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

1 member likes this

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Fortune Gallery of Vintage on June 6, 2012 at 3:29pm

Carol at Ruby Lane, if you have read thru this thread, you know that many of us are confused and need more help and instruction in this new picture sizing. Could you please suggest to the powers that be, that they need to put together a video for youtube and more description in the information about the new photo stuff. There are many more sellers (not on this board) that are probably struggling with the new format just like we are.

Thanks, Linda

Permalink Reply by The Old Grey Mare on June 6, 2012 at 4:33pm

Linda, I wouldn't mind seeing some more information either. I've taken pictures today and my programs do have an option for square. Unfortunately, what I've photographed is oblong, or horizontal in shape and while I've been playing with it for hours, in both Photo Shop and Picassa, I can't crop it to where it shows an understandable image, it's impossible to figure out what I'm selling without going through to the description. It's all very well and good to tell us what we are now required to do, but it would help quite a bit if they told us exactly how to do it. How to change the good, well cropped photographs that we have now, and make them just as excellent in the new square format. It's just not a square world, not everything fits into a square. At this point, when it becomes mandatory next year, I imagine we will have large pictures with rounded corners, of lots of things that are unrecognizable from those pictures.....

Permalink Reply by TheVintageAdvantage on June 6, 2012 at 9:26pm

Just an interesting point to note, amid all this new format brouhaha: When looking at the Grid View of the "Shopping" category in Google Search, one finds photos of individual items in all formats, both portrait and landscape, with squared edges, and complete descriptive titles, along with price. If you hover over the photos, you also get the site where item appears. If you choose the List View, one also finds photos of items in both portrait and landscape format, with squared edges, complete descriptive titles, partial descriptive text, price, and site where item appears. What's good for the Google, should be good for....?

Permalink Reply by The Antique Chasers on June 29, 2012 at 5:48pm

Hi! I have turned mine on and have started making some changes by using the cropping tools. Took a while to figurine out how they work, but they are impressive. However, some of the longer items I could not change because they are more rectangle than square. This is a problem that I hope RL will look into & maybe, can make some changes. I have a little over 800 items, however, some have a lot more than that and this is a problem that I am worried about! Besides taking & editing all my pictures with my camera, will I also have to edit them again once on RL? This part does not impress me at all! I live on the computer enough as it is already! Debbie

Permalink Reply by Ornaments on June 29, 2012 at 9:06pm

I have to say I really do like the cropping tool in RL it is a nice addition. I actually like the results better than when I crop photos using my photo editing software. The only problem that I see is that the cropped version now only exists on RL so if I want it for some other purpose (my Facebook page for example) I don't have the cropped version. I wonder if there would be some way we could save the cropped images locally?

Permalink Reply by The Antique Chasers on July 5, 2012 at 5:07pm

Hi, I have started square cropping my pictures already on RL using the RL tools under the modify. I used the 45 degree angle when the item is too big, wide or long. I like how the picture itself turns out usually & I only crop the 1st or main picture. However, that picture, a lot of the times, comes out a lot smaller & when it is featured in my shop, looks very tiny & funny looking. What could I have done wrong or could do different? Help! Debbie

Permalink Reply by The Antique Chasers on July 6, 2012 at 4:24pm

The Antique Chasers said:

Hi, I have started square cropping my pictures already on RL using the RL tools under the modify. I used the 45 degree angle when the item is too big, wide or long. I like how the picture itself turns out usually & I only crop the 1st or main picture. However, that picture, a lot of the times, comes out a lot smaller & when it is featured in my shop, looks very tiny & funny looking. What could I have done wrong or could do different? Help! Debbie

Hi AGain! Yesterday I did some cropping using the new tools! I wound up using the 45 degree angle & then cropping the picture & saving them. However, they show up at a angle. Still trying to figure out how to use these tools! My shop is beginning to look a little funny! I have already removed a few items that the pictures were either too small, etc. At this point, I am getting a little frustrated! Anyone have any ideas? Thanks! Debbie

Permalink Reply by Marni Bakst on July 10, 2012 at 6:35pm

Antique Chasers,

The 45 degree tool is for rotating an image. To crop, use the crop tool (looks like a little scissors).

1. Click on the crop tool

2. Check the 'set aspect ratio to square' box if you want a square image.

3. Click and drag to select the portion of the image you want to keep, it will always be a square since you have selected the 'set aspect ratio to square' box.

4. You can adjust your chosen square by clicking and dragging on any of the tiny square points at the corners or borders of the selection, and you can move the entire selected square around by clicking and dragging it.

5. Once you have the square cropped selection where you want it, click on 'Save Cropped Image'.

Permalink Reply by Graceful Antiques on July 10, 2012 at 7:30pm

http://blog.rubylane.com/Shop-Video-How-to-Create-Square-Photos

Ruby Lane blog has a helpful video about this now.

Assuming it is ok to put this link here. Sandy

Permalink Reply by The Antique Chasers on July 12, 2012 at 10:57am

Thank you both for the great information! I checked it out & used it on most of my photos! A few I will either have to retake or just remove, depending on how long I have had the item in my shop! I do like the results a lot! Thanks so much, again! Take Care!

Permalink Reply by Ruby Lane on July 12, 2012 at 2:41pm

Hi folks,

I apologize for the late response. If you have not viewed Helen's video mentioned above, please do, it is an excellent video. Also, Ruby Lane has a video in the How-to Video section located in the Relax section - Tips for Taking and Editing Item Photos for the Auto-cropping Feature ---- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAANPjhqlm4

Carol

Permalink Reply by Linda Champney on November 4, 2012 at 3:28pm

Helen's video is good, but it does not help those of us who have many items on Ruby Lane. I wondered what the heck was going on and also realized I will have to go back and rephotograph or re-crop hundreds of items. If I want every thumbnail to be in the square photograph, multiply those 100s by an average of three. As Helen pointed out, there are some items like the vase she showed, that won't conform regardless. While I've enjoyed some success on Ruby Lane, the individuals there seems to lack the technical experience to fully understand the impact this decision has. It won't be long before I find another venue, I'm afraid, if these types of ridiculous changes continue.