I recently sent several e-mails to Ghostscripter.com's support e-mail but am not getting any responses. Does anyone know what's going on there? It looks like they recently introduced some new software packages on their site, and they are supposed to be working out the bugs in their newest Amazon Shop script. They have been pretty responsive in the past, but I can't get a reply from them lately.
I sent email about two weeks ago asking on the status of version 5.0. Have not heard anything back. I'm adding quite a few amazon stores this month in preparation for Christmas and was hoping to use the newest version. How are your stores coming along?
I was trying to set up a store selling how-to books and DVDs using custom categories with version 4 and ran into several bugs. At first I was getting quick responses and they were actively fixing the bugs, but now I am not getting any response. I can understand an unwillingness to fix issues related to version 4, but I don't have a clue as to when version 5 will be ready. Version 5 recently went from beta 1 to beta 3. They may be focused on fixing the issues there. It looks like they recently added some new software offerings to their site, so at least they are still alive. They could save a whole lot of time on support issues if they got their forum up and running. Most companies that offer Amazon scripts have pretty active forums and you can learn a lot from them. I do have one Amazon store up, but it does not use the Amazon Shop script. It does, however, contain the same Amazon-related issues, such as an overabundance of obsolete products and missing prices, like most Amazon stores. The good news is that it started pulling in money the first week it was up. If they can fix those issues with version 5, they will have a winner. If I get some time I will set up version 5 to see how well it works.
I grabbed beta 3 last night and installed it on a test server. The products I saw that concered me had "This product isn't available by this merchant." for the estimated time of delivery, but also has the third party "buy used" option (which is a very warm welcome - higher percentage for 3rd party sales). Even though some were not "used" but were simply available directly from the vendor, such as Bose. In 4.x, Bose products were not available for sale by Amazon directly, but through their third party connection which 4.x didn't seem to support. When I tested, I could order a Bose Wave Radio. So this is somewhat good news. I will just have to re-word the "not available from this merchant" wording. As far as 4.x goes, I spent a good deal of time in the code trying to find a way to isolate products with no prices. The code is buried deep and complex IMO. It would have to be rewritten such that it continues to pull data from Amazon past the normal number of products it displays on the page, and add only products to an array that have prices, until it meets the page limit, then display them. I'm pretty good at working with others code to make modifications, but it was outside my realm of comfort. An alternative you can do here, which I did, to make some extra money. You can test for whether the product says "N/A" or is "0" or null and if so, insert your adsense code. I have five sites up with 4.x right now, and if a product isn't available, I insert adsense code dynamically. And it does make a few bucks per day, sometimes more. If that's something you want to explore, would be happy to help you get it in place.
I have not yet seen anyone who offers an Amazon script that has cracked the issue of obsolete products, though several say that they are working on it. Your method using an array should work, but would probably require multiple browse requests. For some browses, all 10 listings displayed are obsolete or out of stock. This is something that really should be handled by Amazon through a filter in the request. I have not yet looked at the code on beta 3, but I have downloaded it. It sounds like the company has been taken over by a new group. Perhaps Craig sold the company to them. The complex code could be related to the complexity of the issues, or it could be related to a new group of code monkeys who write cryptic code. Sometimes you just need to get a new feature to work, and then you clean up and simplify the code on the final pass. Either way, I'm looking forward to seeing version 5 come out of beta. I have offered to set up the final beta using one of my domains and work with them through the debugging. Still no response. Hope they are spending their time trying to punch this one out quickly.