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Feature Requests3dcart’s new version 3.2 has been a huge success with customers and it’s mostly due to all of the great features we’ve incorporated into the software. However, did you know most of those features began as customer suggestions? It’s true! Over 80% of the features built into 3dcart came about from customer requests and suggestions. When our customers speak, we listen! Most of the great customer feedback we’ve gotten over the years has come from customer support tickets, forum postings, Facebook/Twitter postings, and general customer interactions. We’ve done our best to collect and consider each and every one of those suggestions; but given the fact that they were coming in from so many directions, the actual collecting of these requests was quite a task. That is, until now… We would like to introduce our brand new Feature Request portal available at http://3dcart.uservoice.com Help us design our future versions of 3dcart by posting your ideas into this portal. Enter your idea, track and vote for already submitted ideas, and view which ideas have been accepted and completed all in one spot! Your suggestions have helped us come this far and we look forward to any new suggestions you may have. Help us take 3dcart and your business to the next level! |
Online Retailers Connect with Young Consumers via Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, YouTube and Mobile Sites
With the budding of social media technology, more kids are plugged in and connected through Facebook profiles and Twitter accounts, checking out sites on their Smartphones and rummaging blogs for the latest trends. With summer ending soon and students on the pawl for supplies and apparel, online retailers are bringing their products straight to the young consumers by using social media elements. By employing the latest e-commerce platforms, business owners are able to use Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and blogging, as well as mobile sites to their full advantage.
E-commerce providers, such as 3dcart, facilitated this trend by launching Version 3.2 which included a social media integration allowing merchants to connect their store directly to popular internet ‘hangouts.’ Users of 3dcart are able to place products directly on their Facebook fanpages, embed YouTube videos from their channel into their store, create a blog directly on their storefront, construct a mobile site for iPhone and Smartphone as well as the ability to ‘tweet’ straight from the store to Twitter.
“What many online retailers are finding during the back-to-school season is that dollars shift during this period to the back-to-school specialty merchants,” stated Jimmy Rodriguez, Chief Technical Officer for 3dcart. “Social networks allow online stores that are not typically seen as back-to-school destinations to be creative in their customer messaging. The immediacy of social platforms allows these retailers to quickly establish sales, gift ideas and other promotions that put them into the back-to-school mix.”
The result is increased traffic and revenue for online sites of all kinds, but in the month of August, the focus has been shifted to online stores selling back-to-school merchandise. Even teachers are being marketed to by businesses like curriculum material retailer, Montessori for Everyone (www.montessoriforeveryone.com). The company’s 6,000+ Facebook fans are now turning into customers thanks to their integrated Facebook store through its 3dcart-powered social interface.
“Our Facebook page has become one of my favorite places—a way to interact with existing customers and meet new people all at once. By sharing a wide variety of helpful links, I can attract people to my Facebook page and then introduce them to my business,” said Lori Bourne, owner of Montessori for Everyone.
“With over 500 million users, Facebook can outperform virtually any other single media outlet ever in history. Its reach exceeds any television network, major newspaper, magazine or any any other forum,” said Gonzalo Gil, CEO of 3dcart. “When you look at the potential of social networks to build relationships and disseminate information instantly, at little to no cost, there’s no question that it is transforming the e-commerce landscape.”
3dcart’s Social Packages are now available for users of 3dcart 3.2. For complete information including pricing and package demos, go to http://www.3dcart.com/social-commerce-packages.html
3dcart’s client “Bumps and Bruises” featured on NBC 6 News
The Miami based urban clothing label for boys, Bumps and Bruises, was featured in a segment on NBC 6 News today talking about the benefits of merging e-commerce with social networking sites. Owners Manny Cabrera and Pedro Tuma spoke about how the Social Commerce features in 3dcart’s Version 3.2 connected their store directly to Facebook and provided many other powerful marketing tools. Cabrera noted that since activating the Facebook Store tab to his company’s fan page, the store’s profits increased dramatically by 1000%.
Starting their co-operation last year, Cabrera and Tuma who are both new fathers, wanted to fill a void in boys clothing with fun and playful hip-hop wear. When it came time to build a site and online store for their venture, they turned to 3dcart.
“We wanted a site and store that fully reflected the brand” said Cabrera, but it became more than just shopping cart software when 3dcart released 3.2 in June, the proof is in the numbers.
