Hello, everybody!

We’ve been lucky to have several users help out with testing commissions, and we’ve gotten some great feedback so far. We’ll likely get some more in the near future with our new batch of testers, but I wanted to give a quick rundown of how testing is going.

The Good

It seems like most of the core features are working well. Here’s what’s stood out:

• Automatic Payments. Sellers are automatically paid when commissions are finished, and this system has mostly gone well. The payments go out immediately when everything is reviewed and approved by the buyer (or, if no review happens, a week after being finished by the seller). This gives sellers a reliable time frame to receive payments.
• Smooth Process. The statuses in the commission tool are easy to follow. The biggest thing I’d want is for someone who uses the site to be able to go through the process without any struggles on their first try. We’re pretty close to that goal.
• File Uploads. References and any other files can be uploaded to the site, and it’s been helpful to have those organized. We did have an issue where the site didn’t display the correct user who uploaded a file; that’s fixed and appears to be working correctly now.

The Not-So-Good

• Finding How to Edit Price Sheets. There’s not currently a simple place to edit these right now, and it can be frustrating to find that. We’ve been sending links to testers, but we’ll want to make that super visible with future updates.
• Payments Occasionally Break. Occasionally, a payment doesn’t go through. This is sometimes because of issues with the user account; the sellers need to have their registered email the same as their PayPal. Luckily, we have staff ready to send out payments that were missed during the testing phase.
• Little Seller Visibility. It can be difficult to find who is open for commissions; we have a community commissions page, but that’s about it. Sellers have generally needed to talk to their own communities for testing purposes. We’ll be doing a great amount of work to make sellers more visible, both on FN and on other sites (no spoilers).

The Future

• Flexibility. The system is fairly straightforward – open for commissions, users request, and you decide on a price. However, auctions and YCH commissions are huge! We’re looking into what it would take to make those work.
• Price Sheet Portfolios. Since sellers already have a good amount of work already uploaded to the site, it makes sense to allow them to create a portfolio from their existing gallery. This is a unique benefit we have for being a gallery and commission site; we have other plans to make use of the gallery, as well.
• Searchable Advertisements. Most sellers manage to get customers by displaying their work, but the current browsing system just uses seller icons. We want to make visually intriguing spaces that will encourage potential buyers to click and browse your work.

We’re happy with how things are going so far. The end of the year is going to be a bit quieter development-wise, but once the holidays are past, we’re going to do a big push to roll out these major features. We’ll definitely want more testers as time goes on, so if you ever feel like jumping in, send us a PM on Twitter.

Thank you all for your support!

Digby