New store for Western Washington & beyond

[barrierreefcf]

We are working on the plumbing right now for the AO tanks.

Thanks!!

 

[jesshimom]

We will be by on the following weekend to drop off membership kits for all you who still want/need to join to receive your discount!

THanks Barrier for making this option available.

 

[salmonslayer]

Count me in, I will come by and say ooh,aah,wow whats that called, how much is that frag, can you cut me part of that. LOL

 

[barrierreefcf]

Please please...remember that next week livestock will be limited. We won't be bringing our frags out to the store until the following week. If you need foods, supplies, bulbs etc or if you just want to check things out it would be a great time to come by. I'd wait another week if you are looking for fish or corals.

Thanks for understanding!

 

[Skimmy]

come on cy and tim, i know you got more pics!!

 

[jag3534]

We are also happy to say that our web person is back and ready to finish our website and online store. We are hoping to have it fully operational within 30-60 days. www.barrierreefaquariums.com

Ok, so this was in '06.... What gives? I wanna shop on your website!!!! It looks so cool, but then you click, and nothings there! What's going on Cy?

 

[returnofsid]

Jag, are you using Mozilla or IE? There's a known issue with Barrier Reef's website and Mozilla. I have using IE, but I do, when at their website.

 

[jag3534]

nope IE, and it works, it just says, there is nothing in this category right now! Please check back soon! or something to that effect.

 

[returnofsid]

Ahhhh I see.

 

[jag3534]

Yeah, very disappointing. I've been checking back soon, for like a month and a half. I love this place! I want more!!

 

[barrierreefcf]

Ok, so this was in '06.... What gives? I wanna shop on your website!!!! It looks so cool, but then you click, and nothings there! What's going on Cy?

If by "nothings there" you mean some product areas are empty you are right. If you meant the website isn't coming up I'm not sure why it isn't working for you?? Our web guy was only responsible for setting up the format and we persnally have to add each item. Its labor intensive and just when you get a huge section of product ready to launch there are price changes. Then you gotta go back and adjust each item one at a time. All-in-all its a huge pain in the you-know-what and its all for products sold at extremely small margins. For about a year and a half I spent most evenings adding product and tweaking it but it finally got to the point where I needed a break...wanted my life back So the long answer to your simple question is that its low on the list of priorities but we will keep adding to it slowly as time allows

 

[jag3534]

Thanks Cy, i can understand wanting a life (i guess) lol!!!!! Thanks for the info, we love your store, but at almost an hour away, with a (monster) 2yr old, shopping online is always good!! So I guess, we'll just keep on making the drive! Thanks guys!

 

[barrierreefcf]

Yeah, very disappointing. I've been checking back soon, for like a month and a half. I love this place! I want more!!

LOL... believe me, I want to give you more. Its just so darn complicated to add all the info for each item that I can't hire someone to do it. For a while we had Chris helping but then things got so busy at the store he could barely keep up there. I'll try to post when I do updates so you dont have to keep checking the website. 5 months ago I spent three weeks adapting the entire Tunze Product Catalog to a spreadsheet to be imported to the site only to find out I had done the category assignements wrong. Thats the straw that broke my will. Over 1000 items to go back over and re-type the category assignments into. Since then the catalog has been changed twice so now its an even bigger project

 

[jag3534]

Ah, the complications of having a great business. Everybody needs a peice of you. You guys are awesome.

 

[dhnguyen]

LOL... believe me, I want to give you more. Its just so darn complicated to add all the info for each item that I can't hire someone to do it. For a while we had Chris helping but then things got so busy at the store he could barely keep up there. I'll try to post when I do updates so you dont have to keep checking the website. 5 months ago I spent three weeks adapting the entire Tunze Product Catalog to a spreadsheet to be imported to the site only to find out I had done the category assignements wrong. Thats the straw that broke my will. Over 1000 items to go back over and re-type the category assignments into. Since then the catalog has been changed twice so now its an even bigger project

It shouldn't be that complicated if it was designed right
With the right design or software package used, the data entry should only be done once initially

There are even turn key products that will make adding/updating products (including pictures) and catalog administration a breeze. Some of these are even free

http://www.zen-cart.com/
http://www.oscommerce.com/
http://www.comersus.com/
http://www.magentocommerce.com/

Anyways just some thoughts...

 

[barrierreefcf]

Thanks for the links. I'll see if there's anything there that is compatible with our websites software. The whole website thing is still new to me so I'm open to suggestions and I am definately still learning. Tim mentioned that he read frustration with the original question in my first response. I just wanted to clarify that the only frustration I meant to show was with the difficulty in adding products...not towards the author of the question!! We use Product Cart...if anyone has feedback on that software let me know what you thiink or have heard.

 

[dhnguyen]

I checked out Product Cart a bit and there are some things I don't like about it right away. It only supports MS SQL and MS Access databases. MS SQL can be expensive to support and you don't really want to run an online store using MS Access.

Because it is an asp (active server pages) software, the webserver supported of course is only MS IIS which isn't ideal for an ecommerce storefront anyway.

The fact that this package is limited to only Microsoft Windows is a drawback as Windows is much more expensive to setup and maintain in terms of performance versus Linux.

There are also a couple software packages that I would recommend checking out also.

ASPRunner and/or PHPRunner

http://www.xlinesoft.com/index.htm

These are made by XLineSoft and although not specifically designed for ecommerce, are great tools to design and implement a storefront and website quickly and with very little programming knowledge involved. They also have an excellent support forum to help you along the way. You could download a demo and try it out and maybe do a mock up store on your local PC. No, I dont work for XLineSoft or associated with them in anyway, I just think their products are pretty good. :lol:



The one thing anyone should think about when they implement a storefront for their website is to make sure you gather all your requirements first and go from there to select the right software and/or hosting solution. Things get expensive and frustrating when you make things up as you go and changing requirements on the fly.

Send me an email if you have some questions about the tech stuff, I'd be glad to help answering them.