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Introducing ProStores 9.1
New Features in ProStores Version 9.1- One Page Checkout - One-Page checkout gives merchants a better way to guide their buyers through the checkout process. This new checkout will be streamlined compared to the existing 'Multi-Page Checkout' which has many pages in the checkout flow. In One-Page checkout, Customers will remain on a single page with each step being completed on the left of the screen and then captured on the right of the screen in their invoice. As Customers move through the checkout process their invoice will be completed with each step. This feature is optional for business and above but will be the only checkout option for starter stores.
- ProStores "To Go" Widget - The ProStores "To Go" widget can help merchants distribute their storefront to many different places on the web to drive traffic (and sales) to their web stores. The widget uses the new storefront API available in ProStores version 9.1. Merchants can build their widget through the widget builder in Store Administration > Marketing > ProStores To Go!.
- Storefront API - The Storefront API allows third-party developers to retrieve store information for display in other applications or Web sites.
New in Version 9.0
- Store Administration Home Page: The store administration home page gives a Quick Store Status view, and also provides easy access to your store hosting account, resources and tools, tutorials, and more.
- New Themes: Choose from 10 new contemporary store themes
- New Home Page Layouts: Choose from 2 new home page layouts
- Logo Generator: If you don't have a store logo, you can now create one in minutes using the ProStores logo generator! The logo generator allows you to customize a clean, professional looking logo using fonts on your computer. You can adjust the font size, color and style, add a background, and also add a tagline to your logo. Access this feature from Store Design > Logo.
- Store Administration Product List Changes: The store administration product list has been modified with a new look and feel. Common actions such as Add Product and Search have been added to the list.
- Shopping Cart Cross-Sell/Up-Sell:: This feature allows you to show your customers other merchandise from your store by displaying up to six additional products on the shopping cart. Products are displayed based on criteria that the merchant can configure. Access this feature from Store Settings > General, under Shopping Cart and Checkout Options.
- Product Image Resize Options: When you upload new product images, ProStores will automatically resize them for optimal display on your Product Details and Search Results pages. Access the product image resize options from Product > List, under Product Settings.
- Product Descriptions: HTML Editor: You can now enter your Product descriptions in an HTML editor while adding or updating a product.
- New Marketing Section: You can access all marketing tools in one convenient place. Store Promotions, E-Mail Marketing, Search Optimization and Comparison Shopping are now located in the new Marketing section.
- Automated Google Base Product Feed: ProStores will automatically submit your product feed to Google Base, so you can start driving traffic to your web store! No account is needed. Access this feature from the new Marketing page.
New Features for eBay Merchants
- eBay Sync: Multi-Channel Inventory: ProStores now lets you offer items for sale on both eBay and ProStores at the same time and virtually eliminates the possibility of over-selling unique or low stock items. If an item is sold on eBay, ProStores will automatically decrement it from ProStores. If the item is sold on ProStores and there are none remaining in stock on eBay, the eBay listing for that item will end.
Version 8.1
- Sitemap Management:
- Sitemap Settings: The Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Manager now contains a section that provides settings for controlling sitemap generation.
- Sitemap Generation: These SEO Manager tools help merchants control when ProStores generates a sitemap for their store and which search engines to notify upon generating a new sitemap.
- Sitemap Account Signup Assistance: The SEO Manager provides links to help merchants set up accounts with search engines (Yahoo! and Google) in order for these search engines to retrieve the generated sitemap.
- Expanded and Improved Developer Support:
- Solutions Directory: Added a page containing applications that you can use to enhance your store's functionality.
- Improved XTE Support: Improved the authentication mechanism and expanded the number of transactions available through XTE transactions.
- Shopping Cart: Enhanced the ability of ProStores to track and determine the contents of shopping carts.
Version 8.1
Improved Merchant Tools
- Attributes:
Note: If the merchant has created custom product detail page, code will have to be added to the detail page to support displaying the additional attribute features. If the merchant has not modified the templates, the changes will appear automatically.
