Bing is Microsoft’s web search engine. Bing continues to increase in popularity since its launch in June 2009 and now comprises about 10% of the total search engine volume. Bing hopes to compete with Google by offering a multitude of impressive search features such as faceted search results, related searches, enhanced views, video thumbnail previews, image search, instant answers and much more. SearchFit is an ecommerce platform cart that is Bing CashBack compatible that allows you to automatically build and deliver a product feed to Bing CashBack based on your existing product data. Other marketing feed are currently available including Google Base and Yahoo. We understand the necessity of effectively working with comparison shopping engines and are committed to providing quality integrations that get you results.

Bing CashBack Gives Your Customers a Great Incentive to Buy

Bing Shopping is the comparison shopping engine offered by Bing. Get your products listed on Bing Shopping by creating an account and submitting your product feed. Products from Bing Shopping are listed among Bing’s search results and on bing.com/shopping. The Bing Shopping feature that customers love most is “CashBack”. For each product marked with a Bing Cashback icon, the buyer earns a rebate on the purchase. The rebate can be anywhere from 2-50% of the order amount and is paid for by the seller, but delivered by Bing. The CashBack incentives have increased Bing Shopping’s market share by offering customers a more rewarding and exciting shopping experience.

SearchFit Ecommerce Shopping Cart is Now Bing CashBack Compatible

When SearchFit integrated with Bing CashBack in October 2009, it became one of the first ecommerce shopping carts to offer an automated system of delivering product feeds to Bing CashBack. SearchFit is proud to offer Bing CashBack integration along with its other available product feeds such as Google Base, Yahoo! Shopping and more. Once you have established an account with Bing CashBack and configured your Bing CashBack administration panel, you may use SearchFit to automatically create and deliver your product feed to Bing at a specified interval.

Within the SearchFit control panel, the Bing configuration is very streamlined and user friendly. Just enter your Bing FTP username and password, how often you would like to deliver your feed and click “update”. A variety of optional settings exist that allow you to customize your feed by altering the product names, descriptions and more. You also have the ability to download a sample feed. The CashBack incentive can be specified per product via bulk import or on a “Per Category” or “Whole Store” basis.

SearchFit will automatically create the items needed to track conversions and deliver the related information to Bing. Both the Bing tracking pixel and Bing batch reporting data delivery methods are used and require no setup on your part. The use of the Bing tracking pixel allows your customers to immediately login to their Bing CashBack account after a purchase to see the CashBack amount they earned. The nightly batch reports sent to Bing helps ensure that all conversions are accurately tracked.

How to Get Started with Bing CashBack

Your best bet for the fastest Bing integration with the best results is to contact your SearchFit account representative.  Here are the general steps needed to integrate your SearchFit shopping cart with Bing Shopping.

1. Create a Bing Shopping account by filling out their interest form.
2. Bing Shopping will review your application and may assign you an account representative who will oversee your integration.
3. Bing will give you a login to the Bing backend administration area where you must enter general information about your business. Some settings will also need to be entered at this point, such as your default CashBack amount. You will also receive ftp access to your Bing feed destination.
4. Edit the Bing integration settings in your SearchFit Bing panel (Located within the “Marketing Tab” | “Product Feeds” screen), including adding the ftp information mentioned in step 3 (above). Use the SearchFit Bing panel to submit your first feed to Bing.
5. Your Bing Shopping account representative will review the feed. If the feed is accepted, then your products will be listed in Bing Shopping.

We are excited to offer you a fast easy way to expand your marketing channels with Bing Shopping. Please contact us today to get started.

Enjoy some powerful new features to increase your marketing channels and site usability with SearchFit version updates from v8.3 to v8.5. Create your own FaceBook and Open Social (including MySpace) applications. Social networking site users will be able to add an application related to your store to their profiles. New features allow you to easily integrate your SearchFit-powered site with Power Search, our advanced website search solution. Your customers will find what they are looking for easier and faster than ever before. As with every update, a bevy of new features have been introduced to add a higher level of customization to your online store. Make this summer shopping season your best one yet!

