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Unnecessary Beautification?

by renacalieth

This is an article aimed, not at the rich or poor Neopians as they usually are, but one still about shops. With this short article, I hope to bring to your attention the overuse of HTML in shops. Yes, it is nice to spruce up your shop with a background, maybe a webring, and a couple little other adopted things. But anything beyond that is going too far.

I own a cable modem. And my browser is Netscape Communicator. Things load quickly and easily for me. Most of the time. When I go shopping on NeoPets, sometimes I take side trips to view items I did not know existed and that I would like to find out about. Usually, these interesting items are listed for 99,999 Neopoints. And usually, when things are listed for 99,999 Neopoints, the shop is huge and has images, midis, chat rooms and everything imaginable scrawled across the page.

I went to look at Wellington boots not ten minutes ago. Listed, yes, for 99,999 NP. But I'm not complaining about the price. Once the page finally began to load so I could view it, it said that all the items were not for sale and were only for viewing, as everything was priced for 99,999 NP. I did not mind. But, the store, holding over 100 items, and a large amount of text and images at the top of the page crashed my browser.

Some people are just putting too much into their shops these days. Instead of doing it to your shops, why not put the effort into your pet's page, so your pet might get a spotlight of the week, and you'll get some Neopoints and recognition along with it. And maybe you'll get more people to visit your shop if there isn't so much.

I usually skip over pages with a lot of stuff on them, because that usually means the items are expensive, too. New shops, size 10 and under usually belong to beginners at NeoPets, and they don't overload their sites with all the unnecessary things. And they sell things cheaply because they need the money. Why not pay them a visit?

When I do my shopping, I see someone's user name on one of the chat boards, so I type their name into the search engine NeoPets has provided us with. I can see how long ago they joined, look at their pets, and visit their shops. And I usually get great deals without a lot of stuff that will crash my computer.

So next time you go to spruce up your shop, take some time to think whether or not all the things you're putting on your page will deter or invite people.