CoreCommerce

As a brief introduction, my name is Tim Burns, and I work for Minnesota Workwear, an online clothing store that carries over 2,000 products and I’ve been using CoreCommerce for 3 years.

Patience. Most online shoppers have very little of it. If a web surfer can’t find what they are looking for in in a few seconds, they move on. Some of this has to do with your website layout but quite a bit can also be how long it takes for your webpage to appear before their eyes. Like waiting for the waiter at the restaurant…if it takes too long, I am getting upset and may leave or at least be frustrated.

Bottom line: Site speed is important. So much so, that Google will be much less likely to show your page higher in search results if you have a slow site. This makes sense because Google also wants its users to not be frustrated by slow loading pages.

We have have always monitored our website speed. The recent server upgrade at CoreCommerce has helped us dramatically. Our page load is faster and this is already being noticed by Google when analyzed in Webmaster Tools. I am sure many ecommerce companies use the ‘set it and forget it’ philosophy. Not upgrading hardware saves a company money but will cost them customers in the long run. I am glad CoreCommerce has invested in keeping up to date.

We have also signed on with CloudFlare. Although, we have only been using the CloudFlare service for a few weeks we are pleased with the service. The speed has been nice but the protection from the cyber bad guys has been very comforting. We can now see Spammers, Botnets and Zombies from US and other Countries trying to get to our site. They have all been BLOCKED and we are protected.

All in all, it is nice to know we are keeping up with the latest in technology and hardware.

Hey folks:
We’re excited to announce the newest features, which was released to all stores on Monday, February 6th. We did have some challenges and are behind schedule in getting these details out to customers. We hope that you enjoy them and find them useful.

FedEx Label Printing with Web Services
Customers using FedEx Web Services can now print shipping labels. This will allow you to print shipping labels directly from FedEx to simplify and streamline your shipping.

Raw SKU Token
In the Product Detail Layouts, you can now use the token ##RAW_SKU## to display a product SKU number with no formatting.

Blog 2.0
We’ve updated our blog feature! Blogs now have tags, a tag widget, SEO friendly URLs, Publish and Save Draft abilities and a Read More feature.
Tags can now be used to link blog posts with common topics. The widget is used on the storefront to display those tags. They will be click-able, so a shopper can see a topic, click the tag and browse a list of blog posts related to that tag.
SEO friendly URLs are now used to maximize the SEO potential of your blog. This is much like the URLs already used for Products and Categories. Additionally, the use of "/blog" after your domain will route shoppers and search engines right to your blog. Example: http://www.mydomain.com/blog will be your new address for your blog.
Published and Draft statuses on your posts will allow you to work on a post and enable it later, keeping it from the public while still being able to save your work and post the article another time.
Enabling the Read More feature will place a "Read More" link below the blog’s teaser. This is useful to let your readers know that there is more to read and gives them an additional place to click to read your blog article.

Google +1
Enabling a +1 button on your products for Google+ is now easier than before. In the Google +1 settings, you will be able to enable the button, enable it for all products and select from various options such as language and size of the button. This can increase your exposure on the Google+ social network in addition to the currently available Twitter and Facebook buttons. See this article (http://corecommerce.com/kb/5533/how_do_i_add_a_google_1_button_to_my_site) in our knowledgebase for more information on setting up and using this feature.

Click-able Images for Personalizations can open in a new or same window
When using click-able images for personalizations, you can specify whether the link opens in the same window or a new window.

GetResponse
We are now integrated with GetResponse, an email mailing list service. This adds to the current options of MailChimp and ConstantContact, giving you the choice of 3 email newsletter services. You can enable and configure GetResponse in the Settings>Plug-In Settings section of you admin area. Be sure to sign up for the service at the GetResponse website: http://www.getresponse.com/

2 New Payment Gateways
Braintree Payment Gateway (Orange Platform) is a direct payment gateway, customers will never leave your site. This integration was done on the Orange Platform. New Braintree customers will not be able to benefit from this integration, however, existing Braintree customers on the Orange Platform will be able to take full advantage of this integration. http://www.braintreepayments.com/
PagSeguro is a our first Brazilian specific gateway. It is an indirect gateway, which takes shoppers away from your store to the PagSeguro site to pay. The settings can be found in the Settings > Payment Settings along with the other settings. Since it is specific to Brazil, use in any other country is not recommended. https://pagseguro.uol.com.br/

Google Feed secure/non-secure image toggle
The URL used for the image in the Google Product Feed export can now be secure (HTTPS) or not secure (HTTP) with the selection of a check box to toggle between the 2 settings. This setting is right beside the export button on the Product Feeds page.