Social Networking Applications for Ecommerce

Create applications for the most popular social networking sites, like FaceBook, MySpace and many sites that are powered by the Open Social framework. A social networking application can be shown in multiple areas of a social networking page. For example, you can create a social networking application for FaceBook that displays on a given user’s profile and tab view. The application could contain the contents of your choice, including a list of your products. Social networking applications allow you to add an additional marketing channel. Let social networkers give your products a personal recommendation for all of their friends by displaying your application! Learn more about social networking for ecommerce.

Advanced Website Search Solution – Integration with SearchFit Power Search

Help your customers easily find what they are looking for in record time with our advanced website search solution: SearchFit Power Search. Easily integrate with our new, stand-alone solution by automatically delivering your product data from your shopping cart control panel to your Power Search control panel. Sign up for Power Search today and enjoy a smart search solution that includes filters and sorting with lightning fast, relevant results. Contact us today for more information about Power Search.

Ecommerce Sales Reports – Top Buyers

Easily identify and market to your top customers with new sales reports. The Top Buyers by Number of Orders Report shows you a pie chart with customers who have made the most purchases. Hovering over a pie slice shows customer stats like company name, email address, and last order date. Similarly, the Top Buyers by Amount Spent report shows a pie chart with customers who spent the most. Clicking on a pie slice launches a popup containing the last order the customer made. The report can be filtered by date and exported in CSV format. View more information about Ecommerce Sales Reports.

Ecommerce Shopping Cart Software Enhancements

The latest versions of the SearchFit Ecommerce Shopping Cart Software include a variety of enhancements. Now you can view the gross profit per product when editing a product (Gross profit equals sale price minus cost price). Three new feeds are available on the Product Feeds screen: MSN, Shopzilla and Shopping.com. Much like our existing Google Base Feeds feature, you can now automatically create and deliver your product data to these three comparison shopping engines at a specified interval. Our Product Feeds features will continue to grow and allow you to increase your marketing channels. Web Development features include the ability to show additional pictures per product and add items to product groups using a list of SKU’s. Another web development feature that advanced users may find useful is a built in keyword for XHR requests: DYNAMIC_INCLUDE(LOAD_CONTENT, url=…).

Many new features are on the way and we thank you for your continued feedback. Please let us know how we can help improve your online business.

SearchFit has won the Excellence in Technology Award from SmallBusinessComputing.com for best storefront/shopping cart, and would like to extend a big thank you to all of you who voted for us. Thank You for making SearchFit an award winning shopping cart. This award reaffirms what we, and many of you, knew all along: that SearchFit truly is the best shopping cart in 2009, and that the features we have added, and continue to add, are helping our clients succeed with their online businesses.

A big reason SearchFit won this year is that so many store owners are now aware of the importance of built-in SEO features in their shopping cart, and how those features translate into free, targeted traffic from the search engine results. Competition in paid marketing channels is stiff and it is more expensive every day to compete for traffic. Ranking in organic search engine results is the key to bringing in traffic that converts at a higher percentage. Another feature that many people know about, but still too many are not taking advantage of, is SearchFit’s automated Google feeds. These feeds, when set up properly, can put you at the top of the search engines immediately as part of Google’s shopping results on product-related searches, and it is completely free! Even if you’ve been a SearchFit user for a while, it’s worth it for you to give us a call and check in with us to find out if there are some award winning shopping cart features you could be using to maximize your business.

As a special promotion to celebrate this award, we are offering a special Referral Program. Tell your friends about how great SearchFit is, and if they come and sign up for a cart of their own, we’ll send you a check half of their first month’s subscription. That’s right – if your referral signs up for a SearchFit Enterprise, you will be sent a check for $250! All this just for sharing your positive experience with SearchFit!

Once again, thank you to all of our readers and users for heading over to vote for SearchFit, we are deeply gratified to know that so many people have had a positive experience and success with the software we have worked so hard to build. We are by no means going to stop now, and there are some great features coming in the near future. Check back often for new feature announcements or sign up for our newsletter and get them delivered right to your inbox.

