Town Hall Wrap Up!

Thank you to everyone who came to our first-ever Virtual Town Hall!

We wanted to take this hour-long opportunity to give publishers and creators the chance to provide their feedback but we understand that not everyone could make it.

[embed]Check out the above video from YouTube!

Here is the wrap-up if you can’t watch the one-hour video!

Ben Ayers-Kerr’s (Product Designer / Manager) Opening Comments

• Ben mentions that the new site will be able to adapt much quicker. We will be able to respond to feedback more and quickly and new systems integrated.
• We are still a bit far off to deliver publisher tool previews in the redesign and we appreciate everyone’s patience.
• OBS sites will not lose authenticity or recognizability.
• DriveThruRPG.com will have the preview site available to give feedback.

The little green friend in the right-hand corner is where you can submit feedback! Ad-blockers do not like our little green friend.

The type of feedback that isn’t helpful to the team are comments such as, “I don’t like it” or “It’s not for me”. The best type of feedback is mentioning the difficulty or complexity of a process or trying to navigate the site. Be detailed, please!

• Ben is being very conscious of accessibility needs.
• New Publisher Tools previews from Ben will be available in the DriveThruRPG Discord as well.
• We have removed the featured reviewers from the site and plan to implement featured news sites and reviewers in the new site.

Feedback and Questions

Q: “Is there any discussion combining Wargame Vault with DriveThruRPG?” A: Wargame Vault and DriveThruRPG are two separate entities and so we want to keep the audiences and branding separated much like our other family of sites.

Q: “Can you make the newsletter in RSS feeds?” A: At the moment, not a priority on the current site. Whenever we can get to it on the new site design, it’ll be easier to implement.

Q: “Any plans to add more product photos or social proof?” A: On the current site, there are no limitations on the number of photos. We encourage publishers to use the new image tool. Sometimes, image hosting sites do not play nicely with our site, and using the new tool is highly recommended. On the new site, there will be a carousel available under the main thumbnail of the listing where you can include photos, audio, and video. At first, we are only using photos you have in your description but eventually, you’ll be able to have a completely independent gallery separate from the images in your description. Ben states that star ratings don’t explain how the customer experienced the product well. Currently, the site suggests writing a description. It would be very easy for us to add a photograph option to attach to your review. This is still currently in discussion.

Q: “Are there any plans to update the website to be more mobile-friendly?” A: The new website currently is extremely mobile-friendly. While the preview is not available on mobile yet, Ben will make sure to implement it for mobile. If you resize your window, it will adapt to smaller screens with a limit. The only caveat is that there are certain publisher tools that we cannot make mobile-friendly while preserving a quality experience. Customers can have a full mobile-friendly experience, but publishers will have some limitations.

Q: “Are there more Kickstarter-friendly features in the future?” A: There are features coming on the new site that we cannot discuss quite yet.

Q: “Is there a preview of the sales page ready yet?” A: Very soon.

Feedback: “Etsy sends out e-mails to customers to review.” A: We do, currently, have a notification system of when a customer signs into their account. Edit after broadcast: With GDPR, it’s a little difficult for us to send e-mails to customers but we will review that feedback with our representative.

Q: “Can you implement a feature where the publisher can see the current shipping prices?” A: We are discussing this for the current site and how to implement it. As far as Ben knows for the new site, we are going in the direction where that could hypothetically work well. It depends on the shopping cart’s process.

Q: “Can publishers be allowed to review other publisher products?” A: In the past, we allowed publishers to rate one another. The problem we ran into was publishers high-rated themselves or negatively rate their ‘competition’. We wrote so many publishers that we had to turn off the option. We would love to hear your thoughts and ideas on how we can implement a fair system or a system that won’t be abused as it has in the past.

Q: “An easier way to search my order history to check backer orders?” A: On the current site, there is not currently a way to do this quickly. On the new site, it is a piece that Ben and his team are trying to implement to search off unique keywords and information to filter down to see specific results.

Q: “Making English the default language setting to just see English titles?” A: Account settings in the new site will be available for customers to select from a preset of languages. This is still in discussion with the new site team.

Brian and Meredith note that the print-on-demand books and print-on-demand cards are from two different printers. Brian is currently, as of April 2021, still searching for an international card printer to lower international costs.

Feedback: “Etsy sends a request to review inside the e-mail.” A: The only caveat is some e-mail providers might not like links in the e-mail. Ben will look into it for options and ways to increase reviews while talking with our GDPR representative.

Q: “What the timeline for the new site?” A: Unsure, but the team will keep you appraised with a better timeline once they have it.

Q: “Can you remove the receipt in comp copies for print on demand?” A: Currently, it’s up to the printer. We can ask them, but it’s entirely up to them if they would allow that. Brian and Meredith will inquire.

More feedback to consider: One-click order. Conversion rates. SEO search. Ordering the deck with a deck box mandates. Ways to search for old orders.