To learn more about 3dcart’s e-commerce solution, go to www.3dcart.com
Visit Bumps and Bruises’ site www.bumps-bruises.com and check out their Facebook store at http://www.facebook.com/Bumps.n.Bruises
Online retailer Rungreen has increased its online traffic 10 percent via the launch of its mobile-optimized site.
The company is using 3DCart’s social media packages that include Facebook, Twitter, blog and mobile. This is Rungreen’s first mobile initiative.
“We asked to be upgraded as soon as possible so that we could maximize the huge potential of mobile going forward,” said Paul Bondsfield, ecommerce manager at Rungreen, Holland, MI.
“We know that smartphones are being utilized at a rising pace – and wanted to be part of that.
“[A challenge was] the ability to stay on top, continue to tap into new customer bases, and make our products available quickly and efficiently,” he said. “We hope to utilize new technology to solve any challenges that stand in the way of our customers browsing where they want and when they want.”
Rungreen is wholly-owned by Fillmore Equipment, which owns several John Deere dealerships.
(Today’s post is brought to you by Nick Grant, co-founder of Zippycart)
Many merchants do not see the need to have an ecommerce blog in addition to their online store, but neglecting to have one can put you at a disadvantage with your competitors. There are a number of reasons why an ecommerce blog is beneficial, and it is never too late to add one to compliment your online store. Establishing an ecommerce blog is a great way for you to showcase your expertise and build industry reputations, gain free advertising, and increase sales for your online store. An ecommerce blog is also a smart play for SEO, as you can add rich and unique content to your ecommerce store, improve your internal link structure, and you will often get people linking to your blog posts externally. If you want visitors to your blog to have an excellent experience, then you should utilize the tips below to ensure success.
1) Social Media Integration is a must if you want to have a great ecommerce blog. There are multiple ways in which you can accomplish this goal, but the bottom line is that you need to let people connect with you via social networks, and share what they like about your ecommerce blog in social networks. On the side bar of your blog you should consider placing Twitter or Facebook widgets, which showcase your social presence. Within each blog post you should try using a retweet button like TweetMeme and a Facebook Like button, in addition you can also place an AddThis button on each blog post so that readers can share it in multiple places.
2) Product Reviews are critical components of any great ecommerce blog, as they allow potential customers to read more about the product and move forward with the purchase if they are interested. They are also a great way to showcase some of your best sellers, and see if you can drive even more people to those product pages to increase sales further. You do not want to review products too often, so start by adding a few every month and see how your readers react.
3) Great Blog Topics are key if you want to keep readers engaged and coming back to see what your next ecommerce blog post will be about. Taking a little time to think out useful and relevant topics will go a long way with your readers. Posting everyday just to post something is not going to build your ecommerce blog a loyal following, as the readers want to see quality posts.
4) Regular Updates are essential to let readers know that you are still active on your blog and committed to continually update it with new quality content. Having some sort of consistency is necessary so that a reader knows when to come back and check for a new post. If you update daily, then it is more likely that someone will come back multiple times per week to see what is new. Whereas if you only update weekly, a reader will check back much less often.
5) Guest Bloggers posting to your ecommerce blog provides a smart way to gain additional exposure, while improving authority and credibility. Adding guest bloggers is a great way to network, and in turn will allow you opportunities to guest blog at other sites. In both situations you will have a great chance to gain back links to your ecommerce site which will help your SEO efforts.
6) Video is one of the best ways to set your ecommerce blog apart from others in your niche, and if you host your own videos, you can often get additional benefit for your SEO efforts. The other option is to host at a third party site like YouTube, which can help improve your social media presence. These videos can showcase products, the team behind the site, or be used as a promotional tool for new items in your store.
7) Online Shopping Tips might sound a bit scary at first, as they could potentially drive readers away from your ecommerce blog to try and purchase an item somewhere else. However if the online shopping tips are provided in the right manner, they will give the reader added confidence when buying from your ecommerce site.
8 ) Promoting Sales is a must on your ecommerce blog if you want your online store to be a success. The promotion of a sale needs to be executed properly so that you do not scare off any readers. Therefore you should limit the number of times you promote sales each month on your blog, and ensure that you do not make it too “salesy.” If a reader is excited about the product and the sale price, then it is likely they will click through and convert.