Get more in-tune with your customers great new features added in SearchFit v8.2 including new ecommerce reports, a customer loyalty program and an automated Yahoo Shopping Feed. Examples of new reports include referring key phrases, all traffic sources and several others . Yahoo Shopping has been added to our list of automated comparison shopping engine feeds, letting your further increase your multi-channel marketing. We are proud to wrap up 2008 with the great features added in v8.2 and have a plethora of new features planned for early 2009. Thanks to the SearchFit community for all its great feed back and contributions that made SearchFit the ecommerce shopping cart that sets the standard. Read more about SearchFit Ecommerce Features and take your store to the next level!

New Ecommerce Reports – SearchFit Built-In Analytics

SearchFit v8.2 adds some helpful new reports with more on the horizon. We love and use Google Analytics, but SearchFit’s built-in reports have an important dimension that no one else offers: cost price. Since SearchFit allows you to enter cost price per product, SearchFit reports are able to show statistics like "Adjusted Revenue" and "Adjusted Profit". In SearchFit lingo, "Adjusted Revenue" means the revenue generated minus the cost price of products. Finally, you can get an idea of the income you are really generating with no need to make calculations or compare data from different applications.

Ecommerce Report – Referring Key Phrases

The referring key phrases report is a new SearchFit built-in analytics report available in the traffic sources reports section. The report shows the number of visits per referring key phrase in a bar chart. Users have the ability to specify the number of results and export the report data.

Ecommerce Report – All Traffic Sources

The All Traffic Sources Report allows users to view a pie chart where each slice is a different type of traffic source, such as Google, Yahoo, Direct Traffic, etc. The chart shows the percentage of visits per referring key phrase plus other important statistics like number of visits, revenue and profit. Users have the ability to specify the number of results and export the report data.

Other new ecommerce reports include: Bounce Rate Per Category, Analytics Adjusted ROI Per Campaign and Top Landing Pages

Ecommerce Shopping Cart Customer Loyalty Program

Encourage your customers to make repeat purchases and register for your website! The Customer Loyalty Program allows you to create rewards for your customers based on their order total. The reward can be a dollar value or percentage of their order total. If a customer makes an applicable order, they receive the corresponding amount of store credit, which they can use on their next purchase(s).

Yahoo Shopping Feed

Use your existing product data automatically create and export a Yahoo Shopping feed. You have the ability to specify that your feed should be created and automatically delivered to Yahoo every "x" days. Multi-Channel marketing has never been easier! Use the "Feed Optimization Settings" section to optimize your product names and descriptions for maximum exposure. Advanced attribute settings are available so you can deliver more information per product.

We are happy to offer SearchFit v8.2. We have many new features planned for 2009 and wish our community another great year of ecommerce success!

Read the SearchFit v8.2 release notes.

The SearchFit Ecommerce Shopping Cart was announced as a finalist in the 2009 Small Business Computing Excellence in Technology Awards. Your vote will help the small business community find the best available hardware, Software, Services, Security and Ecommerce Applications including over 90 products and services. We are happy to see SearchFit v8 been recognized for its great ecommerce, marketing and shopping features. Thanks to the SearchFit community for all the great feedback and suggestions that have lead it to be one of the most effect ecommerce solutions available today. We look forward to your input and success in the years to come as part of the SearchFit community. Don’t forget to visit the small business computing awards and vote for your favorite small business related products and services.

SearchFit is an ecommerce shopping cart with a flexible template system that allows you to ad your own JavaScript. Thanks to some outstanding libraries like JQuery, JavaScript is a great tool to improve your ecommerce user interface. JQuery is a leading JavaScript library that has great potential regarding JavaScript for ecommerce. Writing JavaScript is much easier, faster and more fun when using JQuery. Since JQuery looks remarkably similar to CSS, coders who know HTML & CSS are able to intuitively use JQuery and start writing JavaScript programs immediately. According to the JQuery website:

“jQuery is a fast and concise JavaScript Library that simplifies HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions for rapid web development. JQuery is designed to change the way that you write JavaScript.”