- Merchant-Initiated Order Splitting:
- Order Splitting: The merchant can split an order if inventory is enabled and the order:
- Contains at least one backordered item.
- Contains at least one in-stock item.
- Does not use PayPal as the payment processor.
- eBay Rules: All eBay items in an order cannot be split, because eBay policy states that all eBay items must be in-stock and therefore cannot be split and held back as backordered items in a split order. If the merchant ships one eBay item, the merchant must ship all eBay items.
- Payment Processing: Processor preferences can be set to either immediate or future fulfillment, which is the same as in previous releases.
If the merchant splits an order, ProStores processes the payment as usual by capturing the amount for the shipped product. The payment processor must allow multiple captures on one authorization if using future fulfillment, and the merchant must be aware of what their processor allows. ProStores will try to process the payment, but the payment processing may fail if the payment processor rejects the request.
For merchants using immediate fulfillment, the full amount will be authorized and captured as it is in the previous releases. The split orders would not incur any charges.
- Marketing Link: Market Demand and eBay pages that have eBay marketing text include a new link that opens a page in a new window. The page explains the benefits of selling on eBay.
Queued Exports and Reports:
- Export and Report requests will be added to a queue and processed sequentially.
Version 8.0
Improved User Interface
Note: The following user interface improvements apply to the new Store Design hub, which replaces Design Studio.
- Store Design: Improved the store design process by replacing Design Studio with a more user-friendly and intuitive Store Design hub, which provides one-stop access to design settings, page template management, store versions, and more.
- Store Design Hub Customizable: The user can customize the Store Design hub by hiding certain sections, or by rearranging sections with drag-and-drop technology.
- Page Template Editing: Improved editing page templates by incorporating the Basic, Advanced, and Source editors into a single edit page, allowing the merchant to switch between editors by simply clicking a tab. The merchant can also select templates to edit without having to leave the editor.
- Improved User Feedback: Improved success and error message and icon display when the user has made changes.
- Theme Selection: Improved the ability to preview, select, and apply themes to a store design.
- Page Text: Improved ability to edit page text.
- Buttons: Improved layout, availability, and consistency of action buttons.
- Help:
- Centralized help topics into one help system.
- Improved scannability by placing major topics in expandable sections.
- Improved readability by improving topic styles.
- Improved usability by adding a search feature.
Improved Merchant Tools
- Design Recommendations: Store Design displays links to design recommendations based on the state of the merchant's current store design.
- Theme Compare: Added ability to compare themes within a theme category.
- Resources and Tools: New section of the Store Design hub provides links to popular tools and resources.
- Page Template Manager: Added the Page Template Manager to centralize and simplify management of all store pages.
- Page Template Management: Improved process for managing page templates, such as copying, creating, exporting, and importing page templates.
- Baseline Management: Improved the process flow for managing store version baselines.
- Store Versions: Improved the process flow for maintaining various store versions. As part of this improvement, Template Sets are now referred to as Store Versions.
- Store Logo: A store logo can now be assigned individually to a store version, instead of applying across all store versions.
- Account History: Customers shopping at Business Tier stores can now access their account history from the store front.
Other Improvements and Changes
- Navigation:
- Improved the navigation look and feel.
- Integrated Store Design into navigation tree.
- Renamed the Store navigation hub to Store Settings.
- SSML: SSML tag names have been modified to reflect the name changes introduced by the user interface revision. ProStores still supports previous tags in order to maintain backward compatibility with existing stores.
- HTTP Header Test Rules: Improved the process for creating and applying custom rules to store versions.
Version 7.2
eBay Integration
- Checkout Redirect Enhancement: The cart for Checkout Redirect now uses SSL security encryption. Customers will no longer receive a security warning when redirected to check out through ProStores.
- Status Update on Listings: ProStores provides up-to-date end dates for eBay listings.
PayPal
- PayPal Order Support: ProStores supports line items for Website Payments Pro only.
