New Shopify Store!

[Blind Mapmaker]

Not quite the same experience buying GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Thieves here. The download link in the e-mail worked - though I got a "We can’t connect to the server at url3834.sjgames.com." error first and then the "You have three downloads remaining" threw me off (it's only there because apparently I am not logged in a minute after buying.

What's really annoying though is that the new shop let me easily buy two copies without any sort of warning. I guess because I was not at first logged in and it still saved my cart or maybe something more went wrong. While I do not begrudge SJGames and Christopher Rice the money, this really not the way a shop system should work. It's not even like I can gift the extra "copy" to someone. The old shop did have a much better way of warning you. Sure, caveat emptor, but I am disappointed.

Edit: Even finding the book for sale would have been a huge hassle without the link provided. It does not appear under "New Release" even when sorting from New => Old (why is this not standard by the way? I don't want featured stuff when clicking on new and SJGames doesn't actually have dozens of new things every month). It does not even appear in GURPS when sorting New => Old and not even in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy (at all). I really don't get how that is possible, but I've heard bad things about Shopify, so maybe this is the software - still quite a bad UI. The only thing that works is the title search, as far as I can tell.

[Paulon]

Bought product. No download link. Link somewhere in orders list which is unsorted and unsearchable, and is 61 pages of orders. Longterm customer. Won't be buying from this site again.

[Kira]

Originally Posted by Paulon

Bought product. No download link. Link somewhere in orders list which is unsorted and unsearchable, and is 61 pages of orders. Longterm customer. Won't be buying from this site again.

Everyone purchasing a digital product receives an e-mail with links to download the items. No login required, good for 3 downloads - same as the old store.

And if you log into your account on the new store, the most recent orders are shown first. You can download the items from there with no limits... but you do need to login.

We *are* working on the search issue... it will be solved soon.

[Paulon]

The major problems with the new site were pointed out EIGHT MONTHS ago and still aren't fixed. If the basic functions of an ecommerce site are not working after that amount of time, how can we trust that the security is going to be any better handled?

I don't believe SJGames is acting in malice, but I also don't believe in the competence demonstrated thus far, and thus can't trust the site as it stands. I'll be waiting for releases on Drivethru in the future, even it it takes months longer for new GURPS material to filter over.

[Farmer]

Originally Posted by Kira

Everyone purchasing a digital product receives an e-mail with links to download the items. No login required, good for 3 downloads - same as the old store.

And if you log into your account on the new store, the most recent orders are shown first. You can download the items from there with no limits... but you do need to login.

We *are* working on the search issue... it will be solved soon.

I'm sorry, Kira, but it is *not* the same as the old store. The old store I could immediately download after purchase. Now I had to wait for the email to be generated and sent (in the meantime I had found my downloads and it wasn't there, so there's a lag between purchase and the file being made ready that didn't exist previously). To this point, I never even knew the old store email had a limited use download link, because I never needed it.

The most recent orders are *not* shown first in the download list - they are exclusively in alphabetical order. If you click the item from your purchase history (which does show most recent first), it just tells you it's been purchased already and doesn't provide a download link.

It's great that you're working on a search function. It's extremely disappointing that it isn't already available, particularly when there's been a lot of public feedback about it for a while now.

I was very open and unworried about some teething issues with the new store initially, because it was new. It's really not new now - it's been weeks - and key issues that have been highlighted are still outstanding without an ETA ("soon" is not an ETA) and without a list of "fixes in the pipeline" or similar (which would have let us know already you were working on fixing the lack of search, for example).

Honestly, I've held off a few purchases because of the reports of the problems. I purchased the new Denizens Thieves simply because it was a priority item for me, and whilst the product is excellent, the shop experience is poor, and the feedback and engagement with customers on what's happening to fix all the problems on the store has been, and remains poor. Considering how long it was in beta (a good idea) the end product is not at an acceptable level. I don't want to sound harsh, but if we sugar coat it you may think it's all OK.

Publish a list of known issues and planned enhancements with timelines and keep it updated. That would go a long way to helping.

