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While we’ll be the first to admit that our full website rebuild has definitely taken a lot longer than we’d initially hoped and expected, we’re now delighted to be able to end all of the suspense and release it to the world!
Why the hold up?
We knew from the off that it was going to be a huge job, we’ve moved from a dedicated e-commerce platform with plugins available for almost every conceivable function and feature, to a completely bespoke store that has been custom built from the ground up.
This has meant that getting some of the functionality in place has taken more work than estimated, and has led to delays in the dev progress, but it also means we’ve now got much more control over every aspect of the site.
The old site was held back in some respects by limitations in compatibility between different plugins, but now we’re in a position to develop more features and functionality without those restraints.
What’s new?
We included some initial details in our previous
Rebuild Update post about the improvements and new features that have been implemented on the rebuild, but to give the full list with further additions…
Key improvements for all users;
- Site speed - You should now see a significant improvement in the general site performance across the board, especially from a speed perspective.
With the previous website utilising various plugins for features and functionality, it often caused the site to be quite bloated, which had caused users to experience some intermittent speed and stability issues.
- More secure passwords - with us moving platforms, it means that all user passwords will need to be reset upon first login, so we’ve taken the opportunity to implement stronger passwords, meaning you now need at least one uppercase, one lowercase and one number included.
We’ll also be looking at introducing two factor authentication for users as well further down the line, to provide further peace of mind.
Key improvements for sellers;
- Improved seller analytics - one of the most common requests we’ve had from creators is to make more analytics available. We’ve now implemented a much more customisable analytics feature, which means that we can now add in multiple options to display data relating to your revenue and general product performance.
What is currently in place is already an improvement on the previous offering, but we’ve got more in the pipeline to provide more key data to you.
- No free order email notifications - asset creators will no longer be sent an email notification when someone downloads one of their free assets.
Key improvements for buyers;
- Instant asset updates - now when a seller updates an asset, anyone who has purchased the asset will be able to download the update immediately, without the need for us to regenerate download permissions on the orders.
- Searchable asset order history - for users with a lot of asset purchases, you can now search by asset name in your Orders list, meaning when you get an asset update notification you will be able to easily find and download the new version.
- Named zip folders - now when you download an asset zip folder, instead of the zip having a random string of characters for the name, it will be have the name of the asset included, making it much easier for buyers to manage their asset inventory.
- New payment options - previously all payments either went through via a PayPal account or via PayPal’s debit/credit card payment gateway. Now debit/credit cards are processed through Stripe, which means Apple Pay is also an option for buyers, though we’ve also kept PayPal as an alternative option as well.
As we detailed in the
last update with the reasoning behind the decisions, we’ve removed the Community Forum and the XP system from the new site, though have stored all XP details with the view of it potentially returning with more functionality in the future.
It’s been months of hard work and a lot of time revisiting development to make improvements, so we’re looking forward to people getting their hands on the new site and have plenty of other new features and functionality in the pipeline to make GDM better for all users.
We’d love to hear from you…
If you want to give us any feedback, whether positive or negative, or if there is anything you spot which doesn’t seem to look or work quite right, we’ve also added a new contact widget to the bottom right of the screen which will allow you to create a support ticket directly through the site.
