Just found this great clip of me on Fox 18 way back in 2006. I was interviewed by Morgan Fogarty on the subject of File Sharing Security. Talk about a throw back! I had turned 21 a few months before this. Check out that long spiked hair(it still looks the same, but shorter!)

Wanna feel a little old? I saw this and had to share!

Magento’s out of the box WYSIWYG editor annoying adds a line break after each time you press enter or return. I found this to be very frustrating when I was creating descriptions and even more annoying when I was copy and pasting descriptions. No other eCommerce platform or WYSIWYG system I’ve worked for did this odd extra spacing. In the end its quite an easy fix:

Open File: /app/design/frontend/default/-YOURTEMPLATE-/template/catalog/product/view/description.phtml

Locate this code:

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<?php echo $this->helper(’catalog/output’)->productAttribute($this->getProduct(), nl2br($this->getProduct()->getDescription()), ‘description’) ?>

Replace it with this code:

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<?php echo $this->helper(’catalog/output’)->productAttribute($this->getProduct(), $this->getProduct()->getDescription(), ‘description’) ?>

The code which causes this extra spacing is nl2br(). So if you need to adjust it in future versions or other fields just find the nl2br() call.

This week I was able to attend a brand new Internet Marketing Conference called Search Exchange here in Charlotte, North Carolina. I was almost certain I was not going to be able to make it due to a recent change in employment and a long time planned vacation. The stars aligned and my new employer EDreamz was great enough to send me. Typically these events are not in my agenda. My attitude is pretty negative due to many worthless conferences in the past. In this case I happen to know the organizers through local events/meet ups. These guys are top notch so I knew it was going to be something great.

I was out of town I majority of day one and half of day two. Managed to arrive just before Joanna Lord took the stage and quickly(she talks fast!) fed us full of information about Social Media Tools. It was an action packed presentation at the ‘right’ pace(fast talkers=no time wasted.) Next up Jason Keath showed us some cool unicorns and a neat looking bull. He also shared some really valuable information on having a real revenue plan for social media. Then a unique character named Neal Rodriquez dropped one of the best presentations I’ve seen in my entire conference career. He explained viral traffic, digg, crack heads, teabagging, and flying on private plane then flying Jet Blue. Yes.. All of those subjects plus a ton more of craziness. Really enjoyed listening everything he had to say. The last presentation I was able to hear this day was Chris Winfield who shared information on ROI in Social Media Marketing. The whole group headed to Wild Wings Cafe where we shared some great wings and fun stories. As the night dawned on us we moved to Whiskey River where the bar was open and people were really getting started. Sadly I had work in the AM so I cut the night short before things really got out of hand!

Day 3 I was unable to make it in the AM due to some client work. I slipped in just as Dan London was explaining in-house struggles and hilariousness. I could really connect to this as I have worked in a small business where no one else had any internet marketing(or marketing in general) skills. Kate Morris gave a grand overview on PPC which I really enjoyed. All the information was very simple and probably familiar to most, but it was a great reminder of the obvious. Really got me thinking and rethinking some of my accounts. I’ve already implemented changes based on her presentation. Benjamin Rudolph gave us an overview of how to use Analytics to Optimize Landing Pages. This is something I have tons of experience in, but just like in Kate’s PPC overview I was able to spark new ideas which I plan to implement soon. The last presentation I was able to catch was Rhea Drysdale on Online Reputiation Management. I took away boatloads of truly useful information from her. ORM is something I have very little experience in. I thought I understood it/had the basics down, but her presentation really opened my eyes to what it really is.

I wish I could have made it every day for all the presentations, but the ones I attended made it worth every dime spent. I give huge props to Robert Enriquez, Keith Schilling, and Roy Morejon for putting on something amazing.

Looking forward to the next Search Exchange already!

Following my Twitter stream I saw a tweet by @Shopify that said one of their stores have customers texting in questions. This struck me as a bit odd at first, but after reading it’s implementation I find it quite genius.

