What's new at IWAC?

Over the past few months I have been working on cleaning up the code and layout of IWAC. There has also been some drastic changes to the way IWAC is operated. Let me explain below...

There have been an increase in the number of sales, sign ups and SEO ranking.
That's all good however with all that comes confused new members and some time wasters that just want to take up valuable space on our server. Hence the introduction to some recent hard decisions.

But it's not all doom and gloom.

As we not only introduced these tough decisions to stop certain things getting 'out of control' but to give IWAC Stores a more professional look and feel. This in turn increases the buyers shopping experience to a level that will bring them back again and again or even tell their friends about us.

I mean would you really go back to a site that has pages and pages of empty stores? I know I wouldn't.

So that lead us to introduce the suspension of free stores that are empty for a period of 30 days.

We have also introduced a new emailing system that will notify store owners at 10 days, 5days and the day before their store subscription is up for renewal. This will also cut down on the amount of stores automatically closed by the script for non renewal of the subscription.

We have also had a cool Discount Module specially made for you all. With this you can set a % amount to discount on specific items or all of your items it's your choice. We also added a 'Items with Discounts' check box to the advanced search so buyers can find all items that are using the discount module. (Search Modual is currently being greatly improved)
That with the use of the 'Compare' script we have could prove to be very beneficial to you.

We have also just made the sellers lives a little easier by installing the ability to upload multiple images for your item all at the same time. We currently allow up to 5 images per item.

I have also been cleaning the code and layout of IWAC, more specifically in the members area.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

As you can see I have taken out the '#Bids', 'Max Bid and 'Start time' columns.
I have also moved 3 tabs down in the 'Selling' tab and gave the page a diet. This has made the page fit the screen perfectly with no left or right scroll. Making the page 'look' more professional.

I have also changed the term 'items with bids/offers' to 'items with offers' as we do not allow bidding.
Again on the homepage you will see a slight change to the Featured Items. There is no 'current bid' it has been changed
to 'Price' this is also the same for the Category Featured items. We have been changing a lot of the terms which could cause confusion for new visitors into thinking we are... I am sorry for swearing but I have to... ~~an auction site...~~

If you find any more references to... ~~auction~~ sorry I keep swearing... then please tell us and we will try to change it.

We have also introduced a Store Review feature.This will add an extra page to the store where a registered member can leave a review for their favourite store.

There are a couple of bugs with this but these are being worked on and should be fixed real soon.

From the 20th March we will be introducing a new store option to IWAC Stores.

Webstore Pro = £6.95 per 30 days.

What do you get with this store option?

Ability to list items with us and have links to your website! (Terms and conditions apply)
Ability to link direct to your website from your store's homepage!
Ability to place your website banner in upto 5 categories that best suit your website on the main site!
Banner placement on every page in the forum!
Your own forum board with the ability to link to your website from!
A small 235 character max text ad with maximum of 3 links to your website, placed between the posts in the boards!

Now The bad news. (Sorry)

The price for Preferred Seller Stores and Webstores will stay the same.(with the exception to Webstores will not get a dedicated board on the forum)

However....

When you pay your subscription fee, your account will be credited with the same amount you paid for your store subscription.

Why?
This credit is to be used for Homepage Featured, Category Featured, Highlighted listing and any other optional listing upgrades you chose.
When this credit is gone it is gone and any further listing upgrades you choose you will be charged for.

BUT....

Don't all shout at us yet... as with bad news good news is never that far behind here at IWAC.

The good news.

Is we will place items in the shop on the forum and with every post you make, topic you start, person you refer to us or download you make from the forum you will be awarded a certain amount of credits. These credits can be used to 'purchase' items from the shop on the forum.

Earn 10 credits for each new topic you start
Earn 7 credits for each post you make
Earn 15 credits for each new referral you make through the forum

Please note these amounts will not stay like this forever. As the forum and site gradually get busier then these amounts will decrease.

What kind of items are we looking to put in the shop?

Account credits to be used for optional listing upgrades.
Different kinds of advertising options for both the main site and the forum.

So the more you post and learn, the more credits you earn, the more you can advertise your store for free or 'purchase' extra site credits.

We will be revising the current site fees to see what will be most beneficial to ALL members.

The 3 main optional upgrade fees that will be changed are..

Homepage featured Fee: Was - £1 Reduced to 50p
Category Featured Fee: Was - ~~50p~~ Reduced to 25p
Wanted ad Fee: Was - ~~50p~~ Reduced to 25p

With the reduction in these main optional upgrades you can use more of them.

If you have any questions ask away.

Thanks