Product Reviews and Sharing Links
- By Mitchell Harper
- Published 08/2/2007
- User Interface , StoreSuite Updates
-
Rating:




I've just finished the product reviews section of StoreSuite. You fill
out the product review form as usual, however to prevent spam you have
the option of using a CAPTCHA image on the review form. If your server has PHP's GD library then a gradient image will be generated like so:

If not, then multiple images will be used to display the CAPTCHA sequence, like so:

95% of the CAPTCHA class we use to prevent comment spam in StoreSuite comes from ArticleLive, so thanks to Jordie for the class! To check if the server has GD support, we simply run the GDEnabledPNG() function, which looks like this:
/**
* GDEnabledPNG
* Function to detect if the GD function for creating PNG images is enabled.
*
* @return Boolean
*/
function GDEnabledPNG(){
if (function_exists('imageCreateFromPNG')){
return true;
}
return false;
}
CAPTCHA is the most popular way to prevent automated spam submission robots using forms on your site to submit spam. Speaking of CAPTCHA, here's the product review form:

Reviews can be approved automatically, which means they will show up as soon as they're posted - much like comments on a blog. If not, each review can be manually reviewed and approved through the StoreSuite control panel.
Finally, I just wanted to emphasize that all links in StoreSuite are "shareable". For example, if you use the comparison wizard to compare products, the link might look like this:
http://www.yourshop.com/compare/1146/1151/1145/1153/1144
The link is easy to share with friends, just like all other product, category, search and page links in StoreSuite. Nothing's more frustrating than trying to share a page on a site with someone else only for them to be presented with a session timeout message when they try to view the page (this happens on seek.com.au and it frustrates a lot of my friends looking for jobs).

If not, then multiple images will be used to display the CAPTCHA sequence, like so:

95% of the CAPTCHA class we use to prevent comment spam in StoreSuite comes from ArticleLive, so thanks to Jordie for the class! To check if the server has GD support, we simply run the GDEnabledPNG() function, which looks like this:
/**
* GDEnabledPNG
* Function to detect if the GD function for creating PNG images is enabled.
*
* @return Boolean
*/
function GDEnabledPNG(){
if (function_exists('imageCreateFromPNG')){
return true;
}
return false;
}
CAPTCHA is the most popular way to prevent automated spam submission robots using forms on your site to submit spam. Speaking of CAPTCHA, here's the product review form:

Reviews can be approved automatically, which means they will show up as soon as they're posted - much like comments on a blog. If not, each review can be manually reviewed and approved through the StoreSuite control panel.
Finally, I just wanted to emphasize that all links in StoreSuite are "shareable". For example, if you use the comparison wizard to compare products, the link might look like this:
http://www.yourshop.com/compare/1146/1151/1145/1153/1144
The link is easy to share with friends, just like all other product, category, search and page links in StoreSuite. Nothing's more frustrating than trying to share a page on a site with someone else only for them to be presented with a session timeout message when they try to view the page (this happens on seek.com.au and it frustrates a lot of my friends looking for jobs).
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Comments
Comment #1 (Posted by Jason Filby)
Rating:








One thing big today is the use of php and ajax in shopping cart systems. We all know this will be php based. A few things to comment on would be.
1. Product Reviews: Make them more dynamic; take a look at product reviews on this page as well as other samples of the newer ways of presenting it.
My Space: Uses a yes no rating system for videos; may work for products. http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=4417705
- ToysRUs: Uses Powerreviews.com as they are great person to integrate with as there product is excellant for growth and no cart system has used them yet. http://www.powerreviews.com/
- You Tube: You tube uses the new fad of how people rate. Look at the stars being used. http://youtube.com/watch?v=0pll9RaP7A8
2. Related Products; This would be great if these were generated based on number of clicks as well as purchases of other products.
3. Newsletters...what would be a great feature for store suite to integrate with send studio would be the ability for send studio to send scheduled newsletters out ith reccommendations of product themed toward that specific subscriber. So if they purchase certain products then the system knows by tags what to send to them as reccommended buys in the future. Much like the amazon.com system currently handles theres.
4. We have always noticed on the send to a friend links that if we can integrate the ability to provide a randomly generated code with a set time limit that will give a dollar figure or percentage off to the sender and the receiver that it generates faster buys and it retains the customer who made the reccommendation.
5. When you get to checkoutl a one page checkout with the ability to have a wallet and address book with multiple shit to's per order and multiple payment methods per order would be amazing.
We have plenty more to reccommend; but we will wait until you get to that point in development. We hope to see this system out do the best out there!
1. Product Reviews: Make them more dynamic; take a look at product reviews on this page as well as other samples of the newer ways of presenting it.
My Space: Uses a yes no rating system for videos; may work for products. http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=4417705
- ToysRUs: Uses Powerreviews.com as they are great person to integrate with as there product is excellant for growth and no cart system has used them yet. http://www.powerreviews.com/
- You Tube: You tube uses the new fad of how people rate. Look at the stars being used. http://youtube.com/watch?v=0pll9RaP7A8
2. Related Products; This would be great if these were generated based on number of clicks as well as purchases of other products.
3. Newsletters...what would be a great feature for store suite to integrate with send studio would be the ability for send studio to send scheduled newsletters out ith reccommendations of product themed toward that specific subscriber. So if they purchase certain products then the system knows by tags what to send to them as reccommended buys in the future. Much like the amazon.com system currently handles theres.
4. We have always noticed on the send to a friend links that if we can integrate the ability to provide a randomly generated code with a set time limit that will give a dollar figure or percentage off to the sender and the receiver that it generates faster buys and it retains the customer who made the reccommendation.
5. When you get to checkoutl a one page checkout with the ability to have a wallet and address book with multiple shit to's per order and multiple payment methods per order would be amazing.
We have plenty more to reccommend; but we will wait until you get to that point in development. We hope to see this system out do the best out there!
Comment #2 (Posted by Jimi Wikman)
Rating:








One thing I would like to add to that is to add the option to allow only comments from members. This will allow easier spam control by forcing people to register to add comments so you can get IP, email adresses (best used if you can opt to have emails validated as well by responding to a registration email) and so on. A nice addition would be to be able to delete all comments from one user and check if IP's are used for multiple accounts.
