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[Video] Here’s what’s coming next week in BigCommerce 5.6!

Published on March 5th, 2010 by Mitchell Harper

Click the image above to watch the BigCommerce 5.6 sneak peek video

Click the image above to watch the BigCommerce 5.6 sneak peek video

Hi everyone. As we wrap up our testing for BigCommerce 5.6 I wanted to share a video with you in which I demonstrate the new features. You will have the option to upgrade to BigCommerce 5.6 some time next week, depending on how long our final stage of testing takes.

While this is technically a minor update, there are still some big features which were all, of course, requested by you. Ever since we started we’ve always asked for what you want us to build in our software and we’ll continue to do so. We know you can choose from a myriad of ecommerce offerings and we appreciate the opportunity to incorporate your feedback into our software.

In parallel to working on version 5.6 we’ve also made excellent progress on BigCommerce 6 which doesn’t have a release date yet but is looking great so far.

New features:

  • Take your store down for maintenance – You as an admin still have full access to your store so you can make and preview design changes, add/remove products, etc all without your customers seeing. You can specify your own custom message which will be shown to store visitors.
    .
  • Set the starting order number – Let’s face it, no one wants to receive an email saying “Your order ID is 1″. In BigCommerce 5.6 the default starting order number is 100 but you can change it to whatever you like from Settings -> Miscellaneous.
    .
  • Block the shipping dimensions message – When you add/edit a product with no shipping dimensons you see an alert message telling you that you didn’t enter them. You can now tick “Don’t show this message again” and it will be gone forever. This is a per-user setting.
    .
  • Tracking numbers and links in emails – This is the most popular feature request on our community page and it’s coming next week in 5.6! If an order has a tracking number and you change its status to shipped or completed, your customer will get an email automatically with their tracking number and a link to track their order on the shipping provider’s website.
    .
  • Import and export formats are now synched – We’ve created a new “Bulk Edit” template which you can use to export and then re-import products. No more missing out on editing certain fields or mapping fields manually – everything is included and automatic.
    .
  • 301 redirects – If you’ve switched to BigCommerce (which over 25% of you have) and want to maintain your search engine rankings then you can easily create your own 301 redirects from your store’s control panel – no more emailing us a spreadsheet manually. You can also bulk import in a variety of formats too, including CSV and Google sitemap.
    .
  • Update your own DNS settings – Right from the Tools menu you can add, edit and delete your own DNS records.
    .
  • Surprise feature – I wont tell you what it is, but it’s related to marketing and will drive a boat load of new traffic to your store for free.

A big “well done” to our engineering team for getting this release completed in record time. We’re just finishing up our testing and are hoping to give you the option to upgrade some time next week. If you have any questions please feel free to leave them below!

P.S. We regularly post design wireframes and screenshots from features we’re working on for BigCommerce 6 on our Facebook fan page so feel free to become a fan and share your feedback with us!

Comments

  1. 1.

    Hiva Javaher (March 5th, 2010, 2:03 am)

    Hi Mitchell,
    As always great presentation and I am yet again very much impressed. Great Job!!!!

    Thank you,
    Hiva

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    March 5th, 2010 at 4:45 pm

    Thanks Hiva! Looking forward to your feedback when the release goes out.

    [Reply]

  2. 2.

    Richard (March 5th, 2010, 2:39 am)

    Hi Mitch… agreed, very impressed with new features and speed of rollout of upgrades… the obvious question though, when will Shopping Cart get the upgrade as I also have copies of this running and I like to keep the versions together? Cheers, Richard

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    March 5th, 2010 at 4:44 pm

    Hey Richard. It will be the week after next. We want to roll the upgrade out on BigCommerce and then make it available for Interspire customers.

    [Reply]

  3. 3.

    Dave Beck (March 5th, 2010, 5:08 am)

    hi Mitch,

    Very nice implementation for the 301 redirects. I love the fact that you can future proof by dynamically linking the existing URL to a product or category … very slick. Now you only have to fix up having the URL permanently tied to the category or product name and you will be much more search engine friendly.

    Dave

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    March 5th, 2010 at 4:43 pm

    Hey Dave. Yep you’re right – but if you change a category/product name you can add your own redirect as of version 5.6 – we’ll automate this for a future release though.

    [Reply]

    Richard Reply:
    March 6th, 2010 at 1:25 pm

    Hi Mitch… I still don’t understand why there can’t be a simple field (slug) for one to enter the URL you want to have for the page, and then if it is empty the URL defaults to the title? Why does the word ‘redirect’ even have to appear in anything? Just seems pretty simple and straightforward from a users point of view, but very happy to have it explained to me, why not :-) Thanks

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    March 7th, 2010 at 4:09 am

    Hi Richard. Slugs and 301 redirects are two different things. Slugs are for URL structure for products in your store but 301 redirects are mainly for those who have switched from another platform that want to maintain their search engine rankings. 301 redirects tell Google/Yahoo/Bing/etc that the old link now has a “new home” at a specific page on their BigCommerce store.

    As always, if you’d like us to add slug support, feel free to post/vote for it at http://community.bigcommerce.com

    Thanks Richard.

  4. 4.

    Matt (March 5th, 2010, 7:46 am)

    Come on Mitch, whats the secret feature, don’t leave us hanging! ;)

    Looking forward to the new release.

