THS Web Shop

[Akiba]

Hi guys.

Seeing as how we’ll be moving into the space sooner than we think, I wanted to get a headstart on things and get the THS webshop rolling. The sooner we have the webshop infrastructure set up, the sooner we can sell stuff to make generate funds for the group. I think it’s going to be important because it’s the only way we can solicit funds from an international audience, rather than trying to appeal to a local one.

 

I put together a sample THS webshop based on Zencart. I tried to maintain a similar color scheme to the THS website and also did a few CSS and PHP tweaks to pretty things up. Unfortunately, the default install is pretty ugly. The shop is currently populated with dummy items and categories from the Zencart install, but it should be enough to get a general feel of how things would fit together. If anyone is good with styling web pages/navigation/icons/logos, then let me know. For Zencart, it will require a bit of PHP and CSS to modify the look and feel of pages.

 

Also, let me know if it’s so ugly it hurts your eyes or if the colors make you sick so I can try out different mods. Unfortunately, my powers of styling and aesthetic are mostly limited to the electronics/embedded domain. Once we can get the site’s styling out of the way, then we can upload it to the THS main site and start on the Paypal integration. It would also be nice to do credit card processing as well, but we’d need a bank account, merchant account, and probably some type of business business status (KK, etc) or Japanese business license(?).

 

Anyways, the main goal right now is to get it functional, put it up on the main site, and integrate it with payment gateways.

Also, after all this is over, I’m thinking to teach a workshop on how people can set up their own webshops and sell things online.

 

The alpha webshop is on my test site:

http://www.sukoshiurusai.com/ths_shop

 

Akiba

FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Project

http://www.freaklabs.org

 

[Akiba]

BTW, I haven’t styled the categories and products pages yet. They’re still pretty ugly.

[MRE]

Looks good so far..

[Kyle Hasegawa]

A few things to consider before we jump in to this solution.

1. How do we plan to handle payments? Amazon, Google, Paypal, Other?
2. SSL is a must if any personal information will be sent through our site (as opposed to proxied through a payment company).
   
3. Disintegration with the main site feels kludgy.  Good integration is non-trivial.
   
4. Have we considered hosted e-commerce solutions like Amazon, Yahoo etc?
   

Kyle

[Akiba]

Hey Kyle.

See below for responses to the questions:

 

 

Akiba

FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Project

http://www.freaklabs.org

From: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com [mailto:tokyohac...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Kyle Hasegawa
Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 5:13 PM
To: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: THS Web Shop

 

A few things to consider before we jump in to this solution.

1. How do we plan to handle payments? Amazon, Google, Paypal, Other?

[AKB] We’ll probably end up using Paypal initially since it’s widely used and can handle credit cards kind of. Ideally, we’d be getting a merchant account and the credit card transaction would just get directly deposited into a bank account that we would have. Unfortunately we’re just a group of people and not a recognized organization (ie: nonprofit, KK, etc) so I don’t know how the bank account and merchant account situation is.

2. SSL is a must if any personal information will be sent through our site (as opposed to proxied through a payment company).

[AKB] Yes, SSL is no problem and we just need to apply for a certificate. This is standard for eCommerce and is handled in Zencart and just about any other serious ecommerce package.

3. Disintegration with the main site feels kludgy.  Good integration is non-trivial.

[AKB] Integration will be difficult if we want to do it. I think it’s acceptable that the shop isn’t fully integrated into the Drupal site. Although it would be nice, I don’t think it’d be deterrent from people using the shop if they wanted to buy something. In regards to styling, then it would be nice if someone good at styling can give the shop the same look and feel as the main site.

4. Have we considered hosted e-commerce solutions like Amazon, Yahoo etc?

[AKB] If you can get more information on a hosted service, that would be great. I didn’t find much about Amazon’s hosting service, but it seems like it’d be somewhat akin to an eBay store. A separate storefront on your own domain is much better because over time, you can build up search engine juice and your less vulnerable to the whims of the provider (ebay, Amazon). I  did check out Yahoo’s ecommerce solution. It doesn’t provide much benefit over using an open source tool since you still need to design and style the pages, apply for a merchant account, integrate with a payment gateway, and get the SSL certificate. The only real benefit they provide is that they host the site for you and you can go through them for the merch acct and SSL certificate, at a markup of course.

Kyle

[Janos]

I added my comments inline after Akiba's.

1. How do we plan to handle payments? Amazon, Google, Paypal,

Other?

[AKB] We'll probably end up using Paypal initially since it's widely
used
and can handle credit cards kind of. Ideally, we'd be getting a
merchant
account and the credit card transaction would just get directly
deposited
into a bank account that we would have. Unfortunately we're just a
group of
people and not a recognized organization (ie: nonprofit, KK, etc) so I
don't
know how the bank account and merchant account situation is.

[Janos] I'm for open-source eCommerce solutions. If we approach the
problem from that direction, then handling payments will depend on
what the software supports. Anybody has setup eCommerce sites before?
They should comment, or we should read up on Zencart or osCommerce and
learn how they handle payments.

2. SSL is a must if any personal information will be sent through

our
site (as opposed to proxied through a payment company).

[AKB] Yes, SSL is no problem and we just need to apply for a
certificate.
This is standard for eCommerce and is handled in Zencart and just
about any
other serious ecommerce package.

[Janos] Of course SSL is a must. Any eCommerce solution without
support for that is trash. Does our web hosting support SSL though?
Usually it's a lot of extra cost.

3. Disintegration with the main site feels kludgy. Good

integration is
non-trivial.

[AKB] Integration will be difficult if we want to do it. I think it's
acceptable that the shop isn't fully integrated into the Drupal site.
Although it would be nice, I don't think it'd be deterrent from people
using
the shop if they wanted to buy something. In regards to styling, then
it
would be nice if someone good at styling can give the shop the same
look and
feel as the main site.

[Janos] Yeah I think our best option is matching themes.

4. Have we considered hosted e-commerce solutions like Amazon,

Yahoo
etc?

