So what’s new in Ecwid version 5.0?

Protected download links

The most essential feature for e-goods sellers is now available. Now it’s possible to fully control the number of times a customer can download a purchase file and limit a link`s lifetime.

These features provide greater security so that even if a customer tries to share a link to your file, it cannot be downloaded by unauthorized persons.

UPS negotiated rates and Time in Transit API

Now it’s possible for Ecwid to retrieve real-time UPS negotiated rates (If your UPS account is eligible for them). Also Ecwid now supports the “Time in Transit” API, which gives the ability to determine precise delivery time for various UPS services.

With these new features now implemented, we’re positive your customers will appreciate the lower shipping rates and more exact information about how soon their package will be delivered to them.

eSELECT Plus Hosted Paypage, HSBC Secure ePayments and Network Merchants gateways

Ecwid now supports three more payment gateways. Our Canadian and British users can use them to accept credit cards.

Two of these gateways were sponsored by Ecwid users – Thank you Andrej and James!

Five new storefront built-in translation

Thai, Indonesian,Estonian, Chinese and Greek languages are built-in to the Ecwid core. So you can now enable them in one click from the Ecwid backend.

We’d like to give a big Thank You to Karan, Alekos, Silver, Iks_vincent and Yahya for your invaluable help with the translation.

Backend translations

It’s now possible to use Ecwid backend in other languages. At this moment Russian, French and German translations are available. These translations are still in beta, so if you find any typos or grammatical errors, feel free to contact us. Please refer to this instruction for the details how to enable these translations in your store: kb.ecwid.com/Backend-translations

We’d like to give a big Thank You to Thomas and Pascal for translating backend labels.
Would you like to see Ecwid in your language? It’s possible! Please contact us for details.

New Minicart views

Ecwid now has two new views of the Minicart: “Mini” and “Mini attached to Product Browser”. These new views are great for those who would like to show the order total in the Minicart and don’t like the large “Minicart” widget.

New “Shipped” order status and tracking numbers

A new order status option has been added to Ecwid. It can be used when the order has shipped, but hasn’t been delivered yet.

Also, it’s now possible to assign tracking numbers for all orders regardless of which shipping method was used.

Sort by name and default sorting for categories

It’s now possible to sort products by name and set the default sorting order for all of your categories. No more manual sorting of your products, just set a necessary option in Ecwid backend and your products will be sorted instantly.

Also

- Small changes in the image gallery; it now shows the title below the image and allows for seeing the original image in a separate browser window.
- Now it’s possible to hide the “Continue Shopping” button from all pages including the last “Thank you for your order” checkout page.
- The new “Ship to a residence” Fedex option.
- The new “Authorize only” option for the Authorize.Net SIM gateway.

And many other minor tweaks and improvements.

We want to thank all Ecwid users who voted for suggestions in our ideas base. If you voted for the features that are already implemented in this release, you will get your votes back. So you will be able to vote for the new ideas.

Feel free to use and enjoy these new features. If you need any assistance or have any questions on how to use them, just post your questions on our forums and we will be happy to help.

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JavaScript code splitting

The Javascript code of your Ecwid store isn’t loaded as one large file anymore. It’s automatically split into smaller files which your browser loads simultaneously and much more efficiently. This will improve the load time of your store, especially on slow Internet connections.

Content Delivery Network for CSS and Javascript

CSS and JavaScript code is distributed to several different servers around the world. When customers open your store, they will be directed to the closest server which will noticeably speed up the download time for CSS and JavaScript code. So for example, if a customer is from the US – the files will be downloaded from a server located in the US. If they are from Europe, a European server will be used instead. This technology will significantly speed up the load time of your store.

Note: This feature is available to all types of Ecwid accounts, however Paid accounts will be able to use Content Delivery Network for product images as well as CSS and Javascript code.

Our Facebook application can add product tabs to fan pages

So now you can turn your Facebook page into a sales tool.

