Most of our customers use Early Impact’s Product Cart for their e-commerce.  Product Cart, while a really boring (but obvious) name, is an incredibly powerful e-commerce shopping cart that we are proud to be certified developers for here at NetSource Technologies.

Earlier this year with the release of Product Cart v3.051, the shopping cart now includes an e-commerce blog widget.  This widget can be generated from the shopping cart’s adminstrative control panel.  If you’re not familiar with blog widgets, they are simply extra bits of functionality that you can add to a blog.

To quote Early Impacts Wiki site:

The ProductCart E-Commerce Widget allows you to take selected products you have for sale on your ProductCart-powered store and have them show up on your blog, other Web sites, or even social networking pages. The process only takes minutes, and it can be an effective way to easily market your products.

Take note of the “selected products” text from the quote above.  This widget is not intended to be a full fledged version of your shopping cart on your blog, as it won’t be.  However, if you have a blog to promote your e-commerce store, now you can blog about a particular item and generate an e-commerce widget to sell the product directly from your blog.  Instant impulse buy!

Now that’s pretty cool!

This is a repost from my January 2008 eNewsletter:

“Research from online metrics firm comScore and the Kelsey Group, which studies local media and advertising, finds that the online ratings consumers give products and services have a direct impact on people’s offline purchasing decisions, concluding that merchants who ignore their reputation in the virtual world do so at the expense of very real dollars.

The researchers found that 24 percent of Internet users consult consumer-generated reviews online before making their purchases offline. Consumers were willing to pay 20 percent or more for goods that received an “Excellent,” or 5-star, rating than those same products or services that received a “Good,” or 4-star, rating.

Our shopping cart software offers a complete product review system that allows store customers to rate products and post feedback. If you are not using this feature yet, it might be a good time to consider it.”

This is a repost from my October 2007 eNewsletter:

“As a certified developer for Early Impact’s highly regarded shopping cart system, we can provide just about any shopping cart feature you can imagine. Here are just a few of the newer features that have been added to Version 3 of the cart:

• Unlimited pricing categories: This is an often requested feature that is now standard and is great for membership based websites. Create separate pricing categories for different membership levels, and then display separate pricing for each membership level.
• Unlimited product options: List your products with options.
• Multiple product images: Show your products from every good angle.
• Advanced cross selling: Provide customers with a discount when they purchase a bundle of related products.”

Repost from my November 2007 eNewsletter: 

“Do you have an e-commerce website?  Do you collect any financially or privacy sensitive data?  If so, make sure your SSL certificate is up-to-date and working.  An SSL certificate encrypts the data sent from your website, such as online orders a customer has placed.  Without encryption from an SSL certificate, this data can be more easily hi-jacked by a hacker and pose serious liability to your company.  Typically, your SSL certificate will come up for renewal on a yearly basis.  Common providers of SSL certificates are Verisign, Thawte, Entrust and GoDaddy.

Not sure if you have, or need, an SSL certificate for your website?  If so, call me ASAP at 1-800-709-3240 or (352) 732-7700.”