JQuery for Ecommerce User Interface Examples

JQuery can improve ecommerce user interface in many ways.For example, you may create animated menus, animated product displays, drag-to-cart functionality and much more. By improving the user experience with customer friendly shopping features, you can build a loyal base of customers who love to use your website.

Ecommerce User Interface – Example 1: Expandable Sidebar Menu with JQuery

• Example Page: http://www.coolerstores.com/water-coolers-16-ct.htm
• Based on  John Resig’s Example: http://www.vimeo.com/116991

Menus are a key part of your ecommerce user interface. An expandable sidebar menu helps prevent visitors from being overwhelmed from the large number of menu links. Visitors are able to quickly view your top-level links and gain an understanding of your product catalog structure. The menu shown in the example expands without refreshing the page, so visitors can quickly examine its different sections. The menu shown in the example is a built automatically using the SearchFit website menu template.

Ecommerce User Interface – Example 2: Enhanced Product Image Display with JQuery

• Uses JQZoom JQuery Plugin by Mind Projects: http://www.mind-projects.it/blog/jqzoom_v10
• Uses other JQuery based scripts for image & value switching.

Having large, high quality product images helps increase your conversion rate. JQuery is a great tool to building ecommerce user interface elements, such as an enhanced product image display. This example shows how the popular JQZoom JQuery Plugin can be used as part of an ecommerce user interface to display your product images. When a visitor mouses over a product image, a window appears revealing a portion of the enlarged image. In addition, JQuery animation  effects are used to transition between product images as thumbnails are clicked. Clicking the thumbnails beneath the “Color Options” section controls the color option submitted to the shopping cart.

Ecommerce User Interface – Example 3: Dragable Cart with JQuery UI

• Uses JQuery UI Draggable ( http://docs.jquery.com/UI/Draggables ) and Droppable (http://docs.jquery.com/UI/Droppables )

A "Persistent Cart" is a standard ecommerce user interface element that shows customers a summary of items in their cart. Having a Dragable Cart means that your customers can drag and drop a product image onto your shopping cart display. Upon doing so, that product will be added to their cart. The example provided is a simple one.  Dragable carts are not a widely used user interface element, but they can provide an interesting, alternate method of adding products to the cart. The Dragable Cart is used in addition to the usual buy buttons that appear per product.

How to Add JQuery to Your SearchFit Website

The SearchFit Ecommerce Shopping Cart has an extremely flexible template system. It’s very easy to add JQuery to your SearchFit website. Two methods are explained below. You should use the Advanced Method with extreme caution because setup errors (in the htaccess file) will break your website.

Simple Method for Installing the JQuery JavaScript Library

The easiest way to add JQuery JavaScript library to your website is to add the below line of code right before the </body> tag on your SearchFit Main Template (and every other Website Main Template you have in Template Storage for which you would like to install JQuery):

<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.2.6/jquery.min.js"></script>

This line of code sources the JQuery JavaScript library from its hosted location on Google’s AJAX Libraries API storage location. The simple method is great for testing and production, but it’s not a great permanent solution (due to its large file size).

Advanced Method for Installing  the JQuery JavaScript Library

The difference between the simple an advanced method of installing JQuery include:

• The Advanced method is a good permanent solution.
• The JQuery JavaScript library files are hosted on your website (not Google).
• The JQuery JavaScript library is Gzipped for reduced file size and faster load time.

By default, you may not use Gzipped files with your SearchFit website. Here is one way to allow the use of Gzipped files. If you already have an htaccess file, add the entry shown in step e below. If you have not added an htaccess file to your website, then follow these steps to create one:

1. Access your SearchFit Control Panel. Click the Content tab | Custom Pages icon. The Custom Pages screen will appear.
2. Click the Click the New Custom Page link. The New Custom Page panel will appear.
3. Enter “.htaccess” for Web Page Name and Web Link Name. Click the Continue button. The New Custom Page form will appear.
4. From the Action select box, choose Only Page Without Template.
5. In the AUTO_GENERATED_CONTENT field, paste in the following htaccess entry:
   • <files *.js.gz>
     ForceType text/javascript
     Header set Content-Encoding: gzip
     </files>
6. Click the Save button.
7. Generate your website.