Other Improvements and Changes
- New Shopping.com Format: ProStores has updated the Shopping.com feed file format. This will improve the signup flow for the merchant.
- Google Base: Updated ProStores pages and help topics to reflect that Froogle has changed to Google Base.
ProStores 7.1
Store Administration
Improved ProStores Merchant Tools.
- Store Locale: Added the ability to change store local if there are no outstanding successful transaction fees.
eBay Integration
PayPal
- Payments Pro: ProStores supports the new Website Payments Pro signup process.
Version 7.0
Store Administration
Improved ProStores merchant tools.
- Improved Data Export Instructions: Data export pages now provide more step-by-step detailed instructions for exporting data.
- Storewide Sales Promotion: This feature has been extended to the Business Edition.
- Multiple Featured Products: Merchants can specify up to five featured Products per store.
- Advanced Search Support: The Advanced Search page supports a featured Product search.
- Multiple Featured Categories: Merchants can specify up to five featured categories per store.
- Featured Category Summary: The Category Manager includes an at-a-glance summary of the featured categories.
- "New" Default Category: For each new store, ProStores will create a default category with the name "New". In order for products to appear in store search results a product must be assigned to one category. The "New" category will act as the default category for all imported or added products. This feature is enabled by default. The merchant may disable this feature by unselecting the Use default category check box in the Category Manager. The merchant can rename the default category, and can specify one of two conditions for when it is applied:
- Only when no other category is specified
- Regardless of whether a category is specified
Wizard Improvement
- Design Wizard Review Selections page: This page no longer exists because all Design Wizard pages now contain a Preview link for previewing your selections at any stage of store design.
Improved Design Studio User Interface (UI)
- Basic Editor: New WYSIWYG editor simplifies store design with direct editing of template text, drag and drop support, and control over fonts, colors, links and images.
eBay Integration
PayPal
- Postage Integration: Merchants with a PayPal account can create USPS shipping labels, using their PayPal account to pay for the postage.
- Standard and Express Checkout: The Website Payments Pro section in the Credit Cards section was modified so that Direct and Express are one entity. When Direct is selected, Express is automatically selected in the PayPal section and cannot be deselected.
Other
- New Templates for Featured Categories and Products: Home page templates now support displaying multiple featured categories and products.
- Background Color Tags: Themes now support SSML background color tags.
- Multiple Shippers: Add the ability to offer multiple shipping carriers to the customer. Cart displays merchant's preferred-carrier shipping rates; rates for other carriers are one click away.
- UPS WorldShip™ Integration: Merchants with UPS accounts can export ready-to-ship orders to UPS WorldShip, process the orders in UPS WorldShip, then import the processed orders back into ProStores to update the orders with UPS tracking numbers and move them to the completed orders list.
- Credit Card Test Mode Moved: The Enable Credit Card Test Mode check box was moved to the configuration page for any payment processor that supports test mode.
ProStores 6.1
Store Administration
Improved the user experience of new ProStores merchant
- Getting Started Checklist: New Getting Started Checklist with progress indicators
- Navigation: Left navigation not loaded with Getting Started Checklist or wizards
- Task Organization: Tasks divided into required, recommended and optional
- Preview: Preview Store button on Getting Started Checklist
- Design Tools: Design Your Store page provides design tool choices
- Link Styles: Links are underlined and blue
Wizard Improvements
- Design Wizard: Design Wizard created for design tasks only - replaces Store Setup Wizard
- Links: Cancel and "Return to..." links take you back to where you came from
- Preview: Preview in Design Wizard
- New Wizard: New Add Product Categories wizard
Improved Design Studio User Interface (UI)
- Task Order: UI more intuitive, surfacing most used tasks first
- Design Guide: Design Guide provides basics of good store design
- Task Organization: Global tasks separated from template set tasks
- Global Tasks: Design Studio landing page contains global tasks
- Template Tasks: Template Set landing page contains template tasks
- Dreamweaver Extension: Dreamweaver Extension available from the Design Studio landing page
- Preview: Preview template set on Design Studio landing page
- Upload Images: Upload images for default template set on Design Studio landing page
- Template Sets: Template set list on Design Studio landing page
- Template Editor: Design Studio template editor accessed from the Template Set landing page
- Navigation: Left navigation shown only in template editor
- Navigation: Left navigation loads only current template set being worked on
- Preview: Preview template set in template editor left navigation
- Template Tasks: Change status, locale and rules available from Template Set landing page
- Preview: Preview template set from Template Set landing page
- Design Wizard: Design Wizard accessible from Template Set landing page
- Upload Images: Upload images for specific template set from Template Set landing page
- Template Editor: Template editor shows table cell guidelines by default
Improvements in eBay.com Integration
- Checkout Redirect: When items are purchased at eBay via ProStores using checkout redirect, ProStores will use eBay shipping and tax calculations, and will display them as separate items on invoice, invoice-print, invoice-email templates, or cart templates.
