Template Monster: Public Service Announcement

Tmonster:

Thanks for pointing the issues. We will take measures to help them.

are you going to pay kobra for doing your job in customer support?

sanguisdesign:

are you going to pay kobra for doing your job in customer support?

Come on...let's stick with the subject more closely. No one on the Zen Cart forums is paid to reply to posts. This is a volunteer based forum. I understand you are trying to make a point, but....well <hmmm> make the point, but try to be productive with it. :wink:

The notion that Template Monster is wrong or bad for trying to make money with goods or services is ridiculous. Zen Cart is an e-commerce software. Everyone using it has the intent to make money. That's the commerce part. :smile:

The issues with TM are well indicated in this thread. TM's initial interaction here was met with more hostility and rhetoric about making money. It's understandable...there are quite a few who feel that they have been wronged. However, hostility and rhetoric isn't necessarily productive. I know, squeaky wheel gets the oil. Agreed to a point. Conversely, some of TM's posts here are quite a bit arrogant and closed minded.

TM has in it's power the ability to address the issues head on or continue status quo. That's a business decision they will have to make. Hopefully, they read the anger and disappointment and find the best way to correct the situation. Conversely, to TM, imho I don't think anyone here really cares what percentage of business a ZC template is to your organization. You sell them, people have and are buying them (including myself as stated in an earlier post). The end result is, that they need to work!! The templates look "pretty" but the back-end code is disgusting! There are plenty of bugs. They aren't well designed for cross browser compatibility. Your support is disliked. Pre-purchase information should describe what functionality has been removed, and also should tell the buyer what exact version of Zen Cart the template has been designed for.

The contest idea is interesting, but in the end it really is up to your organization to find a method for making an aesthetically pleasing template that retains as much of the functionality and structure of the software for which the template is designed (this case - Zen Cart). You've stated that you have the personnel and resources. I've seen people on the ZC forum with absolutely no experience design beautiful web sites and retain the core software functionality. With TM's resources and experience, this should be a piece of cake.

TMonster-

Please clarify what you mean by a design only?

What the community wants and needs is a great looking template that can be dropped in, work without problems and be modified according to the established instructions.

If we or they had wanted cookie cutters, there wouldn't be so much flexibility in Zen Cart.

lib99 thank you very much for you post. I do also vote for productive process. I will do my best (and strive other people in company to do the same) to get a final resolution of the question.

I the meantime, we have started to contact people from this forum and ask about their problems and the ways they have solved them to create a complete report of things that need to be corrected. I hope the contest will provide additional information on topic too.

2Kim

When talking about he "design only" option - I meant the psd only file, adopted for ZC layout but with no coding included. That of course would require changing the pricing policy.

Let me start by saying something that may seem a little odd ...

I'm a big Template Monster fan

I often go browse their site looking for inspiration and ideas, working out what I like and what I don't, what works and what doesn't in their latest designs. There are occasional dodgy ideas, but they're far outweighed by the great ones across their immense range of templates.

Nor do I have any problem with the idea that they might make money from selling templates. They're really not expensive - a fraction of the cost of having a bespoke design constructed.

The problem, which seems to underlie most of the contributions to this and similar threads, is that they are very poorly executed. For example, earlier in this thread fellis offered this example of an attractive Template Monster design. And it would be, if it worked. But at the current time it's broken, in both IE6 and IE7 (in different ways) even on Template Monster's own demo site. So we have to ask how, when they can't make it work properly themselves, their customers are expected to be able to do so.

The other complaint is indifferent service. But to be fair, the complaints that we see tend to be only from disappointed Zen Cart template purchasers that TM's support has been unable to help. The most commonly quoted approach by the TM Support Team seems to be to simply re-install bits of the offending template, which suggests that they too have problems getting to grips with how they're supposed to work.

However, although TMonster seems to be softening his stance on dealing with problems via their support system, IMO this is the right way to go, with the backup, that he posted his personal email earlier in this thread, so if problems don't get satisfactorily resolved there, let him know.

Specific responses to TMonster:> Tmonster:

The proposal of fellis to deliver the PSD in ten days was intended not to make "modifications" to it - it is ready and we are going to use the existing PSD, but to wait and see how many participants are going to subscribe and deliver the psd to everyone at the same time. I think this is the only fair way to run the contest - correct me if I am wrong.Accpepted. Though personally I think you would have attracted more interest if you'd posted the PSD and set a reasonable closing date at which point you judge the best result. The way you've done it makes it seem like a race to find who can finish first once the PSD is released.

Tmonster:

As for the intention to move the attention to the contest instead of the subject of this discussion - I do not think it can be true because the contest really does not get too much attention, if you take a look how the discussion continues.LOL. It could equally be concluded that the contest failed to distract attention from the subject of this discussion!

Tmonster:

I think the contest could be a great help for everyone to see that we are facing real difficulties during the production process and after we have a public case study we will be able to focus on specific issues and then produce an example of Zen cart template that will satisfy the majority of customers (there is no way to satisfy ALL customers).Here we're in agreement. One of my earlier posts stresses that designing templates is significantly more difficult than designing sites, especially for complex applications like Zen Cart. This is probably why your guys made such a mess up of trying to move from tables-based carts to XHTML/CSS architectures. They really need to read up more on over-rides too, so that they can use them properly.

First time I enter here. I've take a while to read all of the posts.

Well, you have here an issue:

TM builds very nice looking templates saying they are compatible, but they really are not, because the funcionality are sacrificed.

