We’re making another upgrade to Storefront

We’re making some more improvements to our Homestead Storefront service; here’s Amr to introduce them for you.

Hello again, it’s Amr with the list of new features and other improvements we’re adding to our full-service ecommerce offering, Storefront. As in previous upgrades, we’re updating a lot of existing features, as well as creating some new ones, like adding recommended featured products to results of customer searches that don’t find specific products. We’re also improving your customers’ checkout experience.

We’ll send Storefront users an email letting them know when the upgrade will take place. In the meantime, here’s the full list of the planned improvements. If you use Storefront, be sure to review them and let us know if you have any questions!

New Features in Storefront

Merchant Tools

• Improved One-Page Checkout: The following enhancements are being made to One-Page Checkout:
  • We’re adding buttons to clearly call out the decision that the customer needs to make next.
  • We’re moving the PayPal button down the page to show it is an option but not the primary decision the customer needs to make.
  • A lock image will inform the shopper that checkout is secure.
  • The customer will perform all actions by clicking a button.

Note: To enable improvements to One-Page Checkout, several changes are being made to the One-Page Checkout Style Sheet template. If you made any changes to this template before this Storefront upgrade takes place, your One-Page Checkout page may incorrectly render some fields. If you have problems, please contact Support for assistance.

• New Button Images: New button images will be added on the Cart, Product List, Product Detail, and One Page Checkout pages.

Note: If you have modified your button image files without changing the image file name, Storefront’s updated images will overwrite your modified images. To retain your modified images, once the Storefront upgrade takes place, please rename your custom button image files and modify your page templates to use your renamed button image files.

eBay Listing

• Return Policy Addition: eBay’s ‘Returns not accepted’ policy will now be supported, and tighter integration with eBay’s return policy fields will be provided.

Note: Once the Storefront upgrade takes place, if you have pending eBay listings (or eBay listing templates) you should open your existing listing (or listing template), verify that the return policy is correct, and then save the page so that the new elements will appear in your listing.

• New Supported Payment Methods: ‘ProPay’ and ‘PayOnPickup’ will be added to the listing tool, and payment methods no longer supported on eBay will be removed. After the upgrade, Storefront will display payment methods allowed by the eBay website and the item category that the merchant selected in the listing tool.

Enhanced Shopping Experience

The following changes to the default Storefront page templates were designed to improve your customer’s shopping experience.

Note: For those of you using default Storefront page templates in your store designs, you will automatically see these changes appear in your stores when the upgrade takes place. If you previously published the template, you may not see all of these changes in your stores unless you choose the new layouts.

• Search Results Template:
  • We’re adding recommended featured products when the customer’s search returns no product.
  • Keywords and category name are being added to page title.

• Product Detail Template:
  • We’re improving readability by more clearly displaying critical shopping information. The new layout uses tabs to separate summary information from the long description.
  • We’re making the ‘Item added to cart’ message more prominent.

• Shopping Cart Improvements:
  • We’re adding an image for each product in the cart. This image will be smaller than the thumbnail image.
  • The name of the product will now be a link to the product detail page.
  • We’re updating the Continue Shopping and Checkout buttons to use images, which will give the shopper a clear path to checkout.

Other Changes

• Cybercash No Longer Supported: We’re removing Cybercash from the list of supported payment methods.
• Dreamweaver Extension No Longer Supported: We’re removing the Dreamweaver Extension download link because Storefront will no longer support this extension. Current users may continue to use it, but without Storefront support.

Resolved Issues

• Resolving an issue in Category Manager that could cause unexpected results when updating the priority of subcategories where many subcategories share the same name.
• Resolving an issue that could prevent proper display of discounts for customers who are part of a customer group if the store is configured with Dedicated Customer Groups.
• Resolving an issue that could cause an error in the product quantity when attempting to add line items to an outstanding invoice.
• Modifying the display of the Ready for Shipping page to resolve an issue that could cause an incorrect address to appear in the Customer column of the Ready for Shipping page.
• Resolving an issue that could cause an error when using the PayPal Direct payment method.
• Resolving an issue that could cause an error in updating the invoice to reflect payment when the customer pays through PayPal Express.
• Resolving an issue that could cause an error if a value of $0.00 is entered for the ‘Each Additional’ setting on a product’s configuration for Product Level Shipping.
• Resolving an issue that caused the product preview to not include the brief or long description when adding a product.
• Resolving an issue that caused the Sales by Product report in Report Manager to open in a new window when the user clicks the Next button.
• Resolving an issue that could cause an extraneous zero to appear in the Sales by Customer report results.
• Resolving an issue in the Shipping Manager that could cause an error when attempting to change shipping preferences to “configure common shipping services for all products”.
• Resolving an issue that could cause erroneous results when performing a search.
• Resolving an issue that caused the display of an incorrect version number in the Store Administration home page.
• Resolving an issue that could cause the product detail page to fail to display the Sales End Date for a manufacturer OEM promotion.
• Resolving an issue that could cause an error when attempting to check out using One-Page Checkout with gift wrapping selected.
• Resolving an issue that could cause estimated shipping to not appear in the shopping cart when product-level shipping is enabled.
• Resolving an issue that could cause an incorrect error message when attempting to ship an order twice.
• Resolving an issue that caused a sitemap to be copied to a new store when a store that contains a SiteMap is modeled.
• Resolving an issue that could cause an error in the listing ID when attempting to use Checkout Redirect with standard PayPal
• Resolving an issue that could cause the overwriting of eBay description and detail templates with blank templates.
• Resolving an issue that could cause invalid shipping services to appear in eBay listing setup or add product setup.
• Resolving an issue that could cause an error when attempting to relist an eBay listing from the completed listings list.
• Resolving an issue that could cause an error when attempting to configure a store with eBay and multi-channel inventory with the locale set to English – United Kingdom.
• Resolving an issue in eBay setup that could cause a store name to not appear on eBay.
• Resolving an issue in eBay setup that could cause updated values for sales tax percentage and sales tax state to fail to save.
• Resolving an issue in eBay templates that could cause an error when attempting to add the seller zip code or payment instructions.
• Resolving an issue in One-Page Checkout that could cause data input fields to expand past the table when viewed in the Safari 3.1 browser on MacOS.