New Features in ShopSite Version 10

ShopSite has just released the newest version of the ShopSite Shopping Cart software. Below are some of the new features you will find in ShopSite version 10. Click Here to view a complete list of new features for ShopSite version 10.

HTML Editor (Starter, Manager and Pro)
An HTML editor is available for editing many of the ShopSite text fields including page text fields, product description fields, and header and footer fields.
DOBA Drop Shipper support (Starter, Manager and Pro)
ShopSite now supports drop shipping from DOBA. A merchant can download products from DOBA and sell them without having to store or ship them.
New Themes (Starter, Manager and Pro)
There are four new themes that have been added to ShopSite including Curved, Texturized, Congruence, and Crop Circles.
VAT / GST (Starter, Manager and Pro)
Value Added Tax or Goods and Services Tax is now supported.
Inventory API (Pro)
ShopSite can now check with an external program to see if a product is in stock.
Partial Percentage Coupons (Pro)
Coupons can now have a partial percentage.
PCI Compliant (Starter, Manager and Pro)
ShopSite version 10 has been audited and certified to be in compliance with the PABP/PA DSS requirements.

A complete list of new features available within ShopSite version 10 can be found at https://www.shopsite.com/help/10.0/en-US/new-features.html.

Appealing to the Holiday Shopper

The Christmas season is coming nearer, and many customers like to purchase their Christmas gifts during the After-Thanksgiving Sale. It may be a good idea for your store to have sales during this event. There are several different ways that you can offer additional incentives for your customers, including rewards and cross-selling items. Both of these features can be set up under Merchandising in your ShopSite Pro store.

With ShopSite Pro, you can offer rewards to your customers so that they can have discounts or free items when they purchase specific items or quantities in your store. Customers may be more inclined to purchase a computer when they see that it comes with free software, for example. You can have customers get free items when they purchase high quantities (but 3, get 1 free), and if you have customer registration active in your store, customers can even make these purchases over time and still qualify for the special rewards. The Rewards Program in ShopSite will help encourage customers to make purchases in your store by offering free products and other rewards to them.

Cross-selling items is always a popular option. In ShopSite Pro you can set products to appear to customers when they are viewing specific products in your store, and you can have your more popular items prominently displayed in the shopping cart before customers are ready to checkout. Customers will be able to see other products in your store that match their interests, and it will help them make better purchases from your online store.

The Christmas season will be here soon. It's time to start considering if you want to have additional coupons and offers for your customers during this time, and think about how you'd like to set up these offers in your store.

Merchant Tip

Question: How do I display my product's pull down options on my store pages?

Answer: This is something that is available in both ShopSite Manager and ShopSite Pro. You can display the pull down menus on your store pages with both pages that are built in ShopSite and with the OrderAnywhere feature. To set this up you would go to Products > Edit Product Layout. On this screen there is a list of checkboxes. Check the checkbox to "display this product's Ordering Options", then save changes. You can then publish your store to see the changes. If you are using the OrderAnywhere feature you will be able to go to Merchandising > OrderAnywhere > Show Link. Now your link will not only be the add to cart and view cart button, but it will also include the product's pull down menus. You will then be able to copy and paste the OrderAnywhere button onto your pages outside of ShopSite the same way you had done before.

More information about how to setup the Ordering Options for your products can be found at the following URL:
https://www.shopsite.com/help/10.0/en-US/sc/mgr/ordering.options.html

The Support Queue

Question: Authorize.net has sent out an e-mail regarding an update of Transaction IDs. Does this affect my ShopSite store?

Answer: No, you don't need to make any changes. ShopSite stores this Transaction ID as a string, so it will adapt to additional numbers without affecting your store. You can read more about this here:
http://support.shopsite.com/KBase/questions/2513/

Designer Tip

Question: Is there a way to create breadcrumbs on ShopSite generated pages?

Answer: You can add this is ShopSite Manager and Pro. ShopSite creates static pages rather than dynamic pages because static pages are more easily indexed by search engines. Since the pages are static there is no easy way to put dynamic breadcrumbs on your store pages. However, you can include tags in your templates to place breadcrumbs on your pages which will be static breadcrumbs. It will not matter how the customer actually got to specific pages, the breadcrumbs will be the same. For example, if you could get to the Dur Street Shoes product page by either of the following methods:

Home > Dur > Dur Street Shoes
Home > Shoes > Dur Street Shoes

The more information page for those shoes will only show one of those paths.

If you are fine with this setup for breadcrumbs, then you can go through the following steps to place breadcrumbs on your store pages.

Add the following tags to all of your page templates.
- [-- VAR.PageName PAGE.Name--]
- [-- VAR.FileName PAGE.FileName --]
Also in your page templates, add the following code where you want the breadcrumbs to appear.
<a href=[-- MyStoreURL --]>[-- STORE.Home --]</a> :: <a href=[-- PAGE.FileName --]>[-- PAGE.Name --]</a>
Next, add the following code into your product more information page templates where you would like the breadcrumbs to appear.
<a href=[-- MyStoreURL --]>[-- STORE.Home --]</a>[-- IF VAR.FileName --] :: <a href=[-- OUTPUT_DIRECTORY_URL --]/[-- VAR.FileName --]>[-- VAR.PageName --]</a>[-- END_IF --] :: <a href=[-- PRODUCT.MoreInfoURL --]>[-- PRODUCT.Name --]</a>

Industry Articles

Find Holiday Profits with Revamped Google Product Search
http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/solutions/advertising/article.php/11831_3779176_1
"Recently, Google retooled, renamed and re-launched its comparison shopping engine, now known as Google Product Search, as part of its ongoing mission to organize all of the world's information."

How Small Stores Can Lure Holiday Shoppers
http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/sep2008/sb20080923_483743.htm
"One way to do that is through affinity discounts that encourage loyal customers to spend more, rather than trying to attract new business by cutting prices across the board, says the University of San Francisco's Muscat. "They're going to their customer base, and they're mailing out to their best customers targeted discounts to get them into the store."

SEO Tips: Courting Google with Your Content
http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/solutions/advertising/article.php/3774901
"Google recommends the first three steps of any content submission process as: submitting the URL, submitting a Sitemap and listing your business in the Local Business Center."

Eight Quick Tips for Boosting Conversions
http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/news/research/article.php/3774596
"The easiest way to increase conversion rates is to ensure that people who already want to buy can do so easily. Optimize the checkout (or application) process by removing any barriers, clarifying language and eliminating superfluous elements"

Recently Added Knowledgebase Articles

The following articles were recently added to the support knowledgebase:

August 2008 email from Authorize.net regarding Transaction ID numbers

UPS Message: UPS Online Tool unavailable; try again later

Current Version of ShopSite

Latest Releases:

Version 10 r6 on Linux, Solaris/SPARC and FreeBSD
Version 9.0.4 Windows 2000 and 2003 servers

To upgrade your ShopSite store, contact your authorized reseller hosting partner.