Specials Title

When the Specials contains no products, the page shows a blank screen. Can a title still shows with the text underneath "There are currently no specials included"

Why would you want to tell you customers something they don't need to know? If there are no specials, then no specials box appears. It's like putting up a sign in your high-street shop saying "There is NO SALE on today". Shopkeepers only display big SALE signs when there IS a sale on, not when there isn't!

So what... If you don't have any specials, you don't need to advertise this. In fact, it is probably BAD MARKETING to have this appear.

The Reviews page includes a title with a text underneath saying "There are currently no product reviews.", I need the same with Specials page. At least this way viewers would know that the page has completely uploaded.

I had a need for this as well because the site map includes a Specials link by default.

I added a db check in the tpl_site_map_default.php file to see if there are specials, if so the link appears. If not, the link doesn't appear.

Find:

<li><?php echo '<a href="' . zen_href_link(FILENAME_SPECIALS) . '">' . PAGE_SPECIALS . '</a>'; ?></li>
```and replace with:

<?php $specials_index_query = "select distinct p.products_id, p.products_image, pd.products_name, p.master_categories_id from (" . TABLE_PRODUCTS . " p left join " . TABLE_SPECIALS . " s on p.products_id = s.products_id left join " . TABLE_PRODUCTS_DESCRIPTION . " pd on p.products_id = pd.products_id ) where p.products_id = s.products_id and p.products_id = pd.products_id and p.products_status = '1' and s.status = '1' and pd.language_id = '" . (int)$_SESSION['languages_id'] . "' and p.products_id in (" . $list_of_products . ")"; if ($specials_index_query > 0) { ?> <li><?php echo '<a href="' . zen_href_link(FILENAME_SPECIALS) . '">' . PAGE_SPECIALS . '</a>'; ?></li> <?php } ?> ```I'm not sure that it is proper to have the db query in this file, but it works.

schoolboy:

So what... If you don't have any specials, you don't need to advertise this. In fact, it is probably BAD MARKETING to have this appear.
If a new customer stops by a website, sees no sales whatsoever, and there is no hint that the site ever has sales, then such a sign may be desired by some stores.

There are many higher end brick and mortar stores, and by extension their websites, who have very few sales throughout the year. Letting customers know when those sales take place is beneficial for the "few to no sales" marketing strategy.

Right now I have one such customer who needs a message suggesting customers bookmark the page and return at the appropriate time. Well, that is if I get it to work. Later, I'll add an RSS feed link to the message in the hopes that at least a few new customers return someday.

Also, if Google picks up a link for a site's specials page, and nothing is there when someone clicks the link, not so good, IMO.

I'm trying to get jettrue's messaging solution to work but have not yet. See this post for more info and links.