Golden rule of design: Funcionality is first, then design must be adapted to it.

You've been wise enough to offer some ways to solve this:

1. A first attempt to build a template. It didn't work :(
2. A contest. Participation was unstable. Sorry.
3. You may offer just the PSD and let the people to code. Well, that may be an alternative, maybe to embrace a second market, but obviously that's not a whole solution. PSD's are not the template.

My two cents:
4) Why not outsourcing?

That's similar to the contest, but with a serious proposal and it would make templates easier to upgrade, etc. What do you think about this?

I failed to read the last Kuroi's post before post.

The main problem seems to get a people who knows the zend code and rules enough to take the psd and adapt it without breaking the rules, nor the code.

I agree with Kuroi. Maybe the contest may continue and then you would get this proper example to build upon it. What do you think?

To Kuroi

Thanks a lot for your post. I do agree that your idea with closing date is much better. Too bad you didn't suggest it earlier :smile: Let's start on Monday anyway and see how it goes.

JPMarichal:

My two cents:
4) Why not outsourcing?

That's similar to the contest, but with a serious proposal and it would make templates easier to upgrade, etc. What do you think about this?

We used to outsource ZC templates production from the very beginning - that is why we are having so much hassle with them now. I learned during the business the main rule - if you want to do something great - do it in house.
Now, when we are moving everything in house - we can involve support team into production so they will know any specific issues, we can easily recode existing products and we will be able to grow the experience of our own products.

Maybe we are just unlucky with finding good outsourcing partners, but my friends from other businesses share the same opinion. Outsourcing is good because it is cheap, but not as good when it comes to quality issues.

In this case, I think "outsourcing" means something more like "hire one or more of the skilled professionals who are intimately familiar with the Zen Cart code".

This would likely be more expensive than outsourcing to India, or developing the base in-house, but you would be getting the best code base feasible, along with development logic, if that is in the contract. This would most likely reduce your future development costs.

I already started to talk to people about that. I think it should be called more as "paid expertise" than outsourcing.

Sounds good!

I think it is all coming down to in-house Quality Control.

The example posted by kuroi looks like it was made for an older version of ZC, since it is not coded for XHTML. It also has the same IE problems as this TM example of a Template I was recently hired to use for a ZC upgrade to 1.3.7.

Free, online Validators are available and one I highly suggest is the WDG Validator. I don't know how old the above examples are but both, not only use incorrect coding, they also seem to be coded by the same person. I say that because both Templates use "line-min-height" in their CSS and there is no such code. Both Templates also have some problems with IE due to the way certain things are coded.

Perhaps it would be wise for TM or anyone supplying Templates, to verify their code is valid. Much like the newer ZC scripts do with the default theme. :wink:

as promised before, I uploaded psd files for our contest. http://osc.template-help.com/contest_psd.zip . Good luck! Please send private messages if you will have ane questions. Thinking in 10 days we will find out a winner.

Your PSD is already setup to fail,
Zen Cart will ONLY display featured products IF someone actualy sets them up.
so ( if this template is set to Zen Standards ) then if someone DOSNT have featured products setup then you will have this big ugly hole there,

Hello tried to add to the last but waqs timed out,

Ok I found another issue,
onthe shopping cart page there is ( in your design ) no place for the attribute information,

how are people supposed to verify that they have a red smal thirt with their name on the back,

should look something like this

-small
-red
-Tiny Tim

While the design looks nice once again it will NOT work with stock features. ( things that are actually needed )

These are the design limitations we were refering to,

and your designers ( the folks that sit down and design this on paper ) need to take into account that there are ALOT of features that are supported.
and need to be addressed in the original design

Why did I not find this thread before buying a template from Template Monster :(

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?p=388056

I am trying to get hold of TemplateMonster support - but no luck yet :(

Merlinpa1969:

Your PSD is already setup to fail,
Zen Cart will ONLY display featured products IF someone actualy sets them up.
so ( if this template is set to Zen Standards ) then if someone DOSNT have featured products setup then you will have this big ugly hole there,

Could you please clarify the issue?

Zen Cart will ONLY display featured products IF someone actualy sets them up.

Could you please clarify the issue?
"Featured Products" are not there by default....one must create/make products "Featured" ...

In a normal mode, Zen Cart does not show "Featured Products" and "auto" collapses this display when there are no "Featured Items".

Design does not allow for "collapsing" this area

that was my problem with the template monster template i purchased-- there were required spots for specials and featured products in a graphic navigation area. so if i didn't have a special or featured product, clicking one of those very prominent and always visible links took the user to a dead-end.

i ended up removing the whole top portion of my template because i don't know enough to "reslice" the PSD and recode the template to leave out links that may come and go. basically losing about half the visual i paid for.

i'm also one of the sad sacks who bought a template before reading this forum!

kobra:

"Featured Products" are not there by default....one must create/make products "Featured" ...

In a normal mode, Zen Cart does not show "Featured Products" and "auto" collapses this display when there are no "Featured Items".

Design does not allow for "collapsing" this area

How do you suggest to resolve the issue? I think the layout is designed to have the Featured Products section. This is the idea of the designer. If you do not plan to use this section in your store, then you have to select another design with different layout. That's my understanding of the issue.
When we are talking about normal web templates - the layout is the primary concern for the customer. For example, customer will never buy 3 column design to remove 2 columns and leave only one. He will try to find one column design instead.