I spent the weekend working on the costume store. Visitors started emailing me last week asking when they could purchase a Halloween costume here at Funtober. The answer is: Now!
The store isn’t perfect. My list of things to improve is long. But: “If you aren’t embarrassed by what you launch with, then you waited too long to launch”. So it is out there for the world. I would love to hear what you think. Or any problems that you have discovered (like products priced $0.00). I’ve tested the shopping cart on two browsers (Internet Explorer and Firefox). And run through a live transaction to make sure that payments are being processed. I’ve been told that the SSL certificate isn’t working on a mobile phone. I’ll have to look into that – so don’t order from your mobile phone if you see that error.
I’ve already made a number of changes to the site. The pictures were taking too long to load so I switched to a grid and thumbnail system. I’ll probably also divide them into multiple pages to reduce load time. The ability to sort the products by price. And grouping them into individual costume ideas or available costume sizes. Just a few of the many things that need to happen.
If you are going to buy a costume here, you might be concerned about the security of your credit card information. The shopping cart isn’t pretty yet. And the Godaddy outage yesterday demonstrates that there are no guarantees in life. There aren’t here either. But here are the steps that I have taken: Your credit card information is processed automagically by Authorize.net. The checkout page is protected by SSL encryption. And you can verify that you are on a secure page through the Comodo certificate. I’ll put the trust certificates up soon. I’ve also taken steps to improve the security of the platform. And I’ll be investigating if there are any additional measures that I can take.
There’s bound to be problems with the store (and this website in general). Some will be entirely my fault. Others will beyond my control. I hope you will let me know when they happen and give me a chance to fix the problems when they arise. Thanks!
PS: If you need help coming up with a costume idea, let me know!