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    March 5th, 2010 at 4:43 pm

    I’ll never tell! :)

    [Reply]

  5. 5.

    Richard (March 5th, 2010, 9:10 am)

    Hi Mitchell,

    Looking foward to the new release, I have been a software engineer and a project manager myself in the ecommerce industry and I know how difficult it can be to deliver on time and manage expectations.

    Well done,

    Richard

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    March 5th, 2010 at 4:42 pm

    Cheers Richard. It’s not an easy job but it’s one I love – plus we have some of the best engineers in the world working on BigCommerce so I can’t take all of the credit. My hat goes off to our engineering team on this one for over delivering and working their butts off to make this release perfect. Also a big thank you to everyone who submitted an idea on our community page.

    [Reply]

  6. 6.

    Jackie (March 5th, 2010, 9:16 am)

    I am very excited and impressed on how quickly you rolled out these new features.
    With the shipping/tracking notification email… is it set up so that you can notify the customers with variable shipping methods? For example, I might have a customer that receives a package via USPS and another customer may receive their package via FEDEX.

    Thanks!
    Jackie

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    March 5th, 2010 at 4:41 pm

    Hi Jackie. It sure is. Each shipping method has its own properties for tracking link and how it deals with tracking numbers. Even if you use your own shipping methods, the customer will still be sent the tracking number but of course it works best if you use UPS/USPS/FedEx, etc.

    [Reply]

  7. 7.

    Jeff (March 5th, 2010, 10:00 am)

    Hi Mitchell,

    Awesome! I cannot tell you how exiting (and crucial) that import bulk edit template is to all of us. That feature alone could have been a deal breaker for many customers currently using or wanting to use BC, but what sets you guys apart is that you listen to your customers and correct your shortcomings quickly. I speak for myself, but on behalf of others I’m sure and we all thank you.

    I also agree with Hiva above…great job and I look forward to the update.

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    March 5th, 2010 at 4:40 pm

    Thanks for the kind words Jeff. We know the import/export sync is critical from the community page and from feedback so we wanted to get it out as soon as we could.

    [Reply]

  8. 8.

    Littleaton (March 5th, 2010, 10:52 am)

    YAY!! Sweet, Means i can go live soon!!
    Thanks So much BC team, keep up the good work!

    [Reply]

  9. 9.

    Littleaton (March 5th, 2010, 12:29 pm)

    Question about the bulk import/export.

    So im still not able to “UPDATE” products qty/price on their own?

    i have to sort through my 50k item spreadsheet i get from my drop shipper and have to manually update my price/qty? for each item?

    or can i use my existing spreadsheet and just import the fields i want?

    does it still require the product name/category to “update” items?

    If so id like to see this changed for “Updating” items info.

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    March 5th, 2010 at 4:39 pm

    Hi Aaron. You can bulk update the quantity and price but BigCommerce still needs a way to reference which product the values are for so you need the product name. You can already use the custom export templates under Tools -> Export Templates to create your own template which only includes those 3 fields, then you can export products using that template and re-import.

    [Reply]

    Littleaton Reply:
    March 7th, 2010 at 1:41 pm

    Hmmm, ok Thanks ill figure this out then.

    We know what day 5.6 will be out? Im exstatic!

    [Reply]

  10. 10.

    Danny (March 6th, 2010, 3:18 pm)

    Love the vid and I can’t wait for another podcast! You are probably super busy with the release so I won’t waste your time, but I just wanted to say amazing work as always and you make spending $80 a month very well worth it. Can’t wait to upgrade to the 1000+ products very soon!

    [Reply]

  11. 11.

    Mike (March 8th, 2010, 1:19 pm)

    Mitch,

    Looks great. Question on the 301 redirects. Would this work for existing pages within BC? For example if I had:

    ./pages/page.html

    to

    /page.html

    Thanks
    Mike

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    March 8th, 2010 at 11:53 pm

    Hi Mike. Yes it would work in that way just fine.

    [Reply]

    Mike Reply:
    March 9th, 2010 at 7:21 pm

    Thanks Mitch,

    On the 301, what about if I wanted to redirect a category from a BC file such as:

    ./categories/books

    to

    /books.html

    Would that work?

    Thanks

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    March 10th, 2010 at 4:09 am

    Hi Mike. Yes it would. The redirects are checked before every page load and if the URL matches then the redirect will occur.

  12. 12.

    Diane (March 9th, 2010, 7:08 am)

    Hi Mitch,

    Looking forward to the new release. One quick question, has it been tested on IE8? I am hearing that many sites are not accessible after this browser upgrade.

    Thanks!

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    March 10th, 2010 at 4:13 am

    Hi Diane. We test in all popular browsers (and some that aren’t as popular like Opera) including IE 6/7/8, FireFox, Safari and Chrome. If you do find something we’ve missed feel free to send through a ticket and we’ll fix it post haste for you.

    [Reply]

  13. 13.

    Sharyn Alice Murray (March 9th, 2010, 1:41 pm)

    Looking forward to the secret traffic feature.

    [Reply]

  14. 14.

    Mike (March 9th, 2010, 2:52 pm)

    Hi Mitch
    Great video and great looking update. I am really enjoying using this software compared to my previous cart company. Keep up the good work.
    One thing i would like to see is the ability to change is the wording on auto emails to customers. Some of my Uk customers are questioning some of the wording like ‘awaiting fulfilment’ and ‘shipped’. One of