The company name is Baby Melons. You can see right up top on their customer service page they have a number ready for your text question. Here is the best part about it:  you could have this setup for free and implementation is just signing up for a Google Voice number. Post the number on your website. Then receive and reply to text messages in the same way you do emails.

This is something that as a customer I would do just to try. If the experience was good I would be even more likely to purchase from the company. On the business side a customer service rep can only handle one phone call at a time. In theory now the rep could now handle multiple clients at a time with more time to respond.

Benefits: Save labor expenses, give better responses, show off a new side of technology to customers.
Negatives: Some customers may not understand how to text.

I’m always looking for more  innovative ways to close sales or communicate with customers. Do you have any? Comment below.

Direct link to the original blog article: http://blog.shopify.com/2010/5/5/let-them-text-us-for-customer-service

Out of the box Magento looks great, but it can be a little large for people with smaller resolution. Analytics has taught me that majority of users are stuck on 1024X768. Sadly this resolution is tiny and really limits how wide your website can be – unless your working with something fluid, but your probably not. One of the biggest issues I saw in Magento’s large styled product page is the Product Options Box. In Magento’s demo you can see two options:

Large Product Options Box:

Better Formated Box

The first image is what comes out of the box with Magento. So how can you get the Product Options Box smaller and better formated? It’s an easy edit:

Open File: /app/design/frontend/default/-YOURTEMPLATE-/template/catalog/product/view.phtml

Locate this code:

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</div>
        <div class="clear"></div>
        <?php if ($_product->isSaleable() && $this->hasOptions()):?>
            <?php echo $this->getChildChildHtml('container2', '', true, true) ?>
        <?php endif;?>
    </form>

Replace it with this code:

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<?php if ($_product->isSaleable() && $this->hasOptions()):?>
            <?php echo $this->getChildChildHtml('container2', '', true, true) ?>
        <?php endif;?>
        </div>
        <div class="clear"></div>
    </form>

Now you have a better optimized product options box! Users with smaller resolutions will be more likely to see Add to Cart which in turn should help out your conversation rate. Of course you should always A/B Test any changes!

Here is one problem that was a simple Magento fix, but took me hours to understand. Of course many of my products require bullet points – it’s like a standard on eCommerce products. When I imported or even manually inserted them into my Magento website it would never display correctly. I searched the forums, google, and even asked a few people. There was no easy answer. I gave up and came back the next day. I luckily stumbled on this quick and simple fix in the Magento wiki:

Add this code to the bottom of your boxes.css: (/skin/frontend/default/-YOURTHEME)/css)

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.product-specs ul li { list-style-type: disc; list-style-position: outside; margin-left: 20px; }
.short-description ul li { list-style-type: disc; list-style-position: outside; margin-left: 20px; }
.product-specs ol li { list-style-type: decimal; list-style-position: outside; margin-left: 20px; }
.short-description ol li { list-style-type: decimal; list-style-position: outside; margin-left: 20px; }<a href="http://www.robbiehodge.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/bullets.jpg"><img src="http://www.robbiehodge.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/bullets.jpg" alt="" title="bullets" width="127" height="71" class="alignright size-full wp-image-156" /></a>
.description ul li { list-style-type: disc; list-style-position: outside; margin-left: 20px;}
.description ol li { list-style-type: decimal; list-style-position: outside; margin-left: 20px;}

Now open up view.phtml (app/design/frontend/default/-YOURTHEME-/template/catalog/product/view.phtml)

Find this code:

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<div class="short-description"><?php echo nl2br($_product->getShortDescription()) ?></div>

Replace with:

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<div class="short-description"><?php echo $_product->getShortDescription() ?></div>

Do the same for description field and now you have bullets and ordered lists..

Hopefully one day this will be fixed/patched in. I really enjoy the wysiwyg editor, but sometimes it just causes more problems then its worth.