- Restore Customized Templates: Merchants who have customized their invoice, invoice-print, invoice-email templates, or cart templates will need to restore those individual templates to the ProStores default versions.
- Checkout Redirect Default: Checkout redirect is turned off by default for all new stores
- eBay Wizard: The PayPal section of the eBay Wizard allows the merchant the opportunity to sign up for Website Payments Pro for credit card processing
- My eBay Pages: Both the buyer and seller My eBay pages show transactions as complete after payment has been authorized in ProStores.
- eBay Listings: HTML is inserted at the end of an eBay listing created from a ProStores catalog. It states that the listing was created by ProStores, and a graphic and text link to ProStores.com was added
PayPal
- Direct/Express: The Website Payments Pro section in the Credit Cards section was modified so that Direct and Express are one entity. When Direct is selected, Express is automatically selected in the PayPal section
Other
- Shipping Setup wizard: Only the selected shipping methods appear on the subsequent page of the Shipping Setup wizard. Likewise, these choices will not appear as estimates in the checkout if the merchant has not specified them by checking the box to indicate they will be used as a shipping method.
- Navigation: Store Administration navigation changed from Store | Shipping to Store | Shipping Prefs
- Navigation: Store Administration navigation changed from Store | Billing to Store | Payment Prefs
- Default shipper: The default active shipper name was changed from ProStores to Merchant-Defined
- Test stores: Resellers can designate test stores. Limitations: no dedicated URL, cap per transaction amount at $1.00, cannot switch store out of test designation, and display "Test Store" message within Store Administration
- Payment gateway: The PayGateway (Paradata) payment processor was updated to the most recent SDK
- Services: Added support for import as an on demand service
- Searching: Storefront search performance improvements
- Payment preferences: The Credit Cards label in the expandable subsection in Payment Preferences was be changed to Credit Cards (Merchant Account) to clarify that this section relates to merchant accounts
- Payment preferences: Electronic Checks section was moved into the Payment Options section, following Checks/Money Orders
ProStores 6.0
Store Administration:
- Support for "Favorites" icon added to image upload page.
- Limited inventory support added to all store types.
- Product thumbnail images can now be generated automatically from the photo image.
- Can now reset individual templates to baseline.
- Shopping Comparison Sites have been moved to Product | Market Demand | Shopping Sites.
- Support for PayPal Direct Payment added.
- Support added for product level Meta Keywords and Meta Description.
- Support for Search Engine Optimization added (Product | Market Demand | SEO).
- URL formats have been changed to be more search engine friendly.
eBay:
- eBay functions have been moved to Product | Market Demand | eBay
- Pictures copied from eBay now use the full path name.
- Listings now contain a "Select All" check box.
- Listings now offer a search capability at the top of the page.
- Storefront links to eBay listings include the merchant's seller referral ID, if items are listed in store inventory format.
- Quantity may be specified when listings are copied from eBay.
- The price on the Copied Listings page now uses the following rules:
- For active listings, the price is the current price at the time the listing is retrieved, except when:
- there is a reserve price and the reserve is not met, the price is the reserve price.
