 on Mar 18^th, 2011, 6:54am:

Quote from Mindy on Mar 17^th, 2011, 2:43pm:

o If you see cards with errors please alert the card review team or artist. Yes these errors may be been missed by the review team or remnants from the early days when no reviews were done. Shocked

Here's one for example -

Dalmatian misspelled in title and keywords of your card PID #666371.

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Doreen_137017

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Posts: 5273

Re: Less Stress and Frustration For All!
Reply #24 - Mar 18^th, 2011, 9:04am

Quote from Susan_142450 on Mar 18^th, 2011, 6:54am:

Quote from Mindy on Mar 17^th, 2011, 2:43pm:

o If you see cards with errors please alert the card review team or artist. Yes these errors may be been missed by the review team or remnants from the early days when no reviews were done. Shocked

Thanks MIndy - and how would we do this? I know I'm speeding around looking for a quick and easy way to go about this - and so I'm no doubt missing the obvious. Is there a report a card section or button? Do you wish to be notified about spelling/punctuation/grammar errors on the outside AND inside of the cards?
Here's one for example - birthday is spelled wrong on the outside: 433795
I have a list of inside message horrors too.

As Mindy stated above...what has always worked for me is to either send an email to the artist with the error I found and PID, or send that info in an email to the review team.

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Susan_142450

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artist

Posts: 522

Re: Less Stress and Frustration For All!
Reply #25 - Mar 18^th, 2011, 5:17pm

Quote from Joan_135833 on Mar 18^th, 2011, 8:44am:

Quote from Susan_142450 on Mar 18^th, 2011, 6:54am:

Quote from Mindy on Mar 17^th, 2011, 2:43pm:

o If you see cards with errors please alert the card review team or artist. Yes these errors may be been missed by the review team or remnants from the early days when no reviews were done. Shocked

Here's one for example -

Dalmatian misspelled in title and keywords of your card PID #666371.

See? Exactly! I hate that word! LOL!
And that's a fairly NEW card! Got right by those reviewers!
FIXED!

THANK YOU!!!

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Judy_139270

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Posts: 870

Re: Less Stress and Frustration For All!
Reply #26 - Mar 22^nd, 2011, 12:20pm

It occurred to me that if we didn't submit all the ages on age-specific cards but just some of them and write in the notes that other ages are available, it would save the reviewers a lot of time - as well as us!

But then I'm wondering, would we lose sales if people want the age/person they want to be immediately available?

Maybe Mindy could advise on this as it would certainly speed things up if we didn't make cards for every age, aunts, cousins, stepsons, great-grandfathers, Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all!

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Norma_133903 Senior Member artist Posts: 485	Re: Less Stress and Frustration For All! Reply #27 - Mar 22^nd, 2011, 12:23pm changed my mind!
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Norma_133903

Senior Member
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Posts: 485

Re: Less Stress and Frustration For All!
Reply #28 - Mar 22^nd, 2011, 12:28pm

Quote from Judy_139270 on Mar 22^nd, 2011, 12:20pm:

It occurred to me that if we didn't submit all the ages on age-specific cards but just some of them and write in the notes that other ages are available, it would save the reviewers a lot of time - as well as us!

But then I'm wondering, would we lose sales if people want the age/person they want to be immediately available?

Maybe Mindy could advise on this as it would certainly speed things up if we didn't make cards for every age, aunts, cousins, stepsons, great-grandfathers, Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all!

This would not work. Not everyone is able to offer customization on cards. I cannot because I work away from home for days at a time, and cannot always work on cards. I am sure customers will not want to wait a week for a card!

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Mindy

GCU Administrator
Community Manager

Posts: 6563
Gender: female

Re: Less Stress and Frustration For All!
Reply #29 - Mar 22^nd, 2011, 5:19pm

Quote from Judy_139270 on Mar 22^nd, 2011, 12:20pm:

It occurred to me that if we didn't submit all the ages on age-specific cards but just some of them and write in the notes that other ages are available, it would save the reviewers a lot of time - as well as us!

But then I'm wondering, would we lose sales if people want the age/person they want to be immediately available?

Maybe Mindy could advise on this as it would certainly speed things up if we didn't make cards for every age, aunts, cousins, stepsons, great-grandfathers, Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all!

Immediate gratification - need it, find it, buy it! So the best is to have it available but each artist has to chose a strategy that works best for them.

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