In order to use the Advanced Method, you will need to obtain a copy of the JQuery JavaScript library and Gzip it.
You may obtain a copy of the latest version of the JQuery JavaScript Library here: http://code.google.com/p/jqueryjs/downloads/list
Once you have downloaded the JQuery JavaScript Library, the next step is to compress it using Gzip compression. Free programs are available to do this, including 7zip, which is available here: http://www.7-zip.org/download.html

How to Gzip JQuery using 7zip

1. Install  7zip. Open the 7zip File Manager.
2. Drag your copy of the JQuery JavaScript Library to the white area of the 7zip file manager window.
3. The 7zip Add to Archive window will appear. Choose Gzip from the Archive Format select box.
4. Click OK
5. A Gzipped Copy of the JQuery JavaScript library will appear in the same directory as your original version (of JQuery).

The next step is to upload your Gzipped Copy of JQuery to the File Storage area of SearchFit:

1. Access your SearchFit Control Panel.
2. Click the Content tab.
3. Click the File Storage icon. The File Storage screen will appear.
4. Click the New File link. The New File panel will appear.
5. Select the Folder where you would like to store the JQuery JavaScript library, for example [ROOT]. Click the Continue button. The New File form will expand.
6. Click the Browse button next to the field labeled Local File. The File Upload window will appear.
7. Select your Gzipped copy of the JQuery JavaScript library and click Open.  The New File form will have the Local File and File Name fields populated according to your selection on the File Upload Window.
8. Important: The File Name field may display an incorrect file name. If necessary, adjust it so that the file name is in this format: filename.js.gz
9. Click the Upload Button
10. Generate your website
11. Check to see if your upload was successful. Use your browser to view the file you just uploaded. For example, if you chose to upload the file to the [ROOT] go to:
    • http://www.mywebsite.com/images_templ/jquery.js.gz

Storing JavaScript Files in your SearchFit Website

Although you could store JavaScript files using the File Storage screen or Dynamic File Storage, I prefer to save them as Custom Pages:

1. Access your SearchFit Control Panel.
2. Click the Content tab.
3. Click the Custom Pages icon. The Custom Pages screen will appear.
4. Click the New Custom Page link. The New Custom Page panel will appear.
5. Enter a value for Web Page Name, such as “myscript.js”. Enter a value for Weblink Name, such as “My Script”. Click the Continue Button.  The New Custom Page form will expand.
6. Change the value of the select box labeled Action to Only Page Without Template.
7. Delete the content of the text area labeled AUTO_GENERATED_HEADER.
8. Add the contents of you JavaScript file to the text area labeled AUTO_GENERATED_CONTENT.
9. Click the Add button.  The New Custom Page form will collapse.
10. Locate the Custom Page you just created. Uncheck the corresponding checkboxes labeled SM and SEO.
11. Generate. The JavaScript file you just created will now be located in the root directory of your website.

Using JavaScript for ecommerce website user interface design can yield powerful results. Increase your conversion rate by offering customers a more direct, intuitive shopping experience made possible by SearchFit & YUI. Improved usability in the SearchFit Control Panel means a less steep learning curve and higher productivity.

SearchFit shopping cart software v8 is proud to offer ecommerce usability enhancements powered by the Yahoo User Interface library. Usability enhancements refer to improvements in your site’s user interface that make your site easier and more intuitive to use. The Yahoo User Interface library (YUI) is a leading JavaScript library and describes itself as:

“…a set of utilities and controls, written in JavaScript, for building richly interactive web applications using techniques such as DOM scripting, DHTML and AJAX…”

Ecommerce Usability Enhancements

Ecommerce usability enhancements increase your conversion rate. Transform visitors into customers by giving them the tools they need to quickly find, evaluate and purchase your products. Take advantage of three great YUI powered features that your customers will love including Compare Products, Customer Reviews and Compare Products.