9) Answering Customer Questions is typically done in email, but if your customers continually ask similar questions, then it is a good idea to answer them via an ecommerce blog post. This will allow you to give multiple existing customers a thorough answer, and provide future customers with insight that may help them become more comfortable shopping in your online store.
10) Fun is a must, as no one wants to visit a boring ecommerce blog that is nothing but a big sales pitch with a bunch of text. You want to make the experience engaging, interactive, informational, and fun for every reader that visits your ecommerce blog.
Utilizing these tips will help set your ecommerce blog apart from the rest, while also improving your customer relationships and SEO.
About the Author:
Nick Grant is the co-founder of ZippyCart.com, a leading ecommerce software review website known for its yearly Top 10 Ecommerce Solutions review, ecommerce news blog, and expert reviews of the best ecommerce solutions available online. Nick has been writing for the on ZippyCart since its inception and also manages all social media campaigns associated to the blog.
3dcart 3.2 comes packed with great new features
to empower you to take your business into fertile, new territory such as the mobile and social markets. But we didn’t stop there; we’ve worked really hard on visual design tools to allow you to customize your cart in real-time and made plenty of improvements such as new templates, more third party integration and more.
iPhone / SmartPhone Template
The mCommerce addition to the 3dcart platform provides a complete mobile interface for visitors shopping on your site from an iPhone or favorite smartphone. This includes optimized pages for Home, Products, Categories, View Cart and Checkout. Visitors can easily browse and add products to their cart and checkout, all within the mobile interface.
Admin Panel Web App
This application allows store owners to access the store’s control panel via mobile devices. The app also provides a snapshot of daily activities, access to orders, customers and products as well as the ability to reply to CRM tickets or update the status of an order.
Facebook “Like” Button
The Facebook “Like” button enables users to make connections to your pages and share content back to their friends on Facebook with one click. Since the content is hosted by Facebook, the button can display personalized content whether or not the user has logged into your site. For logged-in Facebook users, the button is personalized to highlight friends who have also liked the page.
Blog
This built-in feature allows you to create a blog within your store with just a few clicks. The blog automatically uses the dynamic design elements from the website, eliminating the need of re-creating the design elements on a third party location; automatically increase your SEO efforts by having the blog within the same domain name as the website and store. 3dcart’s SocialCommerce auto suggests content, allows you to schedule posts, and provides an industry standard RSS feed to provide syndication capabilities for your blog.
Facebook Store
Reach more visitors by easily adding your online store directly to your Facebook Fan Page within its own tab. Select which products are displayed, such as products within a specific category, Home Specials or items “On Sale”. Merchants can empower their affiliates with the ability to create their own online stores within their Facebook profiles and choose which products will be displayed. SocialCommerce will automatically add the appropriate affiliate tracking code and affiliates will automatically get credit for any sales.
Social Bookmarking
Share your products and promotions anywhere and boost traffic to your site. It only takes seconds to install the “AddThis” social bookmarking tool and it’s free! Your product pages will provide your visitors with the ability to share products with their friends via Twitter, Facebook and other social networks.
Social Widget
Integration with Widgetbox makes the complexities of sharing your products on the web simple. With the use of a script your products can be shared on just about any website, including: Facebook, MySpace, Blogger and iGoogle.
Twitter & Facebook Updates
Update your Twitter and Facebook accounts from the convenience of your store’s control panel. With 3dcart SocialCommerce, you’ll be able to post to Twitter and Facebook directly from your online store. SocialCommerce easily provides you with a place to announce promotions, product links, or whatever else you’d like to tweet about, all with the touch of a button.
Quick Edit Bar
A front-end design toolbar that allows store administrators to easily change between templates, adjust the width of your site and hide/unhide elements. You can also add products, categories, and much more. The built-in Drag ’n’ Drop feature allows moving elements between the left and right bars of the website without having to modify the HTML!
Scheduled Email Scripts
Product Reviews Email
Automatically email customers that recently received an order to request a Product Review. Use this to easily collect reviews to improve the content of your product pages and encourage customers to place new orders.
Not Completed Orders Email
Increase conversions by automatically emailing visitors with open “not completed” orders or abandoned carts, offering special promotions or inquiring if there were any issues that prevent them from checking out.
SmartCategories™
These special types of product categories will automatically classify products in real time based on their settings or content. Setting up a new category with the use of SmartCategories™ will populate it with products such as sale items, new releases, free shipping items or a simple keyword search.