[AKB] If you can get more information on a hosted service, that would
be
great. I didn't find much about Amazon's hosting service, but it seems
like
it'd be somewhat akin to an eBay store. A separate storefront on your
own
domain is much better because over time, you can build up search
engine
juice and your less vulnerable to the whims of the provider (ebay,
Amazon).
I did check out Yahoo's ecommerce solution. It doesn't provide much
benefit
over using an open source tool since you still need to design and
style the
pages, apply for a merchant account, integrate with a payment gateway,
and
get the SSL certificate. The only real benefit they provide is that
they
host the site for you and you can go through them for the merch acct
and SSL
certificate, at a markup of course.

[Janos] I really think we'll benefit from hosting ourselves an open-
source solution. I'm not sure which is best, or which is best *for
us*. Perhaps we should look around a bit.

[Akiba]

I'm currently using ZenCart to make the site which is a popular solution that's used by adafruit and Sparkfun. I’m fairly proficient in it and basically the main difficulty is configuring it properly, ie: tax regions, graduated shipping charges via EMS, currencies, etc… It has built in support for SSL however we would need to enable SSL on the Apache server by uncommenting mod_ssl in the conf file on the THS server. Here’s an article that describes how to do it:

http://www.sitepoint.com/article/securing-apache-2-server-ssl/

 

If it’s a lot of work, then I can have the site hosted on my ISP account which supports SSL as well.

 

Regarding hosting it through a full service provider like Yahoo, Amazon, Ebay, I would say that it won’t benefit us too much. We would still need to configure shipping, taxes, etc and would also need to still do all the styling, obtain SSL certs, apply for merchant accounts, and pay for a payment gateway. In short, the main benefit is that they host the site and provide a single point where you can do all of that. It’s pretty much for non-tech people that have absolutely no clue how to start a shop, but want to start a shop.

 

There’s quite a bit of infrastructure needed, but I’m planning on keeping everyone informed about how things progress. I think it’s going to be interesting to a lot of people in THS about how to set up their own webshop. Eventually, after we get some experience running it, including the backend operations which are a PITA (packaging, shipping, accounting), then it’s possible we can have a workshop/s about the topic. Every hacker should have a side source of income so that they can work on interesting projects. Jobs are just so 20^th century (thanks for the great line, Janos).

 

Akiba

FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Project

http://www.freaklabs.org

 

-----Original Message-----
From: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com [mailto:tokyohac...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Janos
Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2009 10:02 AM
To: TokyoHackerSpace
Subject: Re: THS Web Shop

 

 

I added my comments inline after Akiba's.

[Kyle Hasegawa]

On 7/30/2009 10:02 AM, Janos wrote:

> 2. SSL is a must if any personal information will be sent through
> our
> site (as opposed to proxied through a payment company).
>
> [AKB] Yes, SSL is no problem and we just need to apply for a
> certificate.
> This is standard for eCommerce and is handled in Zencart and just
> about any
> other serious ecommerce package.
>
> [Janos] Of course SSL is a must. Any eCommerce solution without
> support for that is trash. Does our web hosting support SSL though?
> Usually it's a lot of extra cost.
>

Yep, SSL requires a dedicated IP as opposed to cheaper name-based
virtual hosting. http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/ssl/ssl_faq.html#vhosts
Comodo offers relatively cheap SSL certs whose root certs are in most
major browsers.

However, payment companies should be able to collect all the order info
for us in which case our domain won't need SSL.

[Akiba]

Just a quick note, our site would never handle any actual payment transactions. As soon as the checkout button on the shopping cart is pushed, the site will transition to a payment gateway and the payment transaction is handled by the payment provider (ie: Authenticate). The main purpose of our site is just to collect information on what the customer wants to buy and give the information and pricing details to the payment provider. I believe it’s also illegal to run a site that stores the credit card info unless you have some type of special security designation.

 

Akiba

FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Project

http://www.freaklabs.org

size=3 face="Times New Roman">

[Kyle Hasegawa]

On 7/30/2009 10:26 AM, Akiba wrote:

 

Regarding hosting it through a full service provider like Yahoo, Amazon, Ebay, I would say that it won’t benefit us too much. We would still need to configure shipping, taxes, etc and would also need to still do all the styling, obtain SSL certs, apply for merchant accounts, and pay for a payment gateway. In short, the main benefit is that they host the site and provide a single point where you can do all of that. It’s pretty much for non-tech people that have absolutely no clue how to start a shop, but want to start a shop.

Your arguments hold up well from the technical side but we must also examine the consumer's perspective.

There's a considerable sense of confidence, false though it may be, when purchasers see a domain like Amazon, Yahoo or even eBay in the address bar.  Sure, the actual seller's credebility may be crap but most online shoppers still feel more comforfortable with those sites than mom & pop webshops even if the payment goes through a reputable third party.

There's also the added benefit of having THS products listed on those site's product index .  For instnace, I hear Amazon's "similar products" and "customer's who bought *** also bought ***" links generate a lot of revenue.

[Edward Middleton]

The other question is how you are planning on handling the logistics.
i.e. purchase from wholesaler/manufacturer, storage, packing, sending.
Obviously it will depend on the volume and what you are planning to
sell, but for some products it is possible to have almost all the
logistics carried out by Amazon.

Edward

[H. Fukushima]

Hello,

I work at a comparison shopping engine which basically aggregates
B2C services. I've been involved more in the sales/marketing and
SEO/SEM side of things so the engineering part is not so much
of my specialty.

BUT, I do understand the basic function and fundamentals of B2C
systems as I've been doing business alliances with almost every major
shopping mall, shopping cart company and payment service ASP's
in Japan.

I am going to comment inline.

>1. How do we plan to handle payments? Amazon, Google, Paypal,
Other?

[Hidetaka]
There are multiple solutions for credit payment and other payment
methods and Zeus is a company that I can come up with that does
Zencart and osCommerce. http://www.cardservice.co.jp/index.html
Sorry that the site is in Japanese but they also do bank transfers.
There are a lot of other companies that do the payment ASP with
credit card and banks, that also comply with Zencart and osCommerce.
As for a bank account, someone who will take care of the eCommerce
side that will be representative of the shopping site can create a personal
bank account. Online banks like JapanNet or Ebank are easy places to
create accounts and work well with payment ASP's over here. Don't
know about paypal as it isn't really popularly used domestically in Japan.
Japanese people that use paypal basically only use it to shop from
overseas B2C sites. BUT this will be needed for people buying from
us that are overseas customers. Who will be buying our Tokyo
Hackerspace stuff?

