Here's What's Coming in Interspire Shopping Cart 5.5

Published December 7, 2009 by Mitchell Harper


As we wrap up our internal testing on Interspire Shopping Cart 5.5 we’ll be making the beta available from the client area some time this week. Most of the features in the upcoming release were added based directly on your feedback, so we’re hoping you’re looking as forward to the release as we are.

This is one of the biggest product releases we’ve ever worked on, and includes:

  • Google Website Optimizer Integration – Easily test different versions of on-page elements such as the “Add to Cart” button, home page promotional banner, product images, descriptions and more to see which results in more orders.

  • Image Thumbnails, Zoom and Custom Sizes – We know from your feedback that images are the most important part of your online store, so we’ve added the ability to display thumbnails on the product page. There’s also image zoom on rollover and custom (configurable) image sizes for different sections of your online store.
     
  • YouTube Search and Embed – Search for videos on YouTube right from your “Add a Product” page and have them display in a beautiful video player on your product pages. Easily find (or upload) video reviews for products you sell, add them to your product page and watch your order rate increase.
     
  • QuickBooks and StoneEdge Two Way Sync – Easily sync your orders, products, customers and more to/from Intuit QuickBooks or StoneEdge Order Manager with just a few clicks.
     
  • Change the Store’s Header Graphic – You can make changes to the existing header graphic in your store’s design or even download a plain version of the header graphic to modify as required.
     
  • Auto-Generated HTML and XML Sitemaps – The HTML sitemap will allow the search engines to crawl and index all pages in your online store, while the XML sitemap can be submitted using Google Webmaster Tools to get more details on crawling/indexing problems which you can then correct to improve how your online store ranks in the search engines.
     
  • Search Products, Categories, Brands, News and Web Pages – Your customers will be able to search more than just products in your store. They can search categories and brands by name and even content in news items and web pages you’ve created. Search results are separated into easily-accessible tabs and are fully configurable.
     
  • Accept and Process Payments When Taking a Phone Order – You’ll be able to take payment then-and-there when adding a phone order through your store’s control panel. No more processing payments manually after you take the order.
     
  • More Varied Store Designs – We’ve crafted over 15 additional store designs for a wide range of industries, bringing the total of over 60 store designs available to all store owners absolutely free.

  • Embed Videos Into Product Descriptions – Just paste in a link from YouTube, Vimeo, Metacafe or Megavideo and we’ll automatically create the HTML code and add the video to your product’s description.
     
  • Photo Gallery – All uploaded images are accessible from the new photo gallery, so if you want to use the same photos for multiple products you only have to upload them once. You can even use photos that have already been uploaded to other websites.
     
  • An AddThis Button on Product Pages – Take advantage of product recommendations with the AddThis button. In one click shoppers can easily share a link to a product in your store with their friends via email, Twitter, FaceBook and dozens of other social media services.
     
  • Abandoned Order Report – See a list of all incomplete orders along with shopper details so you can follow up and see why they didn’t complete their order. You can choose how many days these orders remain in your store’s control panel before they’re removed.
     
  • Sales Tax Report - Easily create a sales tax report filtered by date range which you can export into Microsoft Excel for further processing or to send directly to your accountant.
     
  • Various Improvements – Along with new features we’ve also improved existing functionality. A complete list of improvements will be included with the change log upon release.

As we get closer to the release we’re continually posting useful information and sneak peek screenshots of new features on Twitter, so make sure you follow us and don’t miss out!




13 Responses to "Here's What's Coming in Interspire Shopping Cart 5.5"

Fill in the form below to leave a comment and share your thoughts.

 
Jon
said this on 07 Dec 2009 11:26:09 AM CDT
Have you guys improved the product variations system?

With three different variations, there are over 2000 lines of code generated which makes the pages HUGE.

 
Mitchell Harper ( Author/Admin)
said this on 07 Dec 2009 12:41:14 PM CDT
Hi Jon,

We sure have. You can filter the list of variations, there's paging and you can bulk update based on the filters too - all massive improvements.