Two new built-in storefront translations: Croatian and Brazilian Portuguese

Thank you Darko and Fabio for your help. Now Ecwid has 7 built-in translations and 20 translations overall.
If you’d like to add your language to our list of built-in translations, refer to these instructions.

Also

• It is easier to customize the look of the “list view” product mode, breadcrumbs and shipping method names now. Also you can customize loading image and effects, which appear when you load Ecwid or browse its pages.
• You can create transparent product thumbnails.
• New %paymentInstructions% mail tag was added. You can use it to add specific payment instructions to your order notifications.
• The logic of shipping zones selection was updated slightly. This change should not affect any existing behavior, zones or shipping rates, but please refer to our article for a description of how the zones work now.

Also you can check some photos of The Next Web conference on our Facebook page or on Flickr.

Beta is behind

During the earlier stages of Ecwid’s development the “beta” icon was meant to show that we’re constantly improving and adding new features. Although we’re still continuing that process so that Ecwid remains the absolute best shopping cart available, we’ve officially dropped the “beta” icon.

Paid Accounts

Ecwid now offers paid accounts for a low monthly fee of $17. This account type allows you to take advantage of several great new features such as discount coupons, API and improved SEO.

We’d like to note that free accounts will always be available. All free of charge features will remain free — Paid accounts just enrich your site with additional premium features, and each new account helps supports us to continually make Ecwid even more awesome! : -)

Your support is valuable to us and is much appreciated because the funds collected from paid accounts are invested directly back into software development. This leads to more features which will ensure that Ecwid stays the best shopping cart available.

How to upgrade if you’d like to support us and get new features:

• login to your account at my.ecwid.com;
• open “My profile → Profile Settings” page;
• press the “Get Premium Features” button

Ecwid API

Great news for web developers: Ecwid now offers API (Application Programming Interface). This allows you to expand your store’s capability. You can create your own modules and extensions or add those from third parties thus enhancing Ecwid’s functionality.
Web developers are welcome to create modules for Ecwid which will be featured and placed in our “Connect” section.
More info about API and the way it works: kb.ecwid.com/API

Better SEO

The new feature “Inline SEO catalog” brings greater SЕО capabilities to your store. You can enjoy all advantages of AJAX applications and at the same time your store can be indexed as common traditional plain-HTML pages.
The feature works with Ecwid API and is available out-of-the box for those who use our plugins for WordPress, Modx, Joomla and Drupal.
If you have a custom site, no worries, you can add the feature with the use of our API and a special ready-made library. More about Ecwid and SEO: kb.ecwid.com/SEO

Ecwid at Facebook

Ecwid is integrated deeper with Facebook now. You can add your store to Facebook quickly using our Facebook app.
Open this application, specify your Store ID, add a new tab with the app and it’s ready. You can start selling immediately!

Having your store integrated with Facebook can boost your sales. Your customers will be able to share the information about your products in their news feeds. Also the person logged into Facebook will be automatically logged into Ecwid as well.

Also

• New option type: “date picker”. It allows choosing a date in product options. Thanks to Ciaran Whelan for sponsoring this feature
• The “My account” page of Ecwid stores has been improved. Now it looks much better on narrow sites.
• The new “Continue Shopping” button has been added to the page with the product details.
• Some additional CSS classes have been added to the product options and order details to make their customizing easier.
• Ecwid’s CSS themes have been improved, your site’s CSS rules will not affect them anymore.
• The behaviour of the “Continue shopping” button was improved. Now it redirects to the last visited category.

We want to thank all Ecwid users who voted for suggestions in our ideas base. If you voted for the features that are already implemented in this release, you will get your votes back. So you will be able to vote for the new ideas.

Feel free to use and enjoy the new features. If you have any questions, we’ll be glad to assist on the forums.