3dZoom
The new 3dZoom will instantly display a large, zoomed version of your product’s image when a visitor places the mouse cursor on top of the image. 3dZoom also includes an image gallery that features smooth transitions for a greater user experience. Uploading a large image to the product via the store manager, automatically enables 3dZoom without the need of uploading additional images via FTP.
YouTube Video Integration
The full emergence of the power of video in e-commerce is noticeably bringing products to life, improving visitors experience and increasing conversions. The YouTube Video Search allows easily searching YouTube from the 3dcart Control Panel, selecting a related video, whether it’s a product review, demonstration or viral commercial; and displaying it within your product pages.
Newsletter SmartLists ™
The Newsletter SmartLists ™ dynamically group customers or mailing list subscribers based on their history, allowing to easily send out newsletters to all customers who ordered a specific product, placed an order within a specific date, have an unpaid order, placed orders over a specific amount, etc. The groups would automatically include new customers that match the criteria, since the information is collected in real-time when the newsletter is sent out.
Picnik Image Editor
Easily adjust your product images from your 3dcart Control Panel with Picnik Image Editor. Picnik is a powerful photo editing tool that works within your browser and is integrated with 3dcart. Picnik has a number of one-click tools, including auto- fix, exposure, colors, and red-eye correction, which require no prior experience at all. Other features, like rotate, crop, resize, and sharpening, can be controlled with easy-to-use controls.
Seamless Third Party Integration
Out of the box integration with these great partners:
Quick Search
Admin Quick Search
Easily find Orders, Products and Customers using he improved search from the 3dcart Admin panel. A real time preview of your possible search term will display as you type.
Front-end Search
The built-in Quick Search functionality in 3dcart allows visitors to easily find products within your store by displaying product matches as the user types in the search box. Quick product results are “suggested” to the visitor as they type the keyword.
Redesigned Admin Panel Interface
Reviewed by usability experts, the 3.2 version includes a redesigned Admin Panel Interface to provide an improved user experience for store managers.
Featuring new top and left navigation elements, quick search, display of store url and current user, quick access footer bar and SocialCommerce quick launch icon.
Partners, Resellers & Developers
Our new White Label Option, ideal for agencies or designers, will increase your branding and revenue while new APIs for developers will allow unparalleled custom control.
RSS Feeds
The RSS feeds are used for syndicating regularly changing content on a web site. You can open an RSS feed with any RSS reader and look for new content on the site, or you can set up a server-side script to parse the feed and display the content of the RSS on another web site. 3dcart has a built in feature to publish featured items, on sale items, new releases, best sellers, and blog posts to an RSS feed.
50+ Templates
The 3.2 version introduces over 30 new prebuilt design templates, and revisions to existing ones to allow for the new 3.2 features.
All templates have been professionally designed and are included free for all accounts.
Mobile and iPhone Shopping Emerges as an Industry Leader
On June 24th, Apple released its 4th generation mobile device and judging by the lines, online chatter, and sales figures, its already a success. The mainstream adoption of iPhones and other similar smartphones has changed the landscape of eCommerce forever. Not too long ago, the only smartphones being used were by business folk. Nowadays, you cannot walk by a line of people without seeing most people happily browsing the web, texting, or shopping on their phone. A typical dinner conversation amongst all family members may include an iPhone app recommendation. Smartphones are here to stay and being embraced by all users, young and old.
Mobile Shopping Statistics.
Apple has sold 33.75 million iPhones to date- 1 in 10 mobile subscribers carry a smartphone
- In 2013, the number of mobile phone users in the US is expected to reach 255 million
- Ebay launched an online app last year and is expected to surpass 1 .5 billion in sales from mobile users alone this year.
- The most expensive item purchased via a mobile device was a Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder that went for $139,000.
3dcart’s mCommerce Revolutionizes the Mobile Shopping Experience
For Customers
We’ve created our mCommerce platform with the customer experience as its number one priority. 3dcart’s mCommerce will give your customers an optimized mobile experience. When browsing your store, your visitors can view your homepage specials, browse categories, and view full product details, options, multiple images, and one page checkout. Our mobile store templates have been customized for the smaller screen and are fully customizable by you.
For Store Owners
3dcart puts your store in your fingertips. No more rushing home or to the office to see how your sales are doing or to interact with your customers. Search and view your orders, respond to customer inquiries via the CRM, and even change order status on the go.
