Important Ruby Lane Site Updates - Search Views, Square Cropping, Pic Management Tools & More

Important Ruby Lane Site Updates

We are excited to let you know of some site updates that are designed to further enhance the shopping experience on Ruby Lane, thus increasing sales throughout the site. It is important to note that these updates have been designed with both shop owners and buyers in mind. Read on for an overview of the updates:

New Look to the Search Results Gallery and List View Pages
In order to stay current with online shopping trends, we have updated the look of the Gallery and List View pages for Ruby Lane Search results. We have streamlined the pages to make them even easier on the eye. Now all item photos display larger than before, and with rounded corners. (Please note that corners will display as square in any version of Internet Explorer 8 or earlier.) We feel the page now has more uniformity and better flow. Unlike our previous Search layout, the new version also displays shop names and a portion of the item title for the Gallery view, which is now the default view.

Optional Square Auto-Crop
We have also added the option for your item thumbnail photos to be automatically cropped to make them appear even larger, and square, when displayed in thumbnail formats on the site (such as search results or in shopping bags). We've been doing this already for the tiny thumbnails on the item pages for the past year. If turned "on" this feature automatically crops the photo to display the top center area of the photo, making it square. This feature is currently optional, and can be turned either on or off for all of your shop items (not individually). You can find the tool for selecting square auto-crop on your Edit Shop Info page.

Square Auto-Crop "on" becomes the default In August 2012
As part of this update, we have set the default to "square auto-crop off" to give shops a choice of whether you would like your items cropped or not cropped. You can c hoose to do nothing at this time and your items will not be auto-cropped. However in August 2012, the site-wide default will be changed to be "square auto-crop on". If you choose not to have square auto-crop you can go in and turn it off.

Square Auto-Crop Becomes Site-Wide Standard in May 2013
Beginning in May 2013 the option to turn square auto-crop off will no longer be available. All items will be square auto-cropped. Again, photos will be cropped to display the top center area of the photo. After this update square photos will always present best.

Some shops may want to begin to update some of your photos in preparation for this change a year from now. This is an advisory that if you have narrow photos in your shop, either tall or wide, we recommend that you take the next 12 months to tweak or retake them so that they are closer to a square. For long slender items such as pens or a piece of flatware, photographing them at a 45 degree angle is recommended. You can also use the improved picture editing tools on Ruby Lane under Modify Item to make adjustments, and you can re-order your photos choosing a more square-shaped photo as the main photo using drag/drop also on Modify Item page.

To summarize, you have three choices when selecting square auto-cropping:

1. Do nothing; i.e. make no selection on your Edit Shop Info page. Your photos will display as square auto-crop "off" until August 1st, 2012, then after that they will display as square auto-cropping "on".
2. Select "square auto-crop off" in Edit Shop Info. After May 1st, 2013 it will change to "on".
3. Select "square auto-crop on" in Edit Shop Info. Get the new picture formats now!

We suggest you try out the new look, even if your pictures are not perfectly cropped. Be sure to click "Update", then "View My Shop" after you make your selection and then do a search to see the difference. You should view both the Gallery vi ew and List view to get a complete idea of how it will look. If you don't like the change, you're welcome to go back and turn if "off" and adjust your shop pictures.

Improved Picture Management Tools
We have also updated the Picture Editor tool to allow even more enhancement options when cropping or editing a photo, with no plug-ins needed. And we've added a simpler new drag and drop tool for re-ordering photos. Again, you can use these newly-updated picture tools to make the necessary adjustments for optimum auto-cropping display and really make your item photos pop.

Why Are We Making These Changes?
This type of auto-cropping is becoming a standard for many e-commerce sites as it lends an artistic look to the photo. Research shows that uniform-looking search results lead to increased visual retention, easier scanning of the page, and an overall improved shopping experience. With more detail viewable, items become much more inviting to prospective buyers. We are aware that some items will not be cropped ideally until they are manually edited by you.

New "Item Suggestion Feature" Added to the SOLD Shop
We are adding a new feature to the Ruby Lane Sold Shop that suggests similar items currently available for sale that the viewer may be interested in for purchase. This has the potential to turn those browsing for research purposes - into buyers. Each time the viewer searches the Sold shop, suggested similar items are presented at the top of the page.

New "Item Suggestion Page" for Items In Newsletters That Have Sold
As many of you have noticed, last year we updated the format of our newsletters to make them much more shopping and item focused. Our statistics show that these items indeed sell! So now when a buyer clicks on an item in the newsletter that has already Sold or is Sale Pending, buyers see a message that the item is no longer available, plus a search page that automatically suggests similar items currently offered on Ruby Lane.