We continue interviewing Ecwid merchants about e-commerce and their shops. Today we feature Mike LoCurto, Natural Body Inc.com Partner, who will share some experience on how to run a successful online store.

Please describe your store, what does it sell?

Natural Body Inc. is a sports nutrition/vitamins store that offers a wide variety of vitamins/sports supplements and fitness accessories at wholesale prices. We here at Natural Body Inc. have a passion for health/wellness and take pride in our personal customer service. We research each and every product we offer to ensure that we are ready to answer any question you may have regarding anyone of our products.

How did you start your online store?

Natural Body Inc. was founded back in 1996. It started as a small sports nutrition retail store which has increasingly grown and expanded in the past 14 years to be the top selling sports nutrition/vitamin store per square foot in New York. As our customer base grew and stretched across the Northeastern United States we started taking orders by phone. We needed to develop a website where our customers could conveniently shop Natural Body Inc. from anywhere.

While looking for an eCommerce solution and examining different types of shopping carts, we came across Ecwid and fell in love with its extended features, extreme user-friendliness, and of course it’s appealing price tag – FREE : ) .. It was the perfect web solution to meet our businesses needs and goals.

How do you promote it?

Currently we use Social Networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter. We have an increasing fan base and interact regularly with our customers. One of our major daily goals here at Natural Body Inc. is to strive to keep in touch with our customers. Since Ecwid v3.0 has been released, we’ve began utilizing coupon code functionality to offer promotions such as free shipping and other various discounts which will provide opportunities for our customers to save even more money in addition to our already guaranteed lowest prices.

I see you have an active community in your Facebook page. Any advice on running it?

Stay in touch with your fans – start interesting topics and polls for fans to interact with and comment on. Make your page a community where people can express their feedback and share their experiences shopping at your store. Integrate it with your site, such as posting a mailing list to your fanpage so fans can quickly sign up to receive newsletters and promotions, set dates on your facebook calendar for upcoming promotions or events. It’s important have your fan page be as personable and enjoyable as possible for your customers and fans.

How do you ship items? Any advice on setting up shipping methods and rates?

Currently we use UPS as our shipping service. We’ve found that their shipping software, UPS WorldShip, is user-friendly and an easy to manage tool that simplifies the entire shipping process immensely.

In the beginning we ran into a few bumps with Ecwid and WorldShip. Our business needed a solution for importing orders from Ecwid into WorldShip’s necessary format. I was amazed with how fast Ecwid’s support was on the issue working towards a resolution and within hours actually developed an online converter tool, which we use daily, to streamline the process of importing orders from Ecwid into WorldShip.

In deciding which shipping method is best for your store, I advise to consult with your courier and figure out which average pound class most of your items will be shipping in. They will advise you on which shipping method is right for your business. Ecwid’s ability to select and switch between shipping methods is brilliant. However, if you’re on a negotiated-rates contract setting up rates and zones can be a somewhat difficult task even with a user-friendly interface such as Ecwid’s. This is an area we really hope Ecwid focuses their development on. We’d like to see Ecwid become more integrated with Online Tools provided by the shipping companies, so that retail businesses who hold negotiated-rates can fully utilize these features.

What do you want to improve in your store in near future? Why?

Currently our main priority is expanding our online catalog to more closely match our retail store. We carry up to a hundred brands and several hundred products, which will all soon be available through our website.

What challenges have you had? How did you solve them?

Our first challenge was creating an online shopping atmosphere that was different from the rest. There are millions of cookie-cutter shopping carts that you couldn’t differentiate one online store from the next. When we found Ecwid and learned about its unique features we decided that it was the right solution for us. We believe Ecwid’s drag-n-drop functionality and lightning fast interface make our website a more enjoyable experience for our customers.

Ecwid’s comprehensive support including server administration, seamless upgrades, and support forum relieves us of the time, worry, and the expense of these activities so we can focus more on our business and customers.

What can you advise to other store owners who’ve just started to sell?