- the listing is an auction with a Buy It Now price and the BIN price is still available the price is the BIN price.
- For ended listings, the price is the ending price (same as BIN price for fixed price and eBay Stores listings) at the time the listing is retrieved, except when:
- there was a reserve price and the reserve was not met, the price is the reserve price.
- the listing was an auction with a Buy It Now price and the BIN price is still available, the price is the BIN price.
- For both active and ended listings, assuming the storefront uses a currency of U.S. dollars, if the currency in the listing is not in U.S. dollars, the price is the converted price that eBay shows.
- Store Category 2 has been added to the Quick List feature.
- Improvements have been made to the Quick List flow.
- eBay Listing wizard has been shortened.
- Title of Pended Listings page has been changed to Pending Listings.
- Added support for relisting items.
- Pagination added to listings pages.
- Turbo Lister and File Exchange files may now be imported to ProStores.
- Status and state of eBay token now appears in General Preferences.
- References to "token" are now permission based.
- Support for "Welcome eBay customer" custom text on the Cart template has been added.
- "List on eBay" has been changed to "Quick List on eBay".
Storefront:
- Anonymous checkout now supported.
- Merchant can control shopper experience when items are added or removed from the cart.
- The customer can now calculate actual shipping charges on the cart page.
- References to "Tracking Number" have been changed to "Confirmation Number" to prevent confusion with tracking shipping.
- On Order Confirmation page (for new stores), the order confirmation number is now a link.
- Alt text has been added to product images to support search engine optimization.
Version 5.8.0
Changes and New Features
Auctions
- eBay: Upgraded eBay to compatibility level v335.
- eBay Preferences: Added ability to maintain store level defaults for eBay auction items.
- Multiple Listings: Added support for quickly listing multiple items.
Email Marketing
- SDK: The SDK was extended to support email marketing extensions.
- Marketing: Added "Constant Contact" e-mail marketing extension which allows a merchant to create, manage and distribute e-mail marketing material in HTML format to registered customers who have opted to participate in such distributions.
General
- Tomcat 5: Updated StoreSense to be compatible with Tomcat 5.
- Advanced Search: Enhanced the advanced search feature in Product Manager in Store Administration to allow multiple SKUs to be entered (comma delimited) with wildcards. Also, added a check box to include only products that have been auctioned (in any state; pending, live, closed, completed).
- CyberSource: Added support for Payer Authentication.
- Services: StoreSense detects if active services haven't loaded after x amount of time and then reloads them automatically. This change works around servlet engine startup race conditions that can prevent services from starting cleanly.
- Visitor Counts: Visitors count on the Store Administration home page matches the count on the Search Summary report.
- Request/Math/String objects: Enhanced the Request, Math, and String objects to support many new functions via SSML. See the Business Object Reference for these objects for details.
- Related Products: Enhanced the related product assignment user interface in Store Administration to better support stores with large catalogs.
- Affiliates: Added the Affiliate object as a global object to all storefront pages so that the merchant can use it to customize the UI. If the $affiliate object exists on any page, an affiliate is associated with the shopper's session (<ss:if test="$affiliate"/>...</ss:if>).
- SurePay: Removed support for SurePay Payment Gateway due to the SurePay network being terminated.
- Linkpoint: Updated the Linkpoint gateway processor in StoreSense to API version 3.0.
- Starter Store: Added the ability to change the locale on a Starter Edition store.
- Postal Edits: Modified the postal edits for US addresses to ignore the last four digits of a postal code and only validate the first 5 digits.
- Related Products: Added Related Product Import - also supports adds and deletes.
- Email a Friend: Added tag automation support for "Email a Friend" links on storefront.
- State Field: Added ability for user to enter either the full state name or abbreviation in the state field.
- Design Studio: Created an option in System Administration to enable/disable merchant access to the Design Studio functions.
Marketplaces
- Yahoo! Shopping: Now included in StoreSense.