Disable Customer Email Receipt
In the Settings > Store Settings > Notifications, you can now choose whether to send or not to send a customer email receipt to the customer when they have made a purchase. The email receipt is enabled by default, so customers will get the receipt email as they have been doing. This is used if you prefer to let your payment gateway send the email rather than CoreCommerce.

Hide Pricing on View Cart
The pricing, calculate shipping, calculate tax and coupon fields can all be hidden with the selection of this feature. It can be found in the View Cart section of the Checkout Settings.

Edit Customer Group Restriction directly from the Category
Changing the Customer Groups that are allowed or not allowed to see a particular category can be done directly in the category. You no longer have to go to the Customer Groups page and edit the Groups to change which categories that the group can view. You may now edit the category and choose who may view the group.

New Design Integration Interface
A new interface has been implemented for the Design Integration section. It offers a simpler layout than the previous interface, with all the features except the Design your Own Logo. Due to lack of use, this feature was thought by clients to be the same as the Text Logo feature and was more of a confusion than a tool, so it was removed. There is also a design integration wizard to assist in setting up a new theme. If you hover over the Design tab or click on it in the admin area, you will see there are new options and a new layout.

Abandoned Carts Search
In the Abandoned Carts section, you can now search by first name, last name, a combination of first and last name or the IP address. Keep in mind that if a shopper doesn’t register, then their first or last name will not be saved with the cart and, therefore, not searchable.

We have evaluated the results of the 24×7 service over the last 4 months and have determined that the weekend volume does not require around the clock phone and chat support. Therefore, to better allocate our resources, the support/solutions department will be moving to a new schedule effective January 1st, 2012.

We still offer 24×7 monitoring of paid accounts through the emergency ticketing system and will be staffed for phone and chat support 24 hours per day Monday through Friday, 8am to 5pm on Saturdays, and closed on Sundays. This allows for better support coverage during the very busy mid-day regular business hours.

CoreCommerce management wants to provide each of our staff time with their families and friends this Holiday season. As a result, our offices will be closed from 4pm to 12am on Christmas Eve and from 12am to 12am on Christmas Day. We will also be closed from 11pm New Years Eve and all day New Year’s Day. We hope and trust that you will enjoy this time with family and friends and will have a wonderful and safe holiday.

Summary:
12/24 Christmas Eve: Close @ 4p
12/25 Christmas Day: Closed all day
12/31 New Years Eve: Close @ 11p
1/1 New Years Day: Closed all day

There is an important change coming to Google Checkout over the next few months – Google Checkout is becoming part of Google Wallet.

**For CoreCommerce Users, this does NOT change anything about how you use Google Checkout.

Google Wallet is a virtual wallet that securely stores payment information and makes paying fast both in-store and online. With an NFC-capable device such as the Sprint Nexus S 4G, buyers can use the Google Wallet app to make purchases at thousands of retail store locations with just a tap of the phone. On the web, buyers simply click a Google Wallet button to make quick and secure purchases with their saved payment information.

Google Checkout buyers will now manage all Google Checkout and Google Wallet orders at http://wallet.google.com/manage. Buyers will be able to make purchases with their existing accounts at sites that accept either Google Checkout or Google Wallet.

For merchants, organizations and developers who use Google Checkout to sell items or collect donations, and for integration partners that offer Google Checkout as part of their shopping cart services, nothing is changing right now. In early 2012, we’ll ask Google Checkout integration partners to change any text on your site that talks about Google Checkout for buyers to Google Wallet. No additional integration or other technical updates will be necessary.