> 2. SSL is a must if any personal information will be sent through
our
site (as opposed to proxied through a payment company).

[Hidetaka]
SSL certification is also provided by multiple companies
now. Verisign would be the most widely used and pricey? there are
other options. Globalsign(GMO), Secom Trust(SECOM), Thawte
whatever cheap is good I guess. They only provide certification
but it is important that customers are sending info through SSL.
Web hosting is currently provided from the battleshed? Use of
the SSL port (443?) and getting hosting for the cart system is
something we consult with the battleshed master. ; )

3. Disintegration with the main site feels kludgy. Good
integration is
non-trivial.

[Hidetaka]
There are multiple ways to do this. You can embed
the HTML code within a page, like using an <iframe>(which I hate)
or we can just set a matching theme and design the navigations to
make them look seamless. Not such a big issue.

>4. Have we considered hosted e-commerce solutions like Amazon,
Yahoo
etc?

[Hidetaka]
Not so hot about using Amazon's service b/c it only makes it look
like amazon is selling it (at least that's the way it looks over here
for the Japanese merchants), but using places like Amazon (or
Yahoo / Rakuten) would mean great coverage of a certain
market and packaged marketing solutions to access many
people. They all work as seperate systems thus multiplying
workload such as inventory control and order processes.

Also another quick way to start selling online would be using
auction services. eBay for overseas and Yahoo Auctions for
the Japanese market. Quick and easy and may be a good
temporary solution. Also a good test to check how big the
demand is for whatever we are selling.

One thing I'd like to add.
We need to define where our customer is. This is to figure out
out how we charge shipping costs at the time of purchase.
The customer is always worried about how shipping costs
will be and we will be needing to figure out how we handle
logistics which will be a large part of the operation.

.....OK. I need to go back to work now ; )

Hidetaka

[Akiba]

I think one of the more interesting things about setting up a THS shop in Tokyo, or any shop for that matter, is that you have a huge warehouse in the form of Akihabara. Of course this is referring to a geek-based shop.

 

The most difficult thing that webshops face is stocking inventory since there's a risk involved that you won't be able to sell product. Since we don't need to stock much inventory and can experiment with different products, then I'd say that the risk of dead stock is reduced quite a bit. You don't need to carry much inventory and can try out different products to see if any of them hit. If something hits, then its possible to source directly from the supplier to drive down the costs. And of course, we’ll be stocking items that we produce locally such as the THS dev kits so there’s less worry about source reliability for them.

 

As for logistics, it's true that you can ship through Amazon, however you would need to initially ship them the bulk product and pay them for storage and shipping fees. There is another downside in that the product is shipped out in Amazon boxes which is a bit unappealing. If it comes to the point where we need to drive down shipping costs, then we can consider a service like ShipWire which provides the same service as Amazon, where you send them bulk stock and they do the picking and shipping. However they will use standard boxes rather than Amazon-labeled ones. And they have warehouses located in US, Canada, and the UK (for European shipping).

 

However I think that's a future issue. Initially, we’d be handling logistics by having volunteers help with gathering inventory, packing, and shipping. It's not very well publicized, but Japan Post has an international small package shipping service which is an alternative to EMS, very cheap, and should fulfill low cost shipping needs. A small package is defined as:

 

Len + width + thickness < 90 cm, and less than 2 kg.

 

That should fit our product profile for a majority of the products that I have in mind (ie: small electronic components, circuit boards, kits, otaku or special merchandise, DVDs, etc).

Here’s a screen capture of the rates for the small package international shipping (Tokyo to California) from Japan Post:

 

 

Akiba

FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Project

http://www.freaklabs.org

 

-----Original Message-----
From: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com [mailto:tokyohac...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Edward Middleton
Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2009 11:12 AM
To: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: THS Web Shop

 

 

Kyle Hasegawa wrote:

[H. Fukushima]

Akiba,

 

Sounds very much like you really know how to handle this stuff.

 

I may be able to help with the local companies and players in Japan

so gimme a holler if you need it.

 

 

Hidetaka

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Akiba

To: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2009 11:37 AM

Subject: RE: THS Web Shop

[Akiba]

Hi guys.
Thanks for all the insight and comments. It's nice to see that there's an
interest in the webshop and it would definitely be harder to pull it off
without feedback.

As for the status, I spent yesterday styling the shop and tweaking it, but
in the end, I figured that I could spend a week or two on it and not get it
up to par with a professionally made shop. So I gave in and dropped $140 for
a Zencart template, mostly because I don't have the time or expertise to
style the website. Unfortunately, it would require a lot of PHP, CSS, and
image editing to generate a really nice site. It's just one of those
tradeoffs where I think time is better spent on configuring the site,
product lineup, and getting it up and running.

Although the template doesn't blend into the color scheme of the THS site, I
think that it should be okay. Just think of it as a completely separate site
from the blog where we can sell stuff from. It has a lot of the nice
features that a professional ecommerce site has such as bestsellers,
specials, featured products, and "customers who bought X also purchased X".

If you want to check it out, I set it up at the test site. Just a warning,
the default template shows a tire/wheel shop, but it should be enough to
give people an idea of how the final site would look:
http://www.sukoshiurusai.com/ths_shop

[Akiba]

I’m going to need all the help I can get. I doubt I can pull all of this stuff off on my own, and it seems like it might turn into an interesting hackerspace project J

 

Akiba

FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Project

http://www.freaklabs.org

<BR
size=3 face="MS PGothic">

[Kyle Hasegawa]

If you want to check it out, I set it up at the test site.

http://www.sukoshiurusai.com/ths_shop
  

Suggest new URL "thstires.com"

[Akiba]

Oh, what a jerk. I’m going to change it to “erotaku.biz”

 

Akiba

FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Project

http://www.freaklabs.org

From: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com [mailto:tokyohac...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Kyle Hasegawa
Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2009 11:51 AM
To: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: THS Web Shop

 

If you want to check it out, I set it up at the test site.