Compare Products – YUI JavaScript Powered Interface

Give customers the ability to easily compare the products they are interested in side by side. Each of your products will display a "Compare Products" checkbox. Customers may click this check box for each product they are interested in comparing. When a customer chooses to compare products, a YUI powered dynamic panel appears containing a product display. Products are listed horizontally with configurable stats listed below for easy reading. As opposed to the standard method of clicking back and forth between products, the Compare Products feature makes it much easier and faster for your customers to make a buying decision. Since they can view all the products they are interested in at once, customers can remember and understand the differences between them.

YUI Components Used: Container (Panel), Menu

Compare Products Checkbox: Just click to add any product to the list of those that will be compared.

Compare Products – YUI Panel: Allow your customers to easily differentiate between products and make a buying decision.

Customer Reviews – YUI JavaScript Powered Interface

A customer reviews system allows customers to more easily find and learn about your best products. This leads to increased conversion rates. The YUI powered customer review feature adds a Customer Reviews display to your category pages and detailed product pages. When a customer clicks the "Reviews" link, a dynamic panel appears containing the Customer Reviews interface. If a customer closes the Customer Reviews panel, they return to the category/detailed product page where they started and may continue with the buying process. Offer your customers a solid reviews system including the ability to comment on reviews, mark reviews as "helpful" or not, and special review statuses like "approved poster". Read more about the SearchFit Customer Review Solution.

YUI Components Used: Container (Panel), Connection Manager

Customer Reviews – YUI Panel: Allow customers to quickly locate, learn about and purchase your best products.

Product Filters – YUI JavaScript Powered Interface

Product Filters allow your customers to quickly find only the products with the features they are looking for with just a few easy clicks. Easier, faster shopping features mean a higher conversion rate. The user interface elements are: a YUI powered "Dynamic Filterable Menu" and dynamic product display. For example, your customers will be presented with a menu where they may check the product attributes they are interested in like size, color, material, etc. As your customers check the checkboxes, the content area of the page will dynamically adjust to show only those products which match all checked attributes. Customers can quickly adjust their selection by checking/unchecking boxes until they have narrowed down to exactly what they are looking for.

YUI Components Used: Connection Manager

Product Filters Menu & Dynamic Content Area: An easy, fast way for customers to find products with specific attributes.

Shopping Cart Control Panel Usability Enhancements

The SearchFit Shopping Cart Control Panel is the admin area for your website. For example, the Control Panel is used to create products, configure settings, publish your website, etc. SearchFit needs an understandable user interface in order for users to find and use the large number of available screens & features. The use of YUI has increased the usability of the control panel by making it more intuitive to search for, add & edit items.

YUI Panels for Search

A Search function is available on many screens of the Control Panel including orders, products, file storage, etc. Clicking the search link on any of these screens launches a YUI powered dynamic panel with an easy to use interface. Users can easily find what they are looking for and the search form does not clutter the screen when it is not needed.

File Storage Search Panel: Intuitive control panel interface for searching files.

YUI Panels for Creating New Items

The control panel is a tab based interface. Each tab represents a top level screen of the control panel and contains many different icons which are links to different screens. Also, for each type of item there are links to create new or edit existing. When clicked, these links launch a dynamic panel that presents the user with a series of numbered steps (and related form widgets) needed to perform the task. This makes it simpler for new users to learn the system, thus reducing the learning curve and increasing productivity.

New Products Panel: An easy way for new users to add products.

More usability enhancements are on the way for both SearchFit generated websites and the SearchFit control panel. We are exited at the potential for an improved shopping experience that JavaScript for Ecommerce offers, especially with YUI. New and innovative user interface features powered by YUI are on the way and we know your customers will love them!

See Yahoo User Interface Library documentation read great articles on the official YUI Blog.

Contact us today to learn more about the SearchFit Ecommerce Shopping Cart.