We will email you again in the next few months to let you know when to expect the new Google Wallet purchase experience and button. In the meantime, you can learn more about the transition by attending our webinar at:

https://google.connectsolutions.com/checkouttowallet/event/event_info.html and by visiting www.google.com/payments/index.html.

As a brief introduction, I work for Minnesota Workwear, an online clothing store that carries over two thousand products. A few months ago Google stated that they were changing the requirements for Google Shopping feeds to require a wider variety of attributes to actually publish your feed. You can consult the previous link for information on your types of products but for clothing in particular, we were suddenly required to add attributes for gender, age group, color and size. Having worked with several shopping carts previously, I knew this could become a tremendously tedious task or worse yet, you could be left out to dry if your cart didn’t have these fields already in place or quickly accommodate these changes.

We have always been nothing but impressed with the functionality of the CoreCommerce cart, and this case was no different. We’ve had a couple people tackle the input of product attributes, so I figured it would make sense to put together a quick tutorial, and was surprised just how quickly I was able to do it and how easily everyone was able to get to work. What follows is the guide we put together:

How to add required Google Shopping feed data

Once logged in, navigate to Products>Inventory and select a product to edit:

Once at the product page, navigate to Advanced tab in the top gray navigation bar and then to the Google Products tab in the left navigation as seen below

Once in the Google Products interface, the minimally required fields to fill out are Condition, Availability, Category, Color, Size, Gender and Age Group. ISBN does not relate to us nor does expiration date, so those can be completely ignored. Our description currently pulls from the on page description, but can be formatted better by using the description field here.

When selecting product category, it is a hierarchical structure. The first category is Apparel & Accessories, once that is selected another category drop down becomes available where the next subcategory can be selected. Continue until you reach the closest match for that item.

Once you have the appropriate category, click the Setup Apparel Variant Attributes button. You will be offered your color options. Select the appropriate options.

Once color is selected, click the size drop down to select the appropriate sizing options, and then once again click Setup Apparel Variant Attributes button. You will be offered different sizing selections, choose the appropriate ones. Once complete, click Done (in the upper right hand corner of the pop up).

With your sizes selected click Done (in the upper right hand corner of the pop up) and then save your changes.

The following features will be released on November 9, 2011 as the newest feature for CoreCommerce:

Secure/Non Secure Auto Image Toggle

We updated how some of our widgets work in the system so that if the URL you are on is a secure (https) URL, for example the one page checkout, it will pull the images it uses for the widget via HTTPS.

Conversely, if the URL you are on is NOT a secure page, i.e. the product detail page, then it will pull those same image via HTTP.

ECHO (now known as an Intuit product) Payment Gateway Integration

We now integrate with the ECHO gateway (now known as Intuit) for accepting credit cards. This is a direct payment gateway, so your customers will NOT leave the site when entering their payment info, IF you choose to use ECHO as your payment gateway.

Minimum Quantity Updates

For our minimum order quantity feature, which allows you to control at the product level if a product requires a minimum to add it to your cart, you can now control the system so that it will count a product with a specific set of options as one product minimum, or if you want the system to add all similar items, regardless of the option choices, together to check for minimum order quantity for an item.

For example, the old way (which you can still use), was setup so if you have Product “Shirt” and it comes with a color choice and a size choice, and you set the minimum order quantity for that product to 3, then let’s say for example, you try to add 1 of “Shirt” with color “Red” and size “Small”, it would require you add at least 3 “Small Red Shirts” to the cart, since the minimum quantity is “3″.

But what if you only want 1 “Small Red Shirt” and 2 “Blue Medium Shirts”. The only way would force you to have to buy 3 of each style, the new setting will allow you to add any combinations you want to the cart, for example:

• 1 “Small Red”
• 1 “Medium Blue”
• 1 “Large Green”

Then, it will wait until you checkout to check and see if you have 3 “shirts (regardless of size/color) in your cart, vs. it having to be 3 “red/small” shirts AND 3
“blue/medium” shirts.

So it becomes a more true product based minimum quantity feature with this new setting.

One of the main enemies of e-commerce websites happens even before the user ever experiences the your shopping cart software. For many shoppers the concept of doing business on line is still a foreign language. They fear what they do not understand and cannot see.