[lauren shannon]

Colors can be changed on templates.

--
Read About Life, Politics, Food and Fun at
http://www.fightingliberals.com

[Akiba]

No problem to change the colors. It just requires hacking the CSS. The big
PITA is remaking all the buttons and sliced images to match any new color
scheme.

Akiba
FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Project
http://www.freaklabs.org

[lauren shannon]

by the way, what I should have said first is THANKS for paying for a template.

[Kyle Hasegawa]

>
> No problem to change the colors. It just requires hacking the CSS. The big
> PITA is remaking all the buttons and sliced images to match any new color
> scheme.
>
> Akiba
>

Don't suppose they provided image source files. Some Drupal themes come
with .psd files for tweaking image colors.

[Akiba]

Yeah, I have the PSD sources. It comes with the package. If we can get
someone that can advise on a color scheme, then we can modify the PSD files
to output the sliced images and the CSS to change the text and background
colors.

Akiba
FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Project
http://www.freaklabs.org

-----Original Message-----
From: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:tokyohac...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Kyle Hasegawa
Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2009 12:40 PM
To: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: THS Web Shop


>

[Akiba]

No problem to buy the template. I figure you and Chris are risking quite a
large amount of money on the place, and Hidetaka is taking a risk on being
the guarantor. I figured I might as well pony up some cash to try and
generate some money for this group.

I think people can also follow the progress and learn how to set up their
own sites to try and become independent. After all, it's tough to be hacker
if you can't control your time...

p.s. If the website starts making scads of cash, I'm going to be turning in
all my receipts ;)

[Akiba]

I have a sample category listing up and some dummy products listed. Any
suggestions on products and categories?

http://www.sukoshiurusai.com/ths_shop

Akiba
FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Project
http://www.freaklabs.org

-----Original Message-----
From: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com

[mailto:tokyohac...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Akiba
Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2009 1:05 PM
To: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: THS Web Shop

[Edward Middleton]

Merchandise - branded goods like tshirts
Video/DVD
Kits
Gifts - random pre-made goods

Edward

[Jawaad Mahmood]

I wonder if we could use this as an opportunity to sell our own goods on the site.  It might be a benefit for Hackerspace to handle the irritating issues of setting up a japanese-oriented marketplace and letting members sell their own items on portions of the site (for a fee). 

Or you guys have already discussed that and I missed it because I'm a moron.

--
Sincerely yours,

Jawaad Mahmood
http://www.jawaadmahmood.com
080-5513-7198

[Chris Harrington]

Thats a pretty good idea.

In the future, if things get rolling and there is actually a profit,
then you could conceivably use some of it branch out to places like
Rakuten (50,000 yen a month :P) to use as feed for more
exposure/sales.

--
Chris Harrington
ch...@harrington.jp
chris.har...@gmail.com
chris.ha...@softbank.ne.jp
http://chris.harrington.jp/
http://facebook.com/chrisharrington/
@charringtonjp - English
@charrington_ja - Japanese
090-8812-8911

[Akiba]

Yeah, I was hoping that we could get the infrastructure in place and then
hackerspace members would be able to sell their own goods on the site as
well. The biggest deterrent to having your own webshop is getting everything
set up, so if we can host member goods, it can make things easier for people
to make side cash. It would also be a good way to convince people to join
hackerspace which would help with the THS rent.

[Akiba]

Thanks for the inputs. I added some additional categories to the site (no
products) to reflect what it might look like, based on the feedback.

[Akiba]

I think we have enough material to give people an idea of how the site would be like. If you haven't seen it, you can find it on my test site:

http://www.sukoshiurusai.com/ths_shop

 

Here is a list of the main things that we need to do to before we can take it live. If anyone can provide advice, instruction, or volunteer to handle it, it would be really great:

l       Migrate the site to the THS server

l       Obtain an SSL certificate

l       Get a bank account

l       Paypal integration

l       Find source for shipping supplies (boxes, bubble wrap, etc)

l       Look into merchant account or credit card handling

l       Integrate shipping module for Japan post -> Akiba

 

There are other softer things that we also need to do, but it can possibly be discussed via the mailing list or at the next meeting:

l       Decide on initial product and category mix

l       Japanese translation

l       Bank transfer or COD shipping (domestic ?)

l       Color scheme (optional)

 

I’m probably leaving a lot of things off. For bank account, we need to be careful about this because there could be tax consequences levied on someone who uses their personal bank account. We might need some professional advice on this. We also need to find out if we need to charge local sales tax for domestic customers. And the big issue is how we’re going to handle the accounting. Any suggestions on handling these would be appreciated.

[Chris Harrington]

Outstanding! And this took you how long? The last venture I worked at
it took the dev team months to create something half as good....

[Chris Harrington]

ah, just one thing to keep in mind:

Japanese, to be readable, needs a larger font size then English. That
is one of the hidden challenges with a bilingual site. So the menu
buttons on the left might be a bit to scrunched together for Nihongo
localization. Might want to tweak the template a bit there, i.e.
increase the pixel height of the buttons and then fix any gaps that
creates elsewhere in the template.

On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 4:16 PM, Akiba<ch...@freaklabs.org> wrote:

[Akiba]

Thanks for the heads up. There's a Japanese module for Zencart so I'll give
it a try.

Akiba
FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Project
http://www.freaklabs.org

-----Original Message-----
From: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:tokyohac...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Chris Harrington
Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2009 4:37 PM
To: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: THS Web Shop

[Kyle Hasegawa]

On 7/30/2009 2:45 PM, Akiba wrote:
> I have a sample category listing up and some dummy products listed. Any
> suggestions on products and categories?

2010 TokyoHackerSpace Hunks calendar

[Akiba]

Not sure if that one's gonna make the cut. We're going to need to hire a
bunch of stand-ins if we want to pull that one off.