A satisfied, long-time SearchFit customer has posted a lauding review of SearchFit shopping cart software at E-Tail.be. Dave Lorrez opens his review by comparing SearchFit’s solution to his experiences with other e-commerce software, and throughout the article he showcases the vast multitude of features that SearchFit has to offer, focussing especially on the friendliness and versatility of the software. If you want to hear more about all the little (or large) perks Searchfit has to offer, view the SearchFit ecommerce shopping cart features.

"In case you didn’t [notice], this is the solution that brought my biz to a whole other level. First, they have the right software application and second they have an excellent customer support. If something isn’t working or you can’t figure out how to do something, you can go to the board (call or email them), post your head breaker there and within a very [short] period of time they will give you all of the info you need to get along with it. They are the engineers and they know their stuff to the bottom."

Dave Lorrez – E-tail.biz

E-tail.be is a Belgian website that aims to provide internet marketing and SEO tips. Some specific features that this article mentions are: SEO customization (customizable pagination links, automated menus, sitemaps, XML sitemaps), Product Upsell capabilities, Product Reviews, Product Comparison, Coupons, Inventory Control, DropShipping capability, and multiple stores governed by one Control Panel. Read the full review of SearchFit Ecommerce Shopping Cart.

It’s time to give your ecommerce website a summer tune-up with some of the valuable features available in the SearchFit Ecommerce Shopping Cart v8.1. There is a lot packed into this update, but highlights include a new Customer Review Solution and enhanced Ecommerce Reporting System.

Customer Review Solution

Boost your conversion rate and positive word-of-mouth referrals to your website using the new, built-in Customer Review Solution. Let your customers participate in your website by reading & writing reviews and you will improve your online community. We are happy to announce the new Customer Review Solution as part of SearchFit Ecommerce Shopping Cart v8.1.

Benefits of Product Ratings & Reviews

Product reviews often give your customer that last bit of information needed to make a purchasing decision. The ability to differentiate between the good, average and poor products will make your website more customer friendly.

Internet Retailer.com reported the following benefits of Product Reviews as researched by ForeSee:

• “Shoppers on sites with customer product reviews were 5% more likely to buy from the retailer the next holiday season and 4% more likely to purchase from the retailer the next time they are in the market for similar merchandise.”
• “Shoppers that visited sites with customer product reviews are 6% more likely to recommend the site than are shoppers that went to sites without this feature.”
• “Of holiday shoppers that bought from sites with reviews, 39% cited the customer product review as the primary factor that influenced the purchase. And 42% of first-time buyers on sites with customer product reviews cited the review as the primary factor in their decision to make a purchase.”

Customer Review Solution: How it Works

The Customer Review Solution allows you to display a rating per product on your category pages and detailed product pages. Your category pages show a 0-5 star rating per product plus the number of reviews per product. The number of reviews is a clickable link that launches a dynamic panel where the customer is able to read & comment on reviews as well as write her own review.

On your detailed product pages, additional items are shown, such as a ratings bar chart and link to “write your own review”.

The reviews system offers your customers a deep level of interaction. They may post a review, as well as post comments on other reviews. This allows and encourages a conversation between customers about your products. Reviews can be marked as helpful, or not and later sorted by your customers according to their helpful status. Special icons and statuses can be granted to your customers to encourage them to participate in your reviews system. Examples include “approved poster” , “purchaser of product” and “purchased from this store” .

Product Reviews Panel

Settings are available for the Product Reviews solution that allow you to decide if customers must register & login in order to post a review or comment. Settings also allow you to decide if reviews are automatically posted, or must be approved first. Your customers may flag reviews as inappropriate and you will automatically receive a notification.

Customer Reviews Solution Features:

• Ratings display per product includes stars, bar chart & number of reviews link.
• Visitors may read and write reviews per product.
• Visitors may read and Write Comments Per Review
• Visitors may sort reviews by Newest First, Most Helpful First and Most Critical.
• Visitors may report abuse per Review or Comment.
• Visitors may mark the Review or Comment as “Helpful” or not. This allows the Comments & Reviews to be sorted by “Most Helpful First”.

• Store owner may set special statuses for reviewers like approved poster, purchaser of product and purchased from store.
• Store owner can set reviews and comments to be added to the website automatically, or only after approval.
• Store owner can allow all visitors to post a review or comment, or just those who have registered/logged in.