Promotions
- Min/Max Promotions: Promotions that deal with order minimum/maximums were enhanced to allow the merchant to decide how "exclude product from store promotions" should be handled.
- Attributes: Added ability to automatically assign product-level promotions to all attributes.
- Attributes Feature: Added quantity discount with multiple attributes.
Shipping
- Will Call: Added "Will Call" functionality for customers to pick up products at the store and avoid shipping charges.
- Shipping Labels: Added invoice numbers to the top of each shipping label.
- Shipping Methods: Added the ability to remove an unwanted shipping method from Select Shipping.
- Shipping Estimates: Added an option in Store Administration to hide all shipping references during the checkout process on the storefront but still use them on the invoice to calculate the shipping amount.
- US Postal Service: Added US Postal Service (USPS) real-time integration.
- Shipper's Packages: Added external shipper defined packages to the label generation page. (e.g. FedEx Box, UPS Envelope, etc.)
- UPS: Updated the UPS user interface to new UPS specifications.
Version 5.7.0
Product Catalog
- Add Product Wizard: supports adding a new category.
- Attribute Field Lengths: individual attribute values support up to 200 characters (up from 50); the total of the attribute values may be up to 5,000 characters.
- Attribute Inventory: inventory status is displayed when displaying product attributes on the storefront or Order Entry.
- Category Deletion: categories associated with products may be deleted.
- Category Photos and Descriptions: the category photo and description will be displayed on the storefront automatically. Note: the store must be using a layout template shipped with version 5.7.0.
- Category Photos: images can be uploaded from the Category Profile page.
- Completed Auctions: auction list indicates winners with a link to the Outcomes page.
- Manufacturers: the OEM URL field supports up to 250 characters (up from 50).
- Marketplaces: support for uploading the product catalog into several shopping search engines has been added, including Shopping.com, Froogle and BizRate.
- Product Fields: support collection of media type, ISBN, condition and MPN.
- Product Serial Numbers: support up to 50 characters (up from 20).
- Promotions: products can support up to 100 active promotions.
- Suppliers: when an incoming supplier confirmation file is received, the /suppliers/incoming directory is created automatically.
Payment Options
- AuthorizeNet: Gateway has been updated to include the shopper's IP address with a transaction.
- Credit Card Name: the customer's name, as it appears on their credit cards, can be collected.
- Electronic Checks: added support for Electronic Checks as a store payment method.
- Minimum Order Amount: merchants can require a minimum order amount for checkout.
- Payment Gateways: support for the Concord EFSNet, Innovative Gateway, NobelPay, PayFuse, Pay-Me-Now, PayGateway, and 'StoreSense Merchant Services' payment gateways has been added.
- Payment Processors: if a payment processor is configured, "Validate Rules" is turned on automatically.
- PayPal: PayPal is enabled by default, and merchants can begin the registration process for PayPal from Store Administration and collect payment via PayPal without configuring an account with PayPal.
Design
- Custom Headers/Footers: designers can create full-page templates that do not display with the header or footer template.
- Design/Source View Default: merchants can select the view Design Studio will default to when editing templates.
- HTML E-mail: HTML E-mail is supported via the use of the new "type" attribute of the <ss:email> tag.
- Look and Feel: merchants can change the theme, layouts and/or fonts/colors in their store without overwriting all of their templates.
- New Themes: over 40 new themes.
- Smart Keywords: the new Page object contains members that allow you to control the META keywords in a resolved template's HEAD tag.
- Smart Page Titles: StoreSense themes include with SSML that will create page titles that are customized for the body template being displayed. For example, the product name will be included in the page title on product detail pages and the category name will be included in the page title for category searches. This will improve search engine indexing for the storefront.
- Storefront Category Display: merchants can control the depth of their category trees (as displayed on the storefront) from the Category Manager.
Shipping
- Auctions: shipping tags have been added to ensure eBay compatibility.
- Auctions: if "Flat Shipping Rate" is selected, the Rate will default to the StoreSense shipping rate, and the Type will be set to other.