Akiba
FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Project
http://www.freaklabs.org

-----Original Message-----
From: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:tokyohac...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Kyle Hasegawa
Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2009 5:11 PM
To: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: THS Web Shop

[MRE]

Sexy delicious products. What kind of shop is this?!!?! Somehow you
managed to capture my joy of deserts and women. ;)

Okok.. real comments:
1: Thanks for ponying up for the template. Great stuff.
2: Thanks for manning up to do the shop in the first place. You must
have a large @!^#$.

3: I really see the product line-up as targeting two different
audiences:
First we have the international market, in which we are pushing two
things: One being our custom boards, and two being REALLY UNIQUE items
from Akihabara that are not just difficult, but next to impossible to
get anywhere else. Many/most of the parts can easily be ordered from a
number of places, and thus we would be just one more shop selling
diodes and resistors. We dont want to do that. We want to find the
CRAZY WEIRD and SUPER HARD TO SOURCE parts for these folks.
Second, we have the locals. I strongly feel that the Japanese market
is locked into Japanese developed products. It is difficult to find
development board, robot kits, and other stuff from "off shore." Being
a 're-seller' to customers, and distributor to Akihabara shops of
items from other groups (such as ada-fruit, NYCR, PARTS, etc) would
bring in local cash. This is the riskier side, in that we have to pay
the costs up front, and recoup them later. In addition we need to
specifically work to transIate documentation. I think it would really
work out well for the local hobbyist market though.

That being said, when we consider the payment system, we need to look
at our customers. For example: regardless of the fact that Paypal is
more expensive per transaction than anyone else, overseas customers
see it and trust it. Paypal OWNS the American, Australian and European
online payment transaction market. Loosing 10 more yen per transaction
to them vs the other guy is worth it, when no one knows of (and thus
does not trust) the other guy.

I don't know how paypal fits into the Japanese market. Is it possible
to allow the user to decide what transaction company they use, and
provide paypal as well as a secondary Japanese processor?

[Akiba]

Hi guys.
Latest update.
- I purchased an SSL certificate in case we need it. It was on sale at
GoDaddy for $12.99/yr. If we don't use it, then I can use it for myself as
well.

- We can integrate ZenCart with Paypal Website Payments Pro. It's the
business account for Paypal and lets us process credit cards without a
merchant account as well as Paypal. It's slightly steep at 3% + $0.30 per
transaction, but I think we'd survive. It requires a bank account and social
security number/employer ID number. This will be a sticking point.

- Paypal Standard is possible. However we'll still need a bank account. If
we don't put in a social security number, we're going to be limited on the
amount we can withdraw per month.

Any ideas on how we handle banking for the group?

Akiba
FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Project
http://www.freaklabs.org

-----Original Message-----
From: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:tokyohac...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Akiba
Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2009 5:25 PM
To: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: THS Web Shop

[MRE]

Does it have to be a US bank?

Since the bulk of the money each month is going to Lauren and Chris to
pay for the house, unfortunately I think that nominates them treasure
by default.
In which case, it might be best for them to set up a Citibank account
in Japan?

I dunno about how the ssn interacts with that.
Unfortunately, it sounds like the taxes are USA based.

[Akiba]

I think I have a solution for the credit card processing. Since no merchant account is required, we can use the Paypal Website Payments Pro (as opposed to standard) which allows credit card processing for 3% + $0.03 per transaction as I mentioned previously. It's already integrated into Zencart as a payments module.

 

I can temporarily use my corporate bank account and Employer ID number to sign up for the service. The money would flow into my corporate bank account (hee hee hee) but the transactions will be recorded by Paypal with a monthly summary report. The order totals can also be tracked through Zencart's reporting features. THS can invoice me the amount of the monthly summary and I can reimburse either by wire transfer to the THS designated account or in cash based on something like the weekly average exchange rate.

 

The reason I say temporarily is that once we start getting a decent amount of money flowing through the site and the other income sources, then I'm hoping that THS can file for some type of organizational status (NPO, KK, corp) and have an official bank account, etc. At that time, it can take over the financial handling for the website.

 

So if this is okay with everyone, we would have a couple major obstacles out of the way: Paypal integration, credit card handling, and SSL certificate.

 

The remaining major issues are:

l       Migrate the site to the THS server

l       Obtain an SSL certificate

l       Get a bank account(postponed)

l       Paypal integration

l       Find source for shipping supplies (boxes, bubble wrap, etc)

l       Look into merchant account or credit card handling

l       Integrate shipping module for Japan post -> Akiba

 

One more thing, if we use SSL which I think is a good idea, then we would need a dedicated IP address as well as mod_ssl support on the server. Will we be supporting this?

[Faiz Azhar]

Hey guys.

I'm the "new guy" from the previous electronics 101 class.
I thought I could give some help.

a simple google search for the boxes supplier in japan found me this link.
http://www.danboru.net/

They have a vast array of boxes, custom-made labels, tapes,
cushioned envelopes, bubble wrappers & gift boxes.
they can ship the next day from osaka for 500yen an order.
a cool option is having THS logo with url printed on the order-made box
for branding & marketing.
(it could take around 3 weeks to prepare custom-made boxes)

the downside is we have to order in bulk of more than 200 unit of the
same size
so we'd better know what our products are & how much do we want to produce.
it would not be cost-effective to use a huge box for a simple DVD purchase.
and it would take space to store these flat boxes too.

I'm not so sure if there are better deals around, but i think this one
will do.

Faiz

[Akiba]

Hi Faiz.
Thanks for the tip!
I'm checking it out right now. 200 unit batches actually isn't too bad if
the prices are low and it seems like they have 24 hour service. Perfect.

Akiba
FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Project
http://www.freaklabs.org

-----Original Message-----
From: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:tokyohac...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Faiz Azhar
Sent: Friday, July 31, 2009 4:40 PM
To: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: THS Web Shop

[MRE]

SWEEEEET!

Only concern naturally is that we will need small orders of various
sizes and products, as opposed to a 'one box fits all' solution.

Do they offer any sort of 'package set' deal, like 20 of each box size
and say 50 of each envelope size, with logos?

(I know, they are not the McDonnalds of boxes.. but.. still..)

