First of all, I have been talking to a customer service person about these issues for well over a week, so Coffee Cup is "involved", but I am so frustrated that I am searching out different cart solutions, but, first, I decided to post here to see if anyone has seen any of these issues in the past.

I make jewely and every one of my pieces is a one-of-a-kind item, so I do not have any "stock level" issues and have a large number of items. I think I have about 400 items ready now. When I first downloaded the cart over the CoffeeCup Christmas break, I spent about 48 hours entering data and then one day, I attempted to open my cart to continue that process and only the categories showed up, but my items could not be accessed.

I asked a question via email, but didn't realize I had to check back here to see the reply, so I just started over again from scratch. I had eventually called support and got a sales person, who said she had no idea how to fix my problem. She offered that there was a new version of the software coming "soon." I told her that I would give the software one more shot and she said that was the best solution...to start over from scratch. That did not impress me at all. But, I really loved the way the cart looked and wanted to give it another shot.

This time, I decided to save the files in two separate places since I had the prior problem and when I got up above 225 items, I encountered a problem when I attempted to save the shop. I began to get a message indicating that many of the photos could not be saved. These were photos that had been already saved in the past. The only directive I had was to Contact Support.

I send logs, files, etc., but the customer service person could not explain why I had this problem, and suggested that I wait until the new version of the software was released, which happened today. However, a couple of days ago, I wanted to open my shopping cart program to look at a piece of jewelry. However, this time, I experienced the original problem from December. Now, when I attempt to open any of the cart files, I only get categories and NONE of the product files. I believe that I had 256 items entered at that time. One of the incarnations of the cart still lives at the following URL:
www.bumblebeadscustomjewelry.com/ccscart

This represents well over 100 hours of data entry and if I am unable to save this data and have to start over YET AGAIN, I just don't think I will do it....especially if Coffee Cup is unable to ascertain why it happened in the first place.

Now, to be sure, I downloaded the new version of the Shopping Cart on TWO of my computers today. One computer had the shop saved on its internal disc drives and I also have the shop saved on a little 2 gig thumb drive and a 160 gig external USB drive. Even with the new software, I remain unable ON BOTH COMPUTERS to do anything other than open the shop with categories and none of the items. No error message occurs. If I go into the files and try to click on images or product files, I just get a "project corrupted" message. Which I am not sure is significant.

I am NOT a computer saavy person. I try to use common sense logic and reason, but not because I have computer technical experience. I was just wondering if, by posting here, I might find someone else who had successfully campaigned a store with over 200 items? If anyone else experienced anything like this? I was supposed to travel to an out of town exhibit of my jewelry this weekend to kick off promoting the site, but with only half of the items entered and the site not able to be updated, I feel that it is better to forfeit what I have spent thus far over spending even more to promote something that might yet change again. I don't want to promote the site until it is up and working. I fear I might need a more reliable piece of software? Am I missing something?

Version 3.1 is designed to work exceptionally well with up to 1,250 items. We have made may changes to the back end of the software which improved the stability of the application. The issues you described were indeed a problem for some people in 3.0 but have been corrected in the latest version.

We have been running lots of tests over the past few weeks and with all the users who have reported any problems with 3.0, version 3.1 did correct all issues.

But, it 3.1 IS installed and it has not corrected the issues for me. Do I have to reload all of those items now?

Is there any way to use my FTP client to get those files from my website since I haven't published anything on top of them yet? Currently, it looks like most of my product files are still on my site.

It sounds like your store maybe corrupted and beyond repair. If you can zip all the files up and put them on your server and e-mail me the download location, I can try to open it up here and see what the issue is.

There is no way to re-construct your cart from the files stored on the Website. If the source files get corrupted or deleted, there is no way to recover the data.

My direct email is scott@coffeecup.com

Thanks, Scott...let me see if I can figure it out.

I antisipated a problem like this as a previouse site i spent three months on kept failing

I keep a main copy of my site using file save as (ANYTHING SENSIBLE)

then i keep working on a live version knowing i have a saved unnused back up

When i have added lots more i repeat proccess (ANYTHING SENSIBLE and Date)

And i still keep the old one ( I have about 20 at present)

Like you i am not technically pc wise, but a friend advised me to do it

hope this helps

PS if you use top right or top left navigation option on your template (CLASSICAL JAZZ) the thumbnail pictures are bigger

i found it usefull for my jewellery site

Thanks Jewelcraft! I was making the mistake of constantly saving over the same file name over and over, BUT, Scott has been very supportive and patient walking me through the steps to get my problems resolved. I was mostly concerned about WHY I kept having the problems and it seems like this latest release of the software had addressed everything, except my own contributions.

So, I am leaving the old cart published until I get "caught up" putting it back together again, then I will re-publish. In the meantime, I can look at the new templates AND the navigation options that could give me larger photos on my thumbnails.

Truthfully, I have been fighting with how to get photos that accurately portray the sparkle and colors in the pieces. My husband has more patience than I and we've done light boxes...indoor, outdoor, diffused lighting...macro settings, scanning...I just started taking photos in a dimly lit room with a lamp and the flash and the photos are look a little bit better sometimes. So, that will be my next challenge...photo improvements. The idea of photographing 600 pieces over again is not appealing, however. LOL.

Again, thank you for your advice.

HI. About taking your own pictures for your products...
I would suggest taking your camera and a couple examples to a photography shop/studio and ask them for some advice. They should have some good ideas and they will know the limitations of your camera. If you have a DSLR or even a 35mm camera, it might be as simple as getting the right filter (a screw on cover for the lens). A 'starlight' filter adds sparkle and shine to anything bright and some filters are designed for close-ups.
A good photo editing tool and some practice are also essential.

Best of luck, and do post your new shop when it's done for us to view.

Nancy, I just had a look at your shop...I have a thought for your photos. Have you thought of hanging/suspending your jewelry and then set up the camera for a close-up? The item would be in full focus, and the background completely blurred out. Anything you use to hang the piece (thin fishing line, with small hooks, or thin thread or wire) could be photoshoped out of the picture. No worries about backgrounds, shadows or any contrasting colours.

Might be worth a try and see how it turns out? Might also take forever, so don't waste too much time on it.