Why Have We Added This New Feature?
Again, Ruby Lane's overall goal is to promote and encourage the sale of items. Shop owners are our customers – and so are buyers. A potential buyer who succeeds in finding the type of item they are looking for is a "win-win" for everyone. If an item in your shop is featured in a newsletter (a free service) and has sold, if you have other, similar items for sale in your shop it is highly likely that those items will be among the suggestions automatically offered on the Search page when a buyer clicks on it. Please note that items are randomly chosen for newsletters by Ruby Lane staff based on the theme(s) of each newsletter, as well as the quality of each item and photo.

Preview Group of Shops
Before launching these updates we asked a test group of shop owners to preview them for us, and give us their candid feedback. We did indeed make a significant number of changes based on the excellent, thoughtful shop suggestions we received. We want to thank all shops who participated in the preview.

We're excited about these new updates, and we hope you are, too. While change is not always easy, we at Ruby Lane feel that updates such as these are a necessary part of delivering a dynamic, ever-evolving e-commerce site.

As always, if you have questions, or if we can be of assistance at any time, we invite you to contact Ruby Lane Customer Support.

Team Ruby Lane

Check your shop email for a copy of the above notice.

If anyone has questions, let me know.

Carol

Tags: Carol Augustine, Online Antiques Mall, Photos, Ruby Lane, picture cropping, rubylane

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by San Marcos Art Glass on June 1, 2012 at 12:11am

I just read the link, but don't see how it fits into the format change. Of course, not much information was provided on specifics of the new Google shopping.

Permalink Reply by TheVintageAdvantage on June 1, 2012 at 12:20am

- My thoughts exactly. You can also add Trocadero, Tias, GoAntiques, and even eBay to your list. They all present their sellers' offerings in portrait and landscape photo formats, as well as include full descriptive titles, not partial titles. We all work very hard to present our items for maximum buyer attention and appeal, and now it seems our presentations are being minimalized and forced into a context that does not necessarily apply to our listings. As I commented earlier on this matter:
So now our photos will be cropped, appear bloated and amateurishly large (which exaggerates any flaws and makes everything on the page look anything but uniform), and will have unsophisticated looking rounded corners? Our descriptive titles also will be cropped and trail off into ellipses? And any merchandise that is not square by nature or design, like vases, pottery, sculptures, books, et al., will be chopped in half in their initial presentation photos? Just doesn't sound right to me for attracting customers and optimum sales. RL has an excellent presence and reputation in the online marketplace. Why change what is already working well and to everyone's (sellers and buyers) advantage? I have looked at several other online antique malls and found none who present their photos or title descriptions in this new manner. What or who exactly is RL citing for these seemingly inexplicable changes, in order to "stay current with online shopping trends"??? I join the others who are very disappointed with this sudden turn of events....

San Marcos Art Glass said:

I just checked some of the top auction houses sites and saw they had landscape and portrait pictures of the things offered. They did not try to fit these expensive pieces into a little square box. What industry standard are we trying to adopt? Certainly not those used by Sotheby's, Rago Arts, or Antique Helper. We really need to decide if we want a gallery view that looks all neat and nice, or if we want to showcase our items. Having a lot of background goes against the basic rules of photography.

Do you think that the three auction houses are going to change their formatting style so they can have a neater gallery view? Probably not, because they realize that potential bidders have a search image when they go hunting. The first picture has to capture the customer and pull them in. Square does not fit the needs of most things. Jewelry maybe, but other things no.

Permalink Reply by San Marcos Art Glass on June 1, 2012 at 12:43am

I checked some retail store sites. They were uniform within a category -- portrait for clothes, almost square for shoes, square for jewelry, landscape for cars. It seems pretty consistent right now. Is everyone going to change to square? I guess I need to know who we are supposed to be keeping up with in adopting this new standard.

Permalink Reply by Shari Basoff on June 1, 2012 at 12:50am

Nope the jewelry does not have a leg up over other kinds of inventory. I turned on today and not the thrill it used to be! Only around 40 percent of my jewelry shots are already good to go on this monster enlargement. Played with a few and while drop and drag, cropping is fairly intuitive STILL a pain in the ass. My biggest concern is the descriptions being cut off. This feels like the disaster it is waiting to happen like it or not. I don't like it at all. Seems like a major disadvantage. I agree that our shops where not broken, in fact I thought they where elegant and certainly a notch above. So much has gone on these past couple of years and so much has gone wrong. I have to question the powers that be in these broad sweeping and so far not well thought out decisions. Focus all this energy into advertising instead. I think a few well placed TV ads would head all of us in a profit direction. This newest change has me very concerned indeed.

Permalink Reply by TheVintageAdvantage on June 1, 2012 at 3:51am

Apparently conformity now takes precedence over class, quality, and being a cut above. For those of us whose Ruby Lane shops are our livelihood, I am very much concerned what impact these limiting format changes will have in attracting buyers and, ultimately, in promoting sales.

