Screenshots: Here’s What’s Coming Up in BigCommerce 5.5

Published on December 2nd, 2009 by Mitchell Harper

Update: It became impossible to reply to all of the comments on this post, so we’ve switched back from the Disqus commenting system to Wordpress’s default commenting system. We read every single comment posted here and appreciate the feedback. To make things easier, we’ve just launched our new community center where you can post questions, ideas, comments and more. BigCommerce team members as well as clients are available to assist in answering your questions. Click here to visit our new community center.

Adding multiple photos at once for a product

Paging, filter and bulk update options for product variations

SuperZoom photo zooming on product photos

Inline popup window with carousel for product photos

As we wrap up our internal testing on BigCommerce 5.5 we’ll be pushing the software live to all stores in the coming week or two. Most of the features in the upcoming release were added based directly on your feedback and that from other BigCommerce retailers, 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 BigCommerce 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!