[MRE]

I still think that since the bulk of the cash flow is going to go to
Lauren and Chris every month anyway for rent, that they might as well
set up an account in their name for THS. It will save a lot on bank
transfer fees as well as the monthly hassles.

That is, if they are up for it.

One category of the web-shop that wont require any work on our part:
Intangibles (paying membership via the shop, buying reservations to
classes, etc)
If I could get a damn bank here to give me a card with a visa symbol
on it, so I can pay for shit online with my Japanese account, I would
pay all my THS bills through the shop.
Saves me the hassle of thinking about it, getting cash, etc. Saves
them the hassle of making deposits all the time.

[Akiba]

Yeah, the ideal case is to have a THS bank account, although it's currently
not possible to set up an account in the name of Tokyo Hackerspace since
it's not a recognized entity. A bank account would have to be set up in
someone's name which brings up a sticky situation. The income that flows
into the bank account can be seen by the local tax authorities and would
need to be stated on their income tax. This might not be a huge issue in the
beginning since there will probably be little cash flow.

However if the site generates around $2000-3000/month which is possible,
then the tax consequences start getting more serious. That's why I proposed
the idea of getting invoiced by THS the same amount as the site brings in.
This would provide a business deduction for the person who owns the bank
account and from a tax point of view, the transaction is a wash. The only
hassle is that there's still the work involved in declaring it on the income
tax form.

That's why I'd prefer if THS were able to file for nonprofit status, either
in Japan or the US. In Japan, it would make it easier to set up local bank
accounts and Japanese accountants can handle a lot of the bookkeeping if
things start going well. In the US, the costs of forming a nonprofit are
cheap ($50 application fee in Nevada) and it'd make using Paypal Payments
Pro easier since they're basically set up to service US companies (ie: the
need for a social security number of Employer ID number).

Anyways, it'd be great if someone could volunteer for a bank account, but I
wasn't sure if anyone would do it. I think Chris, Lauren, and Hidetaka
already have a big enough burden and risk which is why I volunteered myself.
Although I completely wouldn't mind if someone else were willing to do it :)

Akiba
FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Project
http://www.freaklabs.org

-----Original Message-----
From: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:tokyohac...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of MRE
Sent: Friday, July 31, 2009 8:27 PM
To: TokyoHackerSpace
Subject: Re: THS Web Shop

[Edward Middleton]

Akiba wrote:
> Yeah, the ideal case is to have a THS bank account, although it's currently
> not possible to set up an account in the name of Tokyo Hackerspace since
> it's not a recognized entity. A bank account would have to be set up in
> someone's name which brings up a sticky situation.

You can setup a bank account in the name of an entity, thats what we do,
but I didn't do it so I don't know the details. I believe the issue is
that someone has to be the account owner, and you can't have multiple
owners or something like that.

Edward

[Akiba]

Hi Edward.
Thanks for clearing me up on that issue. How does TLUG handle financial
issues? I'm curious if money flowing into the TLUG bank account needs to be
declared on the owner's income tax. This is the main issue that worries me
about a setup where THS isn't the owner of the account.

Akiba
FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Project
http://www.freaklabs.org

-----Original Message-----
From: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:tokyohac...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Edward Middleton
Sent: Friday, July 31, 2009 11:51 PM
To: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: THS Web Shop

[Akiba]

Hi all.
Just a quick note that I've finished integrating the international shipping
module into the test site and have also added Japanese as an additional
language.

Adding the Japanese localization pack creates additional fields so that we
can enter Japanese versions of product names, descriptions, menus, etc...
However we will need to have a translator to actually fill out those fields.

As for the international shipping, I created two international shipping
options: EMS and JP Small Package Air. I used the rate schedules found on
the Japan Post site and both options support all four regions that Japan
Post ships to. FYI, the ship price is different depending on the region. We
can also support Japan Economy Air (SAL) if needed, but it might get
confusing if we have too many shipping options.

The JP Small Package Air still needs some work because it can only be used
on packages up to 2 kg. I'll need to write some PHP to disable the module if
the tare weight exceeds 2 kg.

I'm also going to be integrating domestic shipping via Yuupack but it might
take a while. I'll need to figure out the rate schedule based on region in
Japan but I can't find an English version of a rate schedule. Anyone know of
any links for this?

Anyhoo, you can check out the features at the test site:
http://www.sukoshiurusai.com/ths_shop

You can access the shipping estimator through the shopping cart to check the
shipping modules. You'll need to create an account if you want to see how to
choose the shipping option at checkout.

FYI, I think shipping might have been the toughest part of configuring the
site. Once the shipping is out of the way, then the main work left is just
to put it on the THS server and populate the products and content.

[Akiba]

> FYI, I think shipping might have been the toughest part of configuring the
site. >Once the shipping is out of the way, then the main work left is just
to put it >on the THS server and populate the products and content.

Actually, I should add that one more obstacle is the payment handling. If we
can iron this one out also, then I think we're pretty close to being in
business.

Akiba
FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Project
http://www.freaklabs.org

-----Original Message-----
From: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:tokyohac...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Akiba
Sent: Saturday, August 01, 2009 12:28 AM
To: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: THS Web Shop

[Edward Middleton]

Akiba wrote:
> Thanks for clearing me up on that issue. How does TLUG handle financial
> issues? I'm curious if money flowing into the TLUG bank account needs to be
> declared on the owner's income tax. This is the main issue that worries me
> about a setup where THS isn't the owner of the account.

The easy answer is, we don't make money so its not really an issue for
us, but my (I am not an accountant) understanding is that the account
holder would be liable for the tax if we were making a profit. I would
talk to a Japanese accountant because you are likely to make taxable
income from the web shop.

Edward

[Akiba]

>The easy answer is,  we don't make money so its not really an issue for

>us, but my (I am not an accountant) understanding is that the account

>holder would be liable for the tax if we were making a profit.  I would

>talk to a Japanese accountant because you are likely to make taxable

>income from the web shop.

