New EasyCart Features in Administrative Console

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We released a new administrative console in the recent days that includes some great new subtle features that really enhance the usability of the application. ?We have been listening to customers and we have been doing usability tests ourselves, and the following are what we have completed so far… with more to come soon.

 

Quickly create, add to, and remove from Categories

We have seen a lot of customers use categories instead of menus to organize products, which is great, so we have added a new category section to the actual product editing screen. ?If you visit the ‘Menu Locations’ panel in a product, you will see the ability to create new categories, add a product to multiple categories, even remove products from a specific category.

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Improved performance with saving and updating data

Before we did not allow you to continue working while a save or update was occurring. ?To help speed up the process, we now allow you to continue working after a save and the application still lets you know that the application is working for you. ?This provides a huge boost in performance and lets you work at a quicker pace.

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Multi-Selecting made easier!

A small detail, unless you needed it was to multi-select all the products quickly. ?You will find a small checkbox in the filter bar for user accounts, orders, products, and the country/state management area. ?We found the need to sometimes select all countries for deletion with one click rather than going through several hundred and single deleting them.

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Quicker Product creation

You can now add a manufacturer without leaving a product. ?This small improvement can save a lot of time if you organize your products by manufacturers.

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While these new improvements are sure to help improve the usability of the application, we do plan to add many more instances throughout our tools to make the process of running a store as easy and fast as possible, while still retaining flexibility.

If you need a new feature, please visit our discussion forums and post a new feature request there!

More to come!

 

 

 

Stripe Integration with Subscription Services

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The latest release of 2.1.6+ of EasyCart now includes a great new and powerful payment processor that is our new favorite. ?The Stripe payment gateway solution is now complete and we included a full subscription/membership system into EasyCart as well. ?Now you can offer a recurring payment product to your customers and they can signup directly on your site. ?All payment information is synced up with the Stripe payment processor and allows complete customer and administrative control.

Build Subscription Products

From EasyCart, creating a subscription is as easy as setting up any product. ?Simply check that it is a subscription, pick how often you want the recurring payments to occur, pick a url if you like for them to access membership content (optional), and whether there is a trial period and the EasyCart system does the rest. ?Customers will see the subscription product like any other product, except they will see a ‘Sing Up Now’ button instead of ‘Add to Cart’ button.

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Once users sign up, information is approved by Stripe and the subscription is placed into the EasyCart subscription system along with their first order being placed. ?Each recurring payment will appear as an order in your system.

Administrate Subscriptions

EasyCart administrative tools are completely integrated to communicate with Stripe and allows you to pull up subscriptions, upgrade or downgrade customers, cancel their memberships, and review all related information regarding their subscription. ?You can also see a quick payment history of their subscription.

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Customer Subscription Management

Customers also have access to a complete subscription management area from within their account. ?Customers can quickly update their credit card information, upgrade or downgrade their subscription, change billing address information, and/or cancel their membership at anytime. ?This gives you the store owner less support and interaction with members as they can do all administrative tasks directly from their account.

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Membership Content

One of the great features we offer with our subscription services is an easy to setup membership area system. ?Simply create a new WordPress page, apply our members only shortcode, and then only logged in subscribers can access the new content. ?This makes a great way for you to feed membership content to customers who have purchased a subscription if that is required by your business.

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Version 2.1 EasyCart Released – New Feature List

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WP EasyCart released version 2.1 update to its eCommerce plugin for 2014 and now we have some great new features to list along with several enhancements to an already feature rich product line.

Subscription Based System

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The new subscription system allows users to build PayPal subscriptions with only a few clicks. ?Add a new product to EasyCart, and you can simply designate it as a subscription and select the interval you would like subscribers to pay.

Once a customer clicks on the ‘Sign Up Now’ button, they will be taken to PayPal to handle all the particular needs of subscribing and managing that payment. ?PayPal offers a full suite of management tools for the business owner to manage as well.

The subscription system will also talk back to your EasyCart installation and enter subscriptions into your administrative console. ?You can see all the details of the subscription, including active status, sign-up dates, last payment dates, # payments completed and other customer information.

 

Quantity Based Shipping

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Version 2.1 includes an additional shipping method that allows you now to build a rate table based on quantity of items in the shopping cart. ?This will give more customers the flexibility to give rates to their customers and allow for more precise control over the shipping of their goods.

As with our normal policy, all shipping systems are included in our Full License version. ?You get Price rate shipping, Weight rate shipping, Quantity rate shipping, Static method shipping, and live rates by UPS, FedEx, USPS, DHL, and Australian Post. ?Lite License users have access to all of these except the live shipping rates.

 

DHL Shipping Calculators

Version 2.1 now includes DHL as a shipping carrier and can return live shipping rates for customers using this option. ?As a popular European solution to shipping, we are sure this will be popular with the International EasyCart users!

Global Handling Fees

Version 2.1 allows you to enter a global handling fee, which will be added to whatever shipping rates you use. ?We have always offered a per-product handling rate as well, but this new option will add flexibility to the system for many users.

Catalog Only EasyCart

Many customers have requested that the EasyCart system hide the ‘Add to Cart’ behavior and allow customers to simply browse their products as a catalog. ?Now you have the option to do so! ?Simply change a setting under the ‘Advanced Options’ to enable catalog only mode, and the customers can see all of your products and view their full details, but without the ability to add to a cart.