3dcart’s mCommerce is not just for iPhone users and has been optimized for :
- iPhone 3g/3gs
- iPhone 4
- iPad
- Android based smartphones
- Blackberry phones utilizing a webkit based web browser
- All smartphones using a webkit based web browser
We just received an iPhone 4 and we’re happy to announce that our mCommerce platform, debuting on June 28th, looks stunning on it.
The mCommerce addition to the 3dcart platform provides a complete mobile interface for visitors shopping your site on an iPhone or favorite smartphone. This includes optimized pages for Home, Products, Categories, View Cart and Checkout. Visitors can easily browse and add products to their cart and checkout, all within the Mobile interface.
Admin Panel Web App
This application allows Store Owners to access the store’s control panel via mobile devices. The app provides a snapshot of daily activities, access to Orders, Customers and Products as well as the ability to reply to CRM tickets or update Order statuses.
mCommerce is available on June 28th and only on 3dcart.
Build and Design Your Store Visually
3dcart’s easy to use shopping cart just got easier with our new Quick Edit Bar. Build and design your store in real time, change templates on the fly, or alter your store without ever leaving the 3dcart Store Manager. Want to add content? A new page? Or perhaps you wish to edit a product and see the changes in real time? No problem. Our rapid on-site editing tool will assist you every step of the way.
3dcart’s Quick Edit Bar allows you to:
- Change templates on the fly
- Edit product information
- Create and edit blog posts
- Add and remove options such as new releases, top sellers, and more
With our new Drag & Drop mode, you can create your own unique layout quickly and easily. Using our Content Editor, you’ll be able to add pages, or edit existing pages. Advanced tools will provide our more technical customers with the ability to edit HTML and CSS code on the fly and see those changes instantly.
The quick editor, allows you to edit product information such as name, price, and stock amount. You’ll also be able to create discounts and edit discounts directly without leaving the product page.
The Quick Edit Bar, only available from 3dcart, is the fastest and easiest way to design your online store.
Royal Yarn & 3dcart; A Close Knit Team
Fernando, what brought you to 3dCart ?
My online world is shaped by integration; there is no single “best of breed” solution. So, I look for systems that easily integrate with other systems. In 3dcart’s case, what brought me originally was its complete integration with Stone Edge Order Manager. Between 3dcart (frontend) and Order Manager (backend), we can easily scale to order volume many times our current level. Furthermore, 3dcart recent announcement regarding its various integrations with Facebook and Twitter available in version 3.2 is very gratifying and potentially lucrative.
How have sales been in the past year?
We are about 10% down to last year. We sell crafts supplies which are particularly susceptible to cutbacks in consumer spending. What is your favorite product in your product database?
Between both 3dcart stores, we sell about 30,000 items. So it is hard for me to pick just ones. In general, however, I like selling the patterns for our knitting yarn store; it is always fun to see the fresh ideas the fashion designers create each season.
Which shopping carts did you try before coming to 3dcart?
I started selling online in late 2002 using Microsoft’s BCentral shopping cart. Then I migrated to Monster Commerce, then landed with 3dcart almost two years ago. I am very satisfied with 3dcart where I am impressed by the level of customer service and managements’ commitment to product improvement and development.
What do you have on the horizon?
Back to my main theme of integration, I constantly look for ways to extend my catalog into all venues where customers reside, whether they are on Ebay, Amazon, comparative shopping sites. The other focus I have is developing ways to increase the size of my catalog by adding more product categories.
What prompted you to start selling online?
I owned several brick & mortar business in the past. One business was a website development and design firm at the high of the internet craze in 2000/2001. One of my programmers built his own bead retail site in 2001 and was soon selling $150,000 from his home late 2001. At seeming his success and convinced that the internet was the future of retailing, I should all business and plunged into the online world soon afterwards.
What feature do you like best? How has 3dCart increased your business?
What I appreciate the most about 3dcart is the SEO capabilities. This feature alone has enabled me to more than double my business since joining 3dcart. 3dcart built-in SEO features like automatic sitemaps.xml, category & page meta tag customization, html rewrite scripting, etc. that make it very effective in attaining 1st page position on most search engine result pages.
Fernando, thank you for taking the time to sit down with us. It’s my pleasure to award you with the 3dcart Excellence in Ecommerce award for June 2010.
Until June 1st, our readers can use the code 3dcartknit at RoyalYarns.com and save 10%!