Find ways to maintain a personal connection with your customers even though they’re shopping online; whether it is by phone, contact, e-mail, blogs, forums, social networking sites, etc. This all helps the customer to continue to feel a more personal connection to you and your business.

PayPal Standard

PayPal Website Payments Standard is added — the most easy-to-use and simple-to-set-up PayPal solution.
So now you can use PayPal Standard as a common payment option and PayPal Express Checkout as an advanced solution for customers with PayPal accounts.

Discount coupons

A great tool to promote your sales and increase the number of your repeat customers.

Advanced integration with social networks

OpenSocial standard supported by many social networks, such as MySpace, Hyves, Google Friend Connect and many others, has been integrated.
If you use Ecwid with such a network, all of your customers will be automatically logged in using their profiles. Also they will be able to share any product to their news feed.

New Google Gadget

In the new Ecwid version Google Gadget has been improved, so now it fits slim pages nicely. Good option for your blog’s sidebar.

Payment method page updated

You can easily rename and update any payment method.

E-Path payment gateway

This gateway allows storing credit cards and processing them manually without any hassles and worries about PCI-DSS compliance and certification.

Affiliates features

We’ve added some affiliate features that transform Ecwid into an affiliate tool.
Since your Ecwid store can be very easily installed at many locations at the same time, your affiliates will not just place links to your store, they will place your store on their sites and you will track sales made from them.

Multilanguage

Four new translations of Ecwid storefront have been added to the Ecwid core: French, Spanish, Russian and German. You can enable and disable them right in the Ecwid control panel. Customers will see the correct translation automatically, based on their browser settings.
Don’t forget about more than 15 other translations which can be installed by modifying the integration code.

Also many other minor improvements have been made. You may not notice them, but they do make a difference.

We want to thank all Ecwid users who voted for suggestions in our ideas base. If you voted for the features that are already implemented in this release, you will get your votes back. So you will be able to vote for the new ideas.

Feel free to use and enjoy the new features. If you have any questions, we’ll be glad to assist on the forums.

Today we’re announcing a new format of our blog posts: interviews with store owners about e-commerce. Below is our interview with Amy Vander Vorste, the owner of Ojamiya.com

Please describe your store, what does it sell?

Japan is a serious obsession for me. At Ojamiya.com, I sell Japanese inspired items: bento boxes (Japanese style box lunch) and chopsticks. I also sell handmade bento bags and juggling sets on Etsy.
Bento is my best seller for several reasons:

• Bento can be incredibly cute. Japanese culture and Kawaii (“super cute”) are starting to become popular around the world.
• It’s an easy way to pack a healthy lunch! Pack a carbohydrate, a protein, and a vegetable. Simple!
• Lunches don’t get smashed in bento boxes.
• It’s great for portion control. I live in the land of “super size” meals here in the US. Our ideas of portions and meal sizes have become super sized too. But we really don’t need that much food. Using a bento box helps me keep meals to a more realistic size.

How did you start your on-line store?

At first I only sold my items on Etsy. Changes to what supplies could be sold affected my being able to sell bento boxes by themselves. So, I started my own online storefront. I looked at and tested quite a few options for e-commerce sites that are affordable for a small business like mine.

Ecwid was the best fit and the simplest to maintain. I’m tech savvy, but I don’t have much time to maintain my site. I’d rather spend my time making products, marketing and caring for my family.

How do you promote it? Do you use social networks?

Yes! Social networks can be really fun! They’re a great way to gently get the message out about your shop and meet like minded people. Remember, interaction is key to social networks. If you only promote, people won’t listen to you.

Tools I use to promote: Blogging, Twitter, Facebook, being involved in related forums, my email and forum signatures, word of mouth, leaving my store’s web address when I comment, simple online ads, occasional contests, and linking to my Ecwid store from my Etsy store and vice versa.
Getting your name in multiple places really increases the likely hood of being found.