 
Chris Winkler
said this on 08 Dec 2009 2:35:09 PM CDT
Hi Mitch, any help with variations is top priority for us, as a few variations with a few options per variation leads to hundreds of fields we have to manually fill in for product code & price. The computer should be doing this for us & we should only have to enter one price & sku per item, and not figure out hundreds of possible price changes. It's pretty much a nightmare for items like PC's that have multiple options.

Specifically, what can we expect from this change in regard to the above situation. That and coupon code fixes are truly needed from high volume stores like eyespypro.com, as well as code optimization to allow it to run quicker when you start getting over 1,500 items.

Thank you...

 
Mitchell Harper ( Author/Admin)
said this on 08 Dec 2009 4:56:41 PM CDT
Hi Chris. We've made massive speed and functionality improvements to variations. You can filter variations by attributes, there's paging so you only see 20 variations per page and finally you can bulk update variations after you've filtered them. It's a lot easier to work with and it's lightning fast.

 
David Ferguson
said this on 07 Dec 2009 4:36:23 PM CDT
Hi Mitch

Can you elaborate a little on the Google sitemap XML feature - This has been in ISC for quite sometime (thou its had its problems) - Can you tell us a little more about what exactly has changed with this feature in the new version of ISC?

 
Mitchell Harper ( Author/Admin)
said this on 07 Dec 2009 6:39:35 PM CDT
Hi David. Now it's available from the Marketing (currently "Promotions) tab in the control panel instead of having to guess the URL to sitemap.xml

 
Mike
said this on 07 Dec 2009 9:11:22 PM CDT
Thanks for the update! I appreciate that more attention is being given to brands, but I hope it's not just limited to search. A few of has have asked the the ability to filter products in a category by brand. It's a feature in some of the competitors products, and definitively missing from ISC.

 
Luke Daly
said this on 08 Dec 2009 5:09:22 AM CDT
I hope Product Variations work better now, in some cases I really questioned if Interspire had even tested the feature.

One product had 2000+ possible variations which is a total joke! the vedit hack on the forums helped a lot.

 
Mitchell Harper ( Author/Admin)
said this on 08 Dec 2009 4:59:01 PM CDT
Hi Luke. Yes we worked tirelessly on them for weeks. Please see my other reply here in regards to what we've added. It doesn't matter how many combinations you have now, it flys.

 
Todor Christov
said this on 08 Dec 2009 8:13:49 AM CDT
Hi Mitch,

I am about to buy Interspire in the next days. But I will start translating it into Bulgarian. To this effect, should I buy it now and start translating everything from English to Bulgarian or should I wait until the new version is available (I think you mentioned December 15th in a previous post) for all new clients so that the new files will not overwrite the translated ones?

 
Mitchell Harper ( Author/Admin)
said this on 08 Dec 2009 4:58:13 PM CDT
Hi Todor. We've added a lot of new language variables for the 5.5 release however we always add them to the bottom of the language files, so if you start at the top and work your way down you should be fine.

 
Eileen loughlin
said this on 08 Dec 2009 11:55:16 AM CDT
Will these enhancements be available to all versions or just a few version.

 
Mitchell Harper ( Author/Admin)
said this on 08 Dec 2009 4:57:32 PM CDT
Hi Eileen. We'll be updating the compare page with details just before the launch on which features are available in which editions.



Leave a reply:
Your Name *: Email (private) *: Website:
Please copy the characters from the image below into the text field below. Doing this helps us prevent automated submissions.
Security Code: img

Never Miss a Post!

Enter your email address below to be notified of new posts.

Subscribe Via RSS

 Interspire RSS Feed

Follow Us On Twitter

 Interspire on Twitter

About

The blog is where we publish "how to" guides and videos for our products, which teach you how to become an eCommerce and email marketing expert online.

You will learn how to attract more customers, make more money and spend less time in the office.

Our Products

Interspire Shopping Cart Shopping cart software optimized for search engines. Packed with beautiful store designs.

Interspire Email Marketer Powerful email marketing and autoresponder software with advanced marketing features.

Interspire Website Publisher Publish websites incredibly fast with the ideal content management system for any site.

Interspire Knowledge Manager Knowledge management software that allows you to easily capture and share company knowledge.