- Packing Lists: will display the tracking numbers entered on the Shipping list.
- Shipping Promotion: added support for external processors.
- Shipping Searching: orders ready for shipping can be searched by invoice number, customer, and/or invoice date.
General
- E-mail Notifications: added support for multiple e-mail addresses in each e-mail field.
- Lost Password: the Lost Password template no longer requires the first/last name fields, just the e-mail field.
- Negative Store Credits: added support for negative store credits.
- Order Log Export: added customer email to export file.
- Purging: category purging has been separated from the product purge option.
- Store Status, Pending Orders: merchants can specify the Pending Orders page to which the link should default.
System Administration
- Content and Data Paths: added options that give administrators more control over the locations of the store content and data paths. Please refer to the System Administration User Guide, Store Options topic, for more information.
- Integration with Web Support: links have been added to several areas of System Administration directing users to Kurant Connect or the StoreSense Developers Network for additional help.
- Merchant Application: Support for 'StoreSense Merchant Services' merchant application has been added.
- Professional Plus Product: a new edition, Professional Plus, has been added to the Site Store offerings. Professional Plus includes all three modules, Customer Plus, Supplier Connect, and the Sales Manager.
- System Notices: site administrators can display a message to merchant within Store Administration.
NEW IN STORESENSE 5.6.1
eBay Auctions: You can now post your products to an eBay auction. To do so, you must have an account established with eBay, and have your language set to "??_US".
Site Connector: The Site Connector allows you to add links to your storefront that point to another site you may have. In addition, it allows you to add pages that you did not select when they went through the Setup Wizard (such as the About Us, FAQ and Locations pages).
Custom Text Editing: Custom Text (entered during the Setup Wizard), is now displayed in the Design Studio as text, and not as a tag. The custom text is surrounded by a blue outline on the appropriate template.
UPS Shipper: provides tracking, rate and service selection and shipping tools. Existing merchants will have to add the <ss:include macro="ShipperCopyright"/> to the Tracking, Invoice, Invoice-Print and Invoice-Email templates.
Store Administration Logging: Store Administration now maintains an event log file for each store that you can view. This file can be viewed by clicking one of the log icons in the StoreSense Explorer, which will only appear if there are new events to report.
Documentation: The Store Administration Online Guide has been reorganized so that you can search for topics by both Manager and by business process. The Design Studio Online Guide has been changed to include more help on SSML tags, objects and templates. The Designer's Reference now includes "code snippets" that provide SSML and HTML code solutions for common issues.
New in 5.6.0
Customer Search by Email: The Customer Manager now supports searching for customers by their e-mail address.
Starter Edition: The Site Edition has been replaced with the new "Starter Edition". The Starter Edition contains a great deal more functionality than the Site Edition, but is even easier to use. Please refer to the Starter Edition User Guide for more information.
Self-serve upgrades:StoreSense now offers the option for you to upgrade to another edition or module without having to leave Store Administration.
Product Color and Size Labels: You can now change the labels on the product Color and Size fields. These names will then appear as entered on the Cart Add template. Existing merchants must replace the Color/Size text on the Cart Add template with <ss:value source="$product.attribute1Label"/> or <ss:value source="$product.attribute2Label"/>).
Importing Data: Store Administration now offers blank import data files for the most common imports: Customer, Product and Product Attributes.
Template Set "Locking": You can "lock" a visitor to your store to a specific template set. Refer to the documentation on Template Sets for more information. These files include all columns that can be imported, and can be used to create import files.
Cart Add Template: The Cart Add template can now be included on any template that contains product information.
SSML Object Reference: The SSML Object Reference has been removed from the Designer's Reference into its own guide. In addition, the reference has been expanded to include an alphabetical listing of all members.
Template Help: the Template Help page that appears when working on a template, or in the Online Guide, now lists any "shortcuts" that can be used on that template.