Add the lack of person-to-person communication and fears about unsecured processing of funds leads to other doubts for perspective customers and the result presents a challenge. Software features like the shopping cart can either enhance or hinder these concerns.

Build Trust

It’s a matter of building trust through professionalism. When a shopper finally gets brave enough to try an online transaction, the software and the shopping cart feature must be flawless. Clearly explain the buying process, the steps involved and the amount of time needed to complete a transaction on the first page and reinforce these factors throughout the checkout process.

In addition, websites giving phone numbers or electronic addresses for the purpose of answering questions or concerns need to make sure responses are provided in a timely manner, and so stated before the user request communication. If you list contact information only for a potential client to find a dead end, the clatter of clicking sounds to escape your site will vastly drown out the wanted “cha-chings” from money entering your bank account.

Mobile Friendly

Prior to arriving at the shopping cart, the entire experience should be mobile optimized. If apps and user friendly mobile sites are available for tablets and smart phones, those apps need to provide a smooth and sophisticated transition. Maybe even specific services for popular devices like iPhones and iPads should be a consideration. Expect shopping carts to be abandoned if too many options make the process complicated or slow through extra wait time to load intensive graphics and excessive finger zooming in and out. Consider a quick check out option or some type of mobile express lane for shoppers purchasing one or two items. Mobile shoppers will typically less time on your site and buy less.

Live Tracking

There is no substitute for clear and effective communication. Keep the customer informed of the process throughout. Changing a selection or back tracking to find a product should not be complicated.

Surprises are great for birthdays but not so good for customers trying to make a purchase. Give important information upfront to prevent unpleasant surprises at checkout. For example, keep inventory up to date. If a product is not available, the customer should get that message immediately when the item is checked. Live order processing after purchase ensures a confident shopper, who is much willing to refer you new business.

No surprises should show up in the shopping cart at all. Any extra charges or special conditions need to appear on the home page or cart in plain sight. More customers are likely to follow through with a transaction if the shopping cart includes an accurate list of selected items and prices listed. If your layout allows for it, a perpetual shopping cart which shows all items in your cart throughout the shopping experience can help reduce shopping cart abandonment when the checkout begins.

Even extra fees for shipping or taxes should be listed on the home page. There should be no surprises during the shopping cart phase when the shopper checks out. Surprises equal more abandoned carts. Many other factors are important to e-commerce but exhibiting mobile friendliness while maintaining a professional but friendly website with live tracking will give any business a solid start.

“I just wanted to let you know that we are now live and all traffic redirected to corecommerce. I also would like to let everyone that has helped me along the way know that I really appreciate your time and extreme willingness to help me through this transition. Every tech company should strive to have the outstanding level of service that Corecommerce provides! What a painless walk through a difficult transition! Thanks for being there with me!”

Brian Krenzin – petandkennelsupply.com

“Our average sale went up over 20% just putting our new CC site up.”

Julie Feickert – culturesforhealth.com

Hey folks:

As our ongoing effort to improve communication with our customers about our new features and the projects we are working on, we wanted to let you know about the new features inside your account (available now). The following features were rolled out successfully to all customers yesterday, Wed, 10/12. These features were financed by customers asking for these specific features (rather than community votes). Here is the list:

CoreCommerce Built-In Blog

We now have a Blog that you can use directly inside of CoreCommerce's system. You can create posts, categories, and have people comment on your blog items just like any standard blog can do. It is very useful and will help any CoreCommerce customer with SEO by having a blog on the same site as the CoreCommerce store. By having a blog on the same site as your CoreCommerce store, you can have the blog setup as http://www.yoursite.com/blog, which is better for SEO something like http://blog.yoursite.com.
For those of you asking for this feature — it's here! Details on how it works are in our knowledgebase here.

Google Product Feed Updates

We have updated and implemented the new updates to the Google Product Feed as required by Google.

Amazon Fulfillment

You can now use CoreCommerce in conjunction with Amazon Fulfillment to fulfill orders. You can have your orders sent to Amazon, and have the orders shipped and tracked via the Amazon Fulfillment interface.

Email Address in API

In the CoreCommerce API, you can now search for a customer by their email address.