[Riandor Na'Eris]

I seriously think the issues will never be fixed, I've two accounts one is my main one with all my PDFs which are numerous. The other one is an old one I did mostly as a test but is the one that has GCA and GURPS Mysteries and nothing else. Since I didn't want to buy them again I updated this account to the new store. Neither Mysteries nor GCA 5 have been moved. The only thing they moved was the complimentary old edition of GCA 4. They could not even update an old account with two files in it properly. Now if want to update GCA I need to rebuy it again or wait until the shop gets fixed. I already lost all my digital stuff when Osprey Publishing updated their store but those were a few I can move on and let go, but now I'm seriously scared I've to rebuy all my GURPS PDFs over again. And I literally buy only those because books aren't so easy to get here where I live.

[Kira]

Originally Posted by Riandor Na'Eris

I seriously think the issues will never be fixed, I've two accounts one is my main one with all my PDFs which are numerous. The other one is an old one I did mostly as a test but is the one that has GCA and GURPS Mysteries and nothing else. Since I didn't want to buy them again I updated this account to the new store. Neither Mysteries nor GCA 5 have been moved. The only thing they moved was the complimentary old edition of GCA 4. They could not even update an old account with two files in it properly. Now if want to update GCA I need to rebuy it again or wait until the shop gets fixed. I already lost all my digital stuff when Osprey Publishing updated their store but those were a few I can move on and let go, but now I'm seriously scared I've to rebuy all my GURPS PDFs over again. And I literally buy only those because books aren't so easy to get here where I live.

Nothing is lost, but I've seen quite a few cases where someone changed their email address, and all their orders were on an account under the old address. Send an email to help@sjgames.com with your w23 account email (and any other email addresses you might have used), and we can look for & combine them.

[Armin]

Originally Posted by Riandor Na'Eris

The only thing they moved was the complimentary old edition of GCA 4. They could not even update an old account with two files in it properly. Now if want to update GCA I need to rebuy it again or wait until the shop gets fixed.

(snipped some content there)

Please do email help@sjgames.com about this! You need to be able to update, and you shouldn't have LEGACY without GCA itself!

[Extrarius]

I finally went through my 12 pages of order history and was able to find the files I was missing from the archive site, but I don't have the patience to check whether all my files are there.

I have to again emphasize that I really hate how downloads from the new site are named. Having downloaded 3 files, I had to open each in a reader to see what it was then rename the file. Doing that for my whole collection would take an extra day past the one required for all the work to actually download my whole collection. It's just not acceptable.

[Celjabba]

Originally Posted by Kira

Nothing is lost, but I've seen quite a few cases where someone changed their email address, and all their orders were on an account under the old address. Send an email to help@sjgames.com with your w23 account email (and any other email addresses you might have used), and we can look for & combine them.

I am certain that nothing is lost, meaning I am sure you have accurate record of past purchases and can manually answer any request.
but from the customer point of view, if updated files (such as GCA5 or the upgraded PDsF from color POD) are no longer on the old system and not yet in the new system, they are effectively lost.

I think you will agree that having to search forums for an email address to request that an overworked warehouse employee manually assign/send you the files is not an acceptable delivery solutions in 2023...

All new system have small and not so small problems that will get fixed in time, but I think there are a few Blocking/Major anomalies that require immediate action before the new shop can be considered operational :

> New items which do not appear in "new releases" nor in the other listings, even when sorting by "new>old" and must be searched by name.
The latest DF book was an example, although it appear to have been fixed now.
But when announced on the forums/discord/... and made available in the store, it should have been immediately visible (preferably on the front page, and at least in the product line and new release subpages) , not invisible for days unless you specifically search for it by name.

> past purchases effectively not accessible : either not imported or hidden inside a non-searchable unsorted multi-pages list of orders that must each be open individually to check for the file(s).

> Download links not easily and readily available.

> Multiples PDF purchase possible (an easy mistake : when buying the DF book, I somehow ended up with a basket with the number of item set to 3 ... I did notice in time but this should be blocked for PDF.

None of this is truly "bad", the shop technically work ... but you are losing customers over these anomalies.