Permalink Reply by Graceful Antiques on June 1, 2012 at 5:44am

I just read the link, but don't see how it fits into the format change. Of course, not much information was provided on specifics of the new Google shopping.

-----

The timeline fits. Posted Ecommerce link Suzy mentioned to help explain it a bit more.

The picture thing may help in compliancy somehow.

Permalink Reply by Antik Avenue on June 1, 2012 at 7:20am

Hi Marni, I looked at your photo and it really looks good. I always thought the 1024 was a little small but your 720 looks good. Also, good point that only the first pic is the one that requrires the square crop. I have to go back to my photos and try it--when I resized the photo and squared it, the pic looked squatty. There must be a better way than what I'm doing. Your photos look great. Anita

Marni Bakst said:

Some ramblings....

This only affects the first photo, so if the first (thumbnail) picture is presented in a square format, there will be no cropping... this has now been confirmed by CS.

I edited the first pic on this listing to a square format to be only 720 x 720 and I think it looks fine. The resolution is probably more important for Web presentation, and I think 72 is what's recommended. There is free software, GIMP, I think, that can help you create a square pic. http://www.rubylane.com/item/386639-RL-926/Large-Signed-Native-Amer... Or if you're on a MAC, iPhoto can do it, or of course Photoshop... probably any photo editing program. It really helps to get a little knowledge regarding digital photography, after all, it's not rocket science.

I've often used an interesting detail as my first photo; I think it invites further investigation. However, I do think it would help to add a second line of text so more of the title is visible. So now I'm going through my items and either choosing a different pic or editing the thumbnail into a square format. There are a very few that I think I will need to replace with one new photo.

I think uniform size does give a more professional presentation. I always present my photos in the same width, although the height varies, it just makes everything look more together and generates confidence... which is really in every shop's interest in the long run.

Yeah, I'm not crazy about the rounded corners, but I'd bet it was done to visually coordinate with the RL 'arch' logo that appears on the top left corner of every page.

Again, this ONLY affects the first photo, the others can be presented as you wish.

I do think, however, that some shops had a heads -up while most of us are now scrambling. For example, I'd bet Easterbelle's was a test case... all their items were square on day one.

One question... will the featuring pages use the new format... lane featuring and front page?

Permalink Reply by CheriShops - Admin on June 1, 2012 at 7:21am

The Google change is to get people to pay to be in shopping...I don't see how any of the RL changes have anything to do with Google...Google is not saying we will include you free if you have cropped pictures!

Permalink Reply by San Marcos Art Glass on June 1, 2012 at 9:48am

One thing that is coming out to me as I read all the messages is that merchants who are normally optimistic and don't complain about things are saying no to this change. I hope that RL listens, encourages all the merchants to see what their shop looks like with the option on, then polls the merchants about whether to make this change or not. The gallery picture is the most important one for pulling people in. Unless there is a compelling reason to make this change that I am unaware of, I vote no to eliminating portrait and landscape gallery shots.

Permalink Reply by Pearl's Parlor on June 1, 2012 at 3:51pm

While I do like the larger photos in gallery, I don't like the impending change to square off every photo. I did voice my opinion in an email to Ruby Lane also. There must be a reason that every camera has both a portrait and landscape setting - not just one square setting. Maybe sellers that are also unhappy with this change should email Ruby Lane.

Permalink Reply by Fortune Gallery of Vintage on June 1, 2012 at 10:47pm

I went to RL's section about taking good pictures; they suggest 1024 pixels x 1024 pixels. That is really large. But, then farther down in the article it says that if the picture is over 75k in size, it is probably too large. So, I did some playing around in my photo image program (Ulead PhotoImpact X3). A fairly large sized photo at 744 pixels x 744 pixels, with 72 resolution, comes out to be 1622 kb. So, if I am reading all of this stuff right, I'm doing something wrong and I don't know what? I have been working with digital photos for 12 years & this is the first time I feel really confused. :) Any suggestions?

I like the larger sized photos in search, but the cropping is not the best way to handle this. When I look at some of my pics, I know I will have to re-do some of them. That is a pain in the ____!

Permalink Reply by Joel Gilgoff on June 2, 2012 at 10:53am

Rubylane could solve the whole problem by cropping the images square - but not removing any of the image. In other words - for an image that is currently rectangular they could make it into a square by adding a border to the image on the shorter sides.

This would be an easy fix - and not disrupt all of the 200o plus shops and their hundreds of thousands of images. If they do not take this approach I'm afraid the site will be a disaster.

Why do we need square images anyway? Somehow Facebook and ever other photo sharing site takes any shape image. I wish that the powers in charge of RubyLane would reevaluate their decision to force all of their users to re-post their images.