>Edward

 

Ah-ha…I see that TLUG is similar to me. Something about open source…*sigh*

[Edward Middleton]

Akiba wrote:
>>The easy answer is, we don't make money so its not really an issue for
>
>>us, but my (I am not an accountant) understanding is that the account
>
>>holder would be liable for the tax if we were making a profit. I would
>
>>talk to a Japanese accountant because you are likely to make taxable
>
>>income from the web shop.
>

> Ah-ha…I see that TLUG is similar to me. Something about open source…*sigh*

With TLUG it is more a choice, once you start making profits you have to
start accounting and no-one wants to do that so we don't ;) There are
quite a few people in TLUG who make money working on open source software.

Edward

[Akiba]

Ha ha ha. Sorry, that might've come out wrong. I was just teasing you :)

[Akiba]

Hi All.
I think I'm pretty much done with handling the shipping for the site.

I've finished the modifications on the Japan Post Small Package shipping to
disable the option if the tare weight (product + packaging weight) is
greater than 2 kg. I had to wrestle with some PHP weirdness in Zencart to
get this working.

I've also added the Yuupack shipping option based on a rate table that I
found on the internet. This required some additional modifications which
came in the form of...

I've added support in both English and Japanese for all prefectures in Japan
to show up in a list box when you select Japan in the address form. The
prefecture is used to calculate the shipping via Yuupack from Tokyo.

I think that about covers handling the shipping calculations for
international and domestic charges. The nice thing is that it forced me to
add localization for the prefectures.

Here's a link in case you want to check it out:
http://www.sukoshiurusai.com/ths_shop

Just a note, I found that I get a blank screen if I'm at the checkout page
and I change addresses. I'll be looking into that, because I probably
accidentally broke something when I made the latest round of changes.

[lauren shannon]

Let's discuss bank issues at the meeting. As I did mention in the
beginning, it is possible to get a postal account for a non official
group.
I can explain when we are together. for the banking zencart issues, I
have a bank account in the states that I am not using for anything
else right now. For a while I was selling on ebay and using that.

Happy to do that anyway.

Let's talk it through on Tuesday.
-Lauren

--
Read About Life, Politics, Food and Fun at
http://www.fightingliberals.com

[Akiba]

Just an interesting note about something I noticed from dealing with
shipping rate tables for the past couple days...

It's cheaper to ship a 300 gram package to California than it is to ship it
to Akita.

Weird...

[Akiba]

Sounds good. The main technical issues left on the webshop are migration and
banking/payment.
Now it's time for a beer...

Akiba
FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Project
http://www.freaklabs.org

-----Original Message-----
From: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:tokyohac...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of lauren shannon
Sent: Saturday, August 01, 2009 5:50 PM
To: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: THS Web Shop

[MRE]

hmm.. US regions are decided mostly by carrier.
For example UPS has their one regional charts. You get them when you
start a shipping account.
But they only count within the country.

So, in our case, it wont matter where in the US we ship, the cost is
the same. Being an air carrier, its expensive.
examples:

5KG, 15x15x15 cm
to California or New York - 22422 yen

0.5KG 3x5x7 cm
to California or New York - 9435 yen

Letter to NY - 4773 yen

They have reduced rates if you use their boxes, regardless of weight.



Sticking with Japan Post will keep the cost as low as possible I
think. I dont know of anyone who would be willing to pay $200 to get a
$5 dollar part shipped half-way across the world.

[Akiba]

I agree. The Japan Post small package shipping service is probably our best
bet to make money since its so much cheaper than EMS or parcel air. EMS to
the US starts as 1200 yen up to 300 grams and then scales from there. Parcel
air is actually more expensive than EMS in most cases which is bizarre since
there's no tracking and it takes longer.

Small package air is about 270 yen for a 100 gram package to the US. As a
reference point, the THS boards are 28 grams and if you include the
breadboard peripheral, it probably goes up to about 80 grams. After
packaging, the tare weight will probably be about 100 grams so the shipping
cost would be around $3. Heh heh heh...

Akiba
FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Project
http://www.freaklabs.org

-----Original Message-----
From: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:tokyohac...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of MRE
Sent: Saturday, August 01, 2009 6:28 PM
To: TokyoHackerSpace
Subject: Re: THS Web Shop

[MRE]

ohh sweet.. so its actually practical?! hehe

[Chris Shannon]

first time I have had a chance to look at this all week, its looks great. a tremendous amount of work. but whats with the porn?

shoudl I get the cert installed on the ths server and start moving this stuff over?

c

On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 4:05 PM, Akiba <ch...@freaklabs.org> wrote:

BTW, I haven’t styled the categories and products pages yet. They’re still pretty ugly.

[lauren shannon]

between the water maids and this, I think SOME people need a little time out :-)

[Akiba]

I think the two main technical topics that I’d like to talk about at the next meeting are handling payment transactions and migration. For handling payment transactions, Lauren volunteered her idle bank account and I think I figured out a way to deal with tax issues and want to run it by you guys. For migration, we’re going to need the mod_ssl on Apache, a fixed IP, and we’ll need to discuss who will be administrators. I purchased an SSL cert credit and we just need to get the key generated by the THS server and register it with the cert signing authority. We’ll also need to discuss the operations issues like initial products, runners for the post office and to pick up inventory, and how we’re going to handle (or eventually handle) accounting. Anyways, looks like there will be some things to talk about at the next meeting. I think we can start migrating after the next meeting.

 

Akiba

FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Project

http://www.freaklabs.org

From: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com [mailto:tokyohac...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Chris Shannon
Sent: Sunday, August 02, 2009 11:33 AM
To: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: THS Web Shop

 

first time I have had a chance to look at this all week, its looks great. a tremendous amount of work. but whats with the porn?

[Akiba]

Actually, there's not really a rush to get things up, but I figure that
since we're going to have a rent burden soon, the sooner we have a store
going, the sooner we can start taking in income from it.

Akiba
FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Project
http://www.freaklabs.org

-----Original Message-----
From: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:tokyohac...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of lauren shannon
Sent: Sunday, August 02, 2009 11:48 AM
To: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: THS Web Shop

[Chris Shannon]

already have mod_ssl and fixed ip's, i have a cert installed on another one of my machines for some gov. work. just need to go through the "process" is installing and registering the cert.

c

[Akiba]

Okay. If you already have a multi-use cert, then that’d be perfect. I can use the cert credit I purchased on my own site. If we have SSL supported, then putting the webshop up should be no problem and Zencart has built in SSL support. We just need to enable it.