Ecommerce Reporting – New Sales and Visitor Reports Available

A new visitors report is available that includes a line chart of visits & hits by hour day, month and year. This allows you to get general visitor statistics without using a third-party application.

The Sales reports section contains 3 new types of sales reports that will give you a better picture of the performance of your category types, categories and products. The new reports allow you to quickly identify the performance of each of your category types, categories and products. The Top Sellers by Profit report (revenue – cost price) combines analytics reporting with the real cost of your products, giving you a quick, valuable picture of a product or category’s real contribution to your bottom line.

Each of the below Ecommerce Reports includes an interactive Pie chart. Clicking a slice on one chart can update the contents of another. All reports are filterable by date and can be exported to .csv (comma separated value format). SearchFit ecommerce reporting gives you a quick measure of your strengths and weaknesses without having to pull data from multiple applications.

New Ecommerce Sales Reports:

• Top Selling Category Types, Categories and Products by Quantity
• Top Selling Category Types, Categories and Products by Revenue
• Top Selling Category Types, Categories and Products by Profit (Revenue – Cost Price of Products Sold)

Ecommerce Reporting – Top Selling Products By Profit

More New Ecommerce Shopping Cart Features

For a full list of features new to v8.1, please see the official version documentation: http://searchfit.us.com/forums/about2083.html

• Enhanced SEO Naming Rules.
• Store owner can now configure the Verisign credit card processor engine to issue a pre-authorization for $1 transaction.
• New keywords available for the main templates: AUTO_GENERATED_MENU_WEBSITE_id: will be replaced with the autogenerated Website Menu.
• New “Paid Date” field per order that is automatically populated when the order changes its paid status.
• The Control Panel Help System is now in webhelp and on-screen format.

What is Google Base?

Google Base is an open database provided by Google where anyone can post many different kinds of information from recipes to song lyrics. It’s Google’s way of letting people contribute content directly. The important part for you is that you are able to upload your product feed to Google Base and reap valuable rewards.

Google Base Reward #1: Appear in Google Shopping Results on Google Search Results

A link to your product page may appear at the top of Google search results pages in the Shopping Results section. This is a great way to get to the top of highly competitive search areas. Your Product Name, Price and linked Store Name appear right there in the result. There is even a nifty shopping bag icon. For Free! What more do you want?

Google Base Reward #2: Appear in Google Product Search Results

Google Product Search Results are accessible by clicking the Shopping Search Refinement link that appears at the top of the Google Search Results page. They are also available on Google.com/products, also known as the Google Products Comparison Shopping Engine. Google Product Search offers products from a large number of sellers and offers great shopping features like seller reviews, sort by price  and more.

How to Get Your Products Listed on Google Base

The SearchFit Ecommerce Shopping Cart offers a quick, comprehensive system for the creation and delivery of your Google Base feed.  Once you have completed the simple process of creating a Google account and registering your feed, there’s just 3 fast, easy steps to complete within the SearchFit control panel:

• 1. Configure FTP Account Access. Just enter your Google Base FTP username and password.
• 2. Google Base Feed Submission. Schedule a recurring feed creation and delivery by selecting the “Submit to Google Base Every x Days” option.
• 3. Google Base Feed Optimization Settings. Choose the format of your product Title, Description and Type as they will appear on your feed.

Bonus Step:

• 4. Advanced Attribute Settings (optional): Add additional Product attributes to your feed. Google offers many different predefined attributes for you to better describe your products. You may also define your own custom attributes in order to create the perfect feed! SearchFit gives you complete control over Google Base attributes.

With so little effort and so much potential reward, you would be crazy not to submit a feed to Google Base. The SearchFit ecommerce shopping cart offers an easy, fast a powerful way to get your Products listed on Google Product Search And Regular search listings.

SearchFit Google Base Screen Examples

SearchFit Google Base FTP Account Access Settings

Search Fit Google Base Feed Submission Settings

SearchFit Google Base Feed Optimization Settings