What do you want to improve in your store in near future? Why?

Expanding my product line is a big priority for me. I’m adding more bento products as quickly as I can. My hope is to add handmade items to my Ecwid store too. Keeping my bento bags and juggling toys stocked and “fresh” in more than one place is a little tricky. With a plan, it’ll be possible.

What challenges have you had? How did you solve them?

Finding shopping cart software that was easy to add product to and maintain took me quite a while. Oh my goodness, most shopping carts are so unfriendly and so ugly. But Ecwid is so easy and looks great! Simple is good.

Finding a good balance between my shop and my family is always a challenge.
I’m a stay at home mom and run my shop for fun (and little profit). I’m constantly looking for ways to be more efficient. Also making sure I only work on the most important things helps with the balance. Some days the most important thing is getting more product listed or a custom order filled. Some days it’s making sure my son understands his math homework.

What can you advise to other store owners who’ve just started to sell?

My Ecwid store is still pretty new. But here are some of the things I’ve learned so far about having a store online.

• Excellent customer service is priceless! People will return if they know they are valued. Be willing to go the extra mile for your customers. You don’t have the personal interaction online that you have in a brick and mortar store. Do your best to make a connection with your customer. Hand written thank you notes with your customer’s name only take a few minutes and make you stand out.
• Pictures are worth much more than a thousand words. Your products must have well lit pictures for your customer to be drawn to the image or see details in it.
• Presentation and good branding help people remember you. Most big stores just toss the item ordered in a box and ship. Branding is very visual. Stand out by adding a personal touch. A ribbon with a branded tag and your store name on the outside of the package help keep your brand in the mind of your customer. Include a business card with an incentive to return to your shop – such as a discount. Ensure that the customer’s order will arrive in tact with enough padding in the box.
• If you are creating your own items, be sure to limit your online activities to a set amount of time each day so you have enough time for to make your items! There are so many things we can do and it can be a bit overwhelming, but you can’t sell unless you have product! Work on one online thing a day, and soon you’ll be amazed at what you’ve accomplished.

There will always be a million things you can try and that you could make or sell. Choose only the best and the things that bring you the most joy and profit.

Customers don’t like waiting. There are a zillion of different web stores they can go to. So don’t irritate your visitors with delays, your pages should open fast, period.

So what are the ingredients of a really fast store?

• Well optimized shopping cart
• Fast server
• Tracking of the bottlenecks

Well optimized shopping cart

Your shopping cart may be overloaded with features, but all these features could actually hurt the performance of your site when you add many products and start receiving several visitors.
Not all shopping carts are created with performance in their creators’ mind. So they work nice with 10 products, but when you add a few thousand products, the pages are generated in several seconds. With millions of different web stores out there, customers simply won’t wait 10-20 seconds for a page to load to just purchase a product. They’ll just close the browser tab and move on to another store.

So when you select a shopping cart, ask the cart’s creators if it works fast with many products in it.

Fast server

Another crucial component of a web store is your hosting provider. If you use an average PHP shopping cart, you cannot expect a good performance on cheap $2/month shared hosting plans. Another negative aspect about such hostings is that as soon as you get enough visitors, they will block your site and force you to move to a more expensive plan.

So invest into your hosting, don’t try to save on it.

If you want your store to be really fast, it’s recommended to install it on a VPS or a dedicated server. Move away from Apache web server to faster servers like Lighttpd or Nginx. Setup and optimize your server. Yeah, it requires a server administrator hiring, but the result makes it worthwhile.

Tracking of the bottlenecks

Check your web store and find the parts that are causing slowdowns and high page load times. Optimize the code, add caching, and make it fast.

So to sum it up, here’s what you need if you want to have a fast web store:

• a good server and an admin to manage it
• an optimized shopping cart and a web developer to adjust its code

Now welcome to the next generation of shopping cart software.