New in STORESENSE 5.5
StoreSense 5.5 is packed with new features to help you build your store, manage your products, and market your business more effectively. And, if you sell products or services outside your online store, you can now bill your customers and accept payment from within StoreSense. See Service Merchant Support for details.
Marketing
Promotions
Buy three and save 10%! The Promotion feature gives you new options and greater flexibility with promotions. Promotions can be created at both the store and the product level. Available promotions include: Storewide Sale, Gift Wrap, Highest/Lowest Price, Manufacturer, Order Minimum/Maximum, Product Sale, and Product Quantity Discount.
Merchandising
Service Merchant Support
Accept payment via your website, whether you sell landscaping services or the latest widget. With the addition of this feature, any business type can use StoreSense. If you are selling services or other non-tangible goods, your customers can now pay for those services online through your StoreSense store. You can add an invoice generated outside StoreSense, through the order creation area in Store Administration. Your customers can then view and pay the invoice online.
Unlimited Subcategories
Categorize your products even further so they’re easier than ever for your customers to find. You can now create an unlimited number of subcategory levels for the products in your store.
Retire Products
No longer selling that product? It can now be removed from your store’s product count while keeping the information for invoices and reports. Additionally, retired products will not be included in the store’s product limit.
Invoice Adjustments
Deliver top-notch customer service even after the purchase is made. StoreSense now allows you to adjust up or down all elements of an invoice ready for shipping. Also new, you can edit the shipping tracking number and ship date on invoices that have been shipped.
Product Image and Multimedia Support
Employ the latest multimedia techniques to animate your product catalog and wow customers. The new StoreSense Markup Language (SSML) includes the <ss:media> tag, which supports the display of multimedia files such as Flash and MP3s.
Templates
Tag Standardization and Customization
Create more robust storefront designs. With the release of StoreSense version 5.5, an entirely new tagging language - the StoreSense Markup Language (SSML) - has been introduced. SSML makes it possible to take advantage of StoreSense's powerful e-commerce capabilities, while still being easy to use. SSML is backward-compatible, so if you are using the existing language you will not be required to update your templates with the new language. See the Designer's Reference for detailed information.
Tag Automation
HTML a little scary? Now you can enable or disable certain features automatically through a simple check box, without having to edit the underlying template. The following features are enabled/disabled automatically: Featured Product, Members Only, and Store Subscription. If you select the storefront option, these features will be enabled/disabled: Product Custom Fields, Customer Custom Fields, Sales Lead Custom Fields and Sales Affiliates.
Template Validation
Quickly and easily find errors in your templates, and make corrections prior to publishing to your live site. StoreSense now validates templates for correct SSML syntax and business object usage when they are saved, published, or imported. Also, an entire template set can be validated with just one click.
Additional Themes
Create a store design that’s uniquely you. The new version of StoreSense features 15 new themes as well as several new Catalog List and Catalog Detail Layouts.
Performance
StoreSense performance is now better than ever. Version 5.5 offers caching and processing of templates, as well as the reuse of storefront search results, to make your StoreSense system run faster and smoother.
Product Keyword Automation
Ensure your customers can find what they’re looking for in your store. Now, unlimited keywords may be associated with a product. In addition, StoreSense displays those keywords that are automatically generated by the system to the merchant.
Product Manager Updates
Manage your products faster and more efficiently. The Product List in Store Administration has been enhanced to a) provide quicker access to some of the product update tools, and b) to allow for editing of product price and quantity directly on the product list page.
QuickBooks® Integration
StoreSync
Share even more data between StoreSense and QuickBooks. StoreSync now supports synchronizing Non-Inventory Parts and Service Items from QuickBooks to StoreSense. Also, the payment method is now included on Sales Receipts synchronized from StoreSense to QuickBooks.
QuickBooks Online Edition Integration
StoreSense is now integrated with Intuit's QuickBooks Online Edition. Once configured, Customers, Service Items, and Invoices/Sales Receipts can be synchronized between StoreSense and your QuickBooks Online Edition service.
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