Internationalization Language & Currency Updates

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With Version 2.1, we have integrated a new currency conversion system and language system that allows you to alter the entire shopping system quickly and easily. ?If you are a user of WPML, we can now change the shop text, descriptions, titles and language elements when a WPML change is made.

So customers can adjust not only your website, but also adjust the entire shopping system and product data using the correct techniques. ?We even can adjust currency using a simple currency conversion rate that you can control in the ‘Advanced Options’.

You will also notice there are new widgets available for customers to change currency in the store or change shop text translations quickly, but we find that many will want to use WPML to change the entire site globally and quickly.

We will be producing a tutorial video and demonstration website that showcases these capabilities soon!

 

EasyCart Review and Walk-Through

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The folks at Sell with WP have created a really nice objective review of the WP EasyCart software and eCommerce system. ?The article is an in depth analysis of the entire installation process, major features, and pros and cons to the new software.

One aspect we really enjoyed about the article was the refreshing way they covered a large plugin like EasyCart in-depth. ?Many reviews are very short and often compare apples to oranges, while this review actually compares it’s features with the way it is constructed in an overall sense.

For anyone who is new to eCommerce and plugins, this is a great walk-through on how to get the EasyCart setup, installed and configured, and what steps you should likely do in chronological order for a fast setup time.

While the folks at Sell with WP do work for a competing eCommerce platform, we felt they were still fairly objective in their review and show the strengths and weaknesses of ?the software. ?For more information and to read the full review, simply click on the logo above, or Click Here.

2014 Outlook for WordPress Websites

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Well 2013 has come and gone and 2014 is rolling along quickly. ?Many WordPress users are looking forward to the new year as we continue to pull a country out of a recession, put new innovations on the shelves, and pushing their online content to the masses.

We are here to tell you the future looks good, and we are optimistic with the path we are taking with our technology on the long term outlook. ?WordPress has always been a major blogging platform, but has recently taken hold as a great website development tool. ?Easy themes, easy plugins, lots of features, but more importantly an easy to use platform all together has developed it into much more than a simple blog tool.

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Compared to joomla and drupal, the leading competitors, it looks like WordPress is pulling favorably ahead in popularity and usefulness. ?Good news for many of us who have used WordPress as our platform of choice, and for our piece of mind as we all continually look for the best CMS software we can.

WP EasyCart looks to leverage this base as well. ?We are seeing increased trends in theme development and plugin development for WordPress, all supporting the increase in this popular platform.

2014 Predictions:

I will go out on a limb and throw out a few predictions for 2014.

1. ?WordPress will continue to develop quickly, and gain more market share compared to it’s counterpart CMS systems.

2. Theme spaces such as Theme Forest will grow in size as designers begin to leverage the growth of user base in WordPress and the theme architecture it provides.

3. More users will begin to capitalize on their websites and leverage plugins such as EasyCart to add e-commerce to their simple websites and blogs.

4. Social Media has plateaued, Facebook, Twitter, and other programs may become less relevant as people bring on entire websites that present themselves, their businesses, and their image.

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5. ?Apps, plugins, and mobile game development will increase as tablets, TV’s, and other devices stream internet content and developers see the gains in market share and profit in these areas of development. ?(think more people playing candy crush than Facebooking)

6. ?I also feel online security will continue to increase, retailers and site owners will have more regulations and strict security standards that we must adhere to to ensure we have safe online e-commerce. ?In WordPress, limit those unknown small 3rd party plugins and use SSL certificates to secure traffic.

Do you have a prediction for 2014?

 

 

WP EasyCart gets version 2 released!

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With the new year, we are happy to release version 2 that has a huge list of improvements in both usability and in stability and features. ?We have been listening hard to each and every customer and putting in new features that many of you have been asking for.

New Streamlined Look

In version 2, we replaced the entire administrative area with a new make-over that will help improve setup and usability as you manage your shopping cart. ?Now you can view current orders right from WordPress with our new dashboard, or check the store status against a variety of checks to quickly diagnose a problem.

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We have a new colorizer that is a one click stop to change the entire skin of your store. ?Version 2 also includes better payment gateway setup and design file management.

New Admin Console Software

Version 2 also includes a complete redesign of the administrative console software to make it easier to add new options, products, and settings. ?The WordPress admin plugin, desktop applications, iPad, and android software were all updated with a vastly better user interface to help you get products in quicker and manage orders smoother.

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A Large List of New Features

With the latest version, we now have an advanced option system that allows you to have unlimited options to a product. ?Not only that, but you can now add check box systems, radio groups, file uploads, text input, text area, combo boxes, image swatches, or price changing grids to a product. ?This provides virtually unlimited ability to customize a product and have customers the ability to add attributes to a product.

Several New Templates

All of our current templates have been upgraded to the latest version and feature list, plus we went a step further and added some new themes. ?One of our latest great themes is the ‘Replete’ theme by kriesi.at. ?This new theme is available at theme forest, and our store can be purchased with a completely matching theme to integrate for a uniform look.

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For a full list of our demos and themes, be sure to check out our demos section and view our feature list.