Ecwid and Speed

In Ecwid we’re concerned about performance; we don’t like delays – that’s why Ecwid is designed to be an extremely fast shopping cart platform.

• We use Amazon EC2 web servers optimized specially for Ecwid. You don’t need a server administrator, because we already have them. So when you use Ecwid, you already have a server administrator that checks and optimizes the server where your store is installed.
  You may have a usual hosting plan, but since Ecwid is actually located on our servers, you automatically get the speed of a professionally managed dedicated server, without any of the hassles or expensive price tags.
• You don’t need a web developer to optimize your shopping cart either. Our developers constantly check Ecwid’s code so that you don’t have to. If we see the possibility to speed things up and increase Ecwid’s performance, we do it. And Since Ecwid’s upgrades are seamless, your store becomes even faster without any changes/work from your side.
• Ecwid’s architecture differs from the other shopping carts.
  This is how usual carts work:
  - visitor makes a request
  - server receives a request and generates an HTML code
  - server sends the HTML code in response
  - visitor’s browser receives the HTML code, renders it and shows the result

  In Ecwid this process is improved. When a customer browses Ecwid pages, only the necessary information is sent and received in background AJAX requests.
  
  It’s like sending a letter using snail mail as opposed to sending it by e-mail and printing it. You get the same result, but the second way is much faster and much more efficient.

All of these components included in Ecwid allow you to have an extremely fast interface and browse all pages in your store without delays, regardless of the amount of products you may have.

We already described how to create your own Facebook shopping cart and make your store available to 350 million of active users. In this post we’ll instruct you on adding your Ecwid to MySpace — another large social network with millions of users.

No PHP knowledge or hosting expenses are required.

Follow the steps below:

1. On page http://developer.myspace.com sign in your mySpace account.

2. Click "My Apps".

3. Press the "Create New App" button.

4. "Create App" page will appear. Press the "Create On-site App" button.

5. Submit the App details.

• Application Title is your store name.
• Email and Password will be used to access your app.

Accept Terms and Conditions and press "Next".

6. A new page will appear. Press the "Skip this step" button.

7. Now you should setup your app settings. Set an application language, title, description and upload icons.

8. Select the app categories.

9. Leave all the other fields unchanged and press "Save".

10. Go to the "Edit App Source" tab.

11. Make sure that "Canvas Surface" tab is selected. You should setup the main store page in this tab with all products and categories displayed.

Set "Height" to the necessary store height (for example, 700px) and "App Type" to "HTML/JavaScript Source".
Then sign in to your Ecwid control panel and grab the integration code from "Dashboard". Insert it to the "HTML/JavaScript Source" field.

It should look like this:

12. Press the "Save Application Source" button.

13.(optional step) Go to the "Profile Surface" tab. Add an HTML code that will show on a user’s profile page when he/she adds your app to the profile.
Make sure that "Add type" is "HTML/JavaScript Source". Set app height and location.
Add an HTML code or just a text describing your store to the "HTML/JavaScript Source" field. It’d be a good idea to add description of your store there, its logo, some ads and featured products.

Press the "Save Application Source" button.

14.(optional step too) Go to the "Home Surface" tab. Add an HTML code that will be shown on a user’s home page.

Save the application source.

15. The two previous steps (#13 and #14) can be skipped and performed later.

16. The next step is to test your application. Use "Dev App" button at the page bottom. Its behaviour depends on the current tab. If you press it in the "Canvas Surface" tab it will show you the main app window.
In the"Profile Surface" and"Home Surface" tabs it will display the profile and home pages respectively.

Please note, if you want to test your app on the home and profile pages, you need to add it to your profile first. You can do it during testing of your app’s Canvas Surface.

17. Press "My App" again in the MySpace menu.

18. Your application is almost ready.
If you want to make your app available for all MySpace users, you need to publish it. Press the "Publish" button and as soon as MySpace staff reviews your app it will be approved and available for all.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask them on Ecwid forums.