Ecommerce Templates > Newsletter > January 2016

Ecommerce Templates Newsletter January 2016

Welcome to the January 2016 Ecommerce Templates newsletter

Welcome to the January edition of the Ecommerce Templates Newsletter and a Happy New Year from all of us at ECT.

Recent Updates

The latest version of ECT is 6.5.2 and if you haven't already updated you can catch up on all the great features you've missed from the notes in our previous newsletter.

If you are using USPS for your online shipping rates you'll be interested to know we have just released some modifications to the way flat rate boxes are handled following the USPS price and API Web Tools changes.

We have also done a lot of work on improving the way image switches show with the Magic Toolbox suite of product image features.

Other handy new features since the 6.5 release include

  • Redesign of dashboard order totals
  • Improved checkout validation
  • New css classes for the "Hard Cart"
  • Placeholder text for text input product options
  • More elements added to the Product Quick Entry feature
  • Improvements to the Also Bought cross selling algorithm
  • Detail link for the css product layouts
  • Delete product option check on use
  • Define the search filters to display on the search page

As always we continue to work on new features and integrations and hope to have news of further developments shortly, including the much demanded Amazon Login and Pay system.

Updaters are cumulative so you'll only need to get the latest to bring your store right up to date. Updaters as always can be downloaded from https://www.ecommercetemplates.com/updaters.asp and purchased if necessary from https://www.ecommercetemplates.com/upgrades.asp

New Templates and Themes

We have just released our latest Responsive Design the layout is inspired by “card” designs and early feedback has been very promising. It is Bootstrap based as we’ve received a few requests for designs based on that framework.

The other recent release is also a Bootstrap theme but this time for Wordpress -- again we’ve listened to your feedback and made home page editing even easier. You can choose to use posts, plugins and comments to edit the home page, use the built in ECT CMS feature or dive straight into the HTML, as you prefer. We have also added the same editing capability to our recent WordPress Indoors theme.

We also have an ever growing list of plugins for ECT Wordpress integrations with more in the pipeline.

Replacement Software

If you are thinking of switching designs we have a Software Replacement service on our upgrades page and have put together some notes on the support forum for preparing a stress free transition - should you have any questions about that, please let us know.

Custom Fields

We recently updated the demos we have of the Ecommerce Templates and decided to use the custom field feature. With the CSS configurable product detail layout you can have up to 3 custom fields and choose to order them as you like. Here's an example of a couple of extra fields in our latest design ' we chose to show shipping information and social media buttons but there are 100's of possible uses - we even started a forum thread here so people can share their suggestions.

You'll also see on that sample product page that the recent additions of quantity pricing display and review stars have been included. As it is all css based the configuration of the display is completely up to you and highly configurable.

If you have any questions on these features or anything else you've read in the newsletter we'd love to hear from you.