Importing/Exporting Sort Order Values

In the past, you could create a custom sort order for options inside an option drop down, but this field was not part of the Product Option Import and Export tool. It now is so this field can now be imported and exported.

Channel Manager Integration

We now integrate with Channel Manager, a 3rd party tool you can use for fulfillment and order tracking. You do have to have a Channel Manager Account to use this feature with CoreCommerce. It can communicate with CoreCommerce to auto update orders with tracking information.

Tracking Integration with Lynx fulfillment

We previously integrated with Lynx fulfillment so that you could send orders from CoreCommerce to Lynx. We have also added the ability in this release for Lynx to talk back to CoreCommerce and update tracking numbers inside your orders.

Custom Payment Method Messages for Emails

For the Payment Methods "Check" and "Money Order" we have added a new field you can enter HTML into that will be included in the email reciept (HTML ONLY) to the customer when they place an order using that payment method.

NoChex Payment Gatewat Integration

We now integrate with the NoChex Payment Gateway for accepting credit card payments with CoreCommerce.

BCC Emails are sent as true BCC emails

In the past, you could go into the Admin Store Settings and tell the system to "blind carbon copy", or BCC, and email to another email address. When you set that up, it didnt actually BCC that email to the email, it sent a separate email. We have changed that at our customer's request to actually attach the email address you with to BCC emaill to to the actual email that is sent, like a true BCC.

Qty Based Pricing Updates

We have added the ability for Qty Based Pricing to show just 1 number for the low and the high ranges, when they both used the same number. In the past, if your low was 1 and your high was also 1, it would show "1-1". Now when you turn on this setting, it will just show "1".

Top Level Categories

We have added the ability to go to a specific screen that will show a list of JUST the top level categories in the system.

Don't autopopulate Ship To Address during checkout

We have now added the feature that will force the shipping address to NEVER populate automatically with the billing address, to accommodate those stores that require a different shipping address for each customer order.

Product Option Images Now Exportable

We have update the Product Option Import/Export tool to allow the images to be imported as well. It works just like the Product Images import too, where you upload the images via FTP to a folder on your site, and then you reference the name of the image in the import file.

Custom Fields can now be exported with Orders

If you create a custom field that a customer fills out during checkout, and that field is set to save with the order, that field can now be exported via the order export tool, whereas previously we did not.

New Payment Gateways

We now integrate with the Planet Payment or iPay gateway for accepting credit card transactions. Paymate Payment Gateway (Australia-based) & iPay Planet (aka Planet Payment) Gateway

Tax Update for US and Canada

Our system was setup in the past that if your main tax Country was something other than US or Canada, you could not set a tax rate for US or Canada at all. Now this has been changed to allow a flat rate for US and Canada, just like any other countries, when your main tax Country is something other than US or Canada.

New Design Tokens
We added 4 new tokens to the design token system, to allow for specific if statements based on your browser type, i.e. mobile, firefox, internet explorer.

Next Release: Early November 2011

We will do 1 more round of new features before the holiday season that focuses on improving page load time before the busy holiday season as well as FedEx Label printing with FedEx WebServices. We hope to get back on track with the community feature votes starting again in January.

Thanks,

CoreCommerce Team

CoreCommerce is a finalist for the 2011 Nashville NEXT Awards. The NEXT Awards, is to be held Tuesday, October 18 at the Renaissance Nashville Hotel, will honor the area’s most innovative entrepreneurs and area businesses experiencing the most significant growth in terms of revenue and employment. In addition to the awards recognizing businesses making the greatest contributions to the local economy, individual awards for outstanding entrepreneurs will be given in several categories.

The NEXT Awards build upon the Nashville Chamber’s Future 50 Awards, which for 19 years recognized the fastest-growing entrepreneurial businesses in Middle Tennessee. The new partnership with the Entrepreneur Center extends the concept beyond simply spotlighting emerging companies, differing from the Future 50 Awards in three important ways: public companies are now eligible to enter; three tiers have been established to recognize businesses at all stages of development (startup, growth and market mover); and individual awards will be given to entrepreneurs making an impact on the Nashville economy.

View the list of finalists here.