Gensokyo.Store Re-launch & Virtual Tour

News

Over the past several weeks, we’ve been working through getting the store back up and running, and we’re finally on the home stretch. Shipping and payment integrations are once again functional for the new site with a short list of things to take care of before its re-launch.

The new store website changes a few things in terms of style and layout, but overall it’s intentionally similar to the current version. The biggest changes are likely the site’s navigation bar, theme, checkout page, and the checkout process.

As mentioned last week, the navigation bar is smaller and more simple with fewer links. Cart info has been reduced to an icon button which will show a notification tag when items have been added to the cart. What’s new as of this week is an update to the site’s theme; the color scheme has been tuned to be more unified with Gensokyo Radio’s branding since it is our official music and merch store.

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Links which were redundant (such as “Shop”) have been removed, and other links have been moved to the site’s footer.

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The site’s product page layout has been updated in a few key ways. First, the product image is larger by default, and the Add to Cart button has been made larger. Products with variations such as T-shirts with different size options will show availability status when switching between options. Finally, the description area has been widened by using a tabbed view. This allows embedded integrations such as YouTube and SoundCloud crossfades to be larger. The actual tab contents aren’t particularly useful at this time, but in the future it will allow us to add more information to products when it makes sense.

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The site’s checkout page layout has kept the cart preview mostly the same, but the cart totals area has been split out into two distinct areas for shipping and order summary. This page is integrated with our primary shipping service and will require users to select a shipping option in order to add the cost of shipping to the order total before checkout.

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Finally, the checkout process will navigate users directly through a secure payment flow provided by PayPal. After completing checkout, users should receive an order receipt email from PayPal. Users will also be navigated to a confirmation page on the store website with an order summary and an order ID. The payment receipt should also have the same order ID, but it’s always a good idea to keep the confirmation page on file for your reference in case you have any questions afterwards.

At this point, the last things we’re wrapping up are store product availability logic (to help make sure the stuff in your cart is actually available), product slugs (the part of the URL that refers to a specific product), and then taking inventory to update real stock quantities before we swap to the new store on new server infrastructure.

It’s important to note that there will be some items that won’t be immediately available on launch, particularly merch-related items such as most shirts and one of the coffee mugs. Work on that will progress after the re-launch.

That’s all for this update, stay tuned for an announcement in our Discord server when the re-launch is complete sometime this week, and thanks for listening!

[Knowledge #223]

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