I think I should be ready to migrate it next week. I just need to track down one bug I found which really irritates me. On the technical side, I think that just leaves payment handling which we can discuss at the meeting.

 

And regarding the porn, I needed some stock images to make dummy products and I just used what I have. Apparently I keep a lot of stock food images and figure model pictures. Not exactly sure why…

[MRE]

Categories can always be added as the shop progresses... but here are
a few ideas for people to start thinking of:

Electronics:
Kits (microcontroller development, sensors, robotics, other)
Components
Prototyping (smd adapter boards, usb-232 kits, etc)
Electro-mechanical (motors, solenoids, pumps, valves, etc)
Cool Parts (LCD, LED signboards, keypads, and other weird stuff we
happen to find)

The IT crowd
Computer like stuffs?

Schwag
Shirts, stickers, stencils, patches, and other stuff we come up with
as we collect the tools necessary to make said stuff

Tek-Art
artwork/prints from people based in Japan, THS members, etc
Interesting artist supplies that would be hard to find elsewhere (such
as those manga stencils and shaders)

THS tickets:
Monthly dues payment ticket
yearly dues payment ticket
individual class/event reservation tickets (these would have to be
added and removed as classes come up)
Donation ticket / THS gift certificate

Bizzaro:
Random crazy stuff people find that might interest hacker geeks, such
as USB port humpers and other wacky stuff only found in Japan

[lauren shannon]

great stuff!

and I love the idea of an easy way to pay and track monthly payments
class payments etc.
Lauren

[Akiba]

Just fixed the bug on the test site where you can't change addresses at the
checkout. Seems a lone kanji character was confusing Zencart/MySQL and
causing it to hang. Since it was just used to generate the auto email
confirmation, I took out the character and looks like things are going
smoothly.

Should be ready to migrate the site any time now.

[MRE]

Hope you are taking notes!

I absolutely want you to teach a class on this stuff.

I need a secondary source of income.
Potentially a thirdary source of income (thirdary isn't a word, but it
should be!)

[Akiba]

Yeah, no problem to show others how to set up a webshop. But first we need
to get the logistics and operations of the THS shop ironed out. I suspect
that's going to be the big challenge.

Akiba
FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Project
http://www.freaklabs.org

-----Original Message-----
From: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:tokyohac...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of MRE
Sent: Monday, August 03, 2009 8:41 PM
To: TokyoHackerSpace
Subject: Re: THS Web Shop

[MRE]

doing it once is the hard part...

[jc]

Hey guys,
do people mind if we move this discussion into the website forums eg.
Website Suggestion - Web Shop?



On Jul 30, 2:45 pm, "Akiba" <ch...@freaklabs.org> wrote:
> I have a sample category listing up and some dummy products listed. Any
> suggestions on products and categories?
>
> http://www.sukoshiurusai.com/ths_shop
>
> Akiba
> FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Projecthttp://www.freaklabs.org
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
>
> [mailto:tokyohac...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Akiba
> Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2009 1:05 PM

> To: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: RE: THS Web Shop
>

> No problem to buy the template. I figure you and Chris are risking quite a
> large amount of money on the place, and Hidetaka is taking a risk on being
> the guarantor. I figured I might as well pony up some cash to try and
> generate some money for this group.
>
> I think people can also follow the progress and learn how to set up their
> own sites to try and become independent. After all, it's tough to be hacker
> if you can't control your time...
>
> p.s. If the website starts making scads of cash, I'm going to be turning in
> all my receipts ;)
>
> Akiba
> FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Projecthttp://www.freaklabs.org

>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
> [mailto:tokyohac...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of lauren shannon
> Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2009 12:37 PM
> To: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: THS Web Shop
>

> by the way, what I should have said first is THANKS for paying for a
> template.
>
> On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 12:30 PM, Akiba<ch...@freaklabs.org> wrote:
>
> > No problem to change the colors. It just requires hacking the CSS. The big
> > PITA is remaking all the buttons and sliced images to match any new color
> > scheme.

>
> > Akiba
> > FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Project
> >http://www.freaklabs.org
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
> > [mailto:tokyohac...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of lauren shannon
> > Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2009 12:22 PM
> > To: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
> > Subject: Re: THS Web Shop
>

> > Colors can be changed on templates.
>
> > On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 11:55 AM, Akiba<ch...@freaklabs.org> wrote:
> >> Oh, what a jerk. I'm going to change it to "erotaku.biz"

>
> >> Akiba
>
> >> FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Project
>
> >>http://www.freaklabs.org
>

> >> ________________________________

[Lauren Fujimamas shannon]

YES Please. easier to follow, and tune into. Easier to do PR and new
discussions here.
onegai.

--
Lauren Shannon
Fujimamas Events
www.fujimamasEvents.com
03-3374-2309

Catering Division
"To the Moon and Back Japan"
www.moonandback.jp

the BLOG
www.fujimamasfoodies.com

[lauren shannon]

Let's keep good notes as MRE said, this is a great workshop to teach.
:-)
Lauren

[jc]

Hey guys
I've created a discussion about products in the forums here...
http://www.tokyohackerspace.org/forums/tokyo-hackerspace-website/website-suggestions/58
cheers..

On Aug 6, 5:27 pm, lauren shannon <lauren.shan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Let's keep good notes as MRE said, this is a great workshop to teach.
> :-)
> Lauren
>
> On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 5:15 PM, Lauren Fujimamas
>
>
>
>
>
> shannon<lauren.fujima...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > YES Please. easier to follow, and tune into. Easier to do PR and new
> > discussions here.
> > onegai.
>

[Akiba]

Thanks for handling this JC. I'll be migrating the shop over as soon as I
get ftp and database access.

Akiba
FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Project
http://www.freaklabs.org

-----Original Message-----
From: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:tokyohac...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of jc
Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 12:01 PM
To: TokyoHackerSpace
Subject: Re: THS Web Shop