We’re getting very close to the launch of the new Paizo store, so I wanted to give everyone a tour about what to expect when it goes live! For more information on the new store, check out the April Tech Update and Introducing Paizo Plusblogs.
Categories
We’ve looked through logs examining page hits and website traffic and had many internal discussions to create the primary means of navigation for the new store. We’ll continue to update the interface as we learn more from all of you about how to better organize the store to make the products you’re looking for easier to find. Now, let’s take a look at the Pathfinder section of the new store.
Coming Soon showcases all announced products that are not yet available for sale for each brand. For example, you won’t find upcoming Starfinder products in the Coming Soon folder in the Pathfinder section, but anything with a Pathfinder logo will be visible here.
New to Roleplaying displays introductory products like the Pathfinder Beginner Box and the Pathfinder Player Core and makes it easier for new players to find the things they might be looking for.
The others are self-explanatory, though one thing to note though is that with the new store, products can appear in more than one place. This is especially true of Pathfinder Partners, who are licensed partners whose products will appear next to the products they are built for (like the Foundry VTT version of an Adventure Path showing up alongside the Adventure Path).
Each section also has its own filters. You can refine products visible to you on a page by clicking a radio button and it will then hide the products that don’t match your search. For example, there is a Brand filter that lets you choose between Pathfinder First Edition, Pathfinder Second Edition, and Pathfinder Second Edition Remaster. There is also one for just Pathfinder, which shows Pathfinder products regardless of what edition you are playing (like pawns, miniatures, etc.).Pathfinder Adventures has filters for Level Ranges; Miniatures has filters for Creature Type (Aberration, Beast, etc.), Material (metal or plastic), Painted (yes/no), Player Character, Rarity, and Size. As you move into specific product categories (like Adventures), the filters change to show only the filter options that exist in that category.
New Product Detail Pages
Presentation: New releases for Pathfinder Second Edition and Starfinder Second Edition have extra previews associated with them. Our goal is to provide previews of the covers, table of contents, and a 2-page spread with every release. Each page will also have a “stat block” at the bottom that lists the weight, dimensions, Paizo SKU#, UPC, and page count for the selected product.
Variants on the Same Page: Hardcover, Sketch, Special Edition, and Pocket Edition books will all live on the same page. Clicking the button will change the image that’s displayed as well as change the cost for that book. This makes it easier to show the entirety of the product’s formats in one place and ensure you’re getting exactly the version you want to get. The exception to that are PDFs, which live in a separate Digital Editions folder under each category.
What to Expect/What’s Changing
The Paizo ecommerce store has been built over the decades to be very flexible, and we’re going to lose some of that flexibility as we transition to a new store. Here are some changes that are coming directly as a result of the new store.
Site Downtime: Paizo.com will go dark for roughly two days when we start the conversion. During this time, the tech team will be squaring up the data we have in the old store and making sure it’s updated in the new store. That includes things like balancing gift cards, vouchers, Humble Bundle codes, purchase history, subscriptions, your downloads, and a bunch of other data.
Sidecart: The process by which you add items to future subscription orders is changing. We’ll cover that in the subscription blog.
Wishlists: Your current wishlists will be going away with the launch of the new store. If there are lists you want to retain, please copy them all down in the next week or so. You can create multiple wishlists in BigCommerce, such as one for Holiday Gifts, My Next Campaign, or Revenge of the Runelords. You can share a wishlist to make it public for friends and family or keep it private.
Foundry VTT: We’ve been offering two different versions of Foundry VTT products: one that includes the PDF and the code together, and one that offers just the code at a discount for customers who already owned the PDF. The new store unfortunately can’t support gating a product behind PDF ownership, so we’ll be offering our Foundry modules exclusively as code-only items and pricing them similarly to the code-only Paizo products already available for purchase on the official Foundry storefront.
While that does mean that our existing PDF + Foundry bundles and discounts for PDF ownership will be going away with the launch of the new store, we fully plan to explore new options in the near future that can offer a similar combined value to customers who invest deeply into digital content.
The existing PDF discounts will remain in place until the launch of the new store, so if you already own the PDFs for any FVTT products you've been planning to pick up, you still have a chance to get them at a substantial discount!
Preorders: The preorder window for future products is now limited to 7 days prior to street date. You’ll see the release date under the title, and it won’t give you an option to select any format to make a purchase until the 7-day window opens. If you’re one of the few customers who use preorders (bless you!), we encourage you to subscribe instead. That will grant you the free PDF and allow it to ship early.
The next blog will cover subscriptions, but I know most of you are asking when the new store will launch. To that, I will say we are incredibly close. Our teams are hunting down pesky gremlins, and we’re doing end-to-end testing on the systems that are currently working. Thank you again for your continued support as we make this big move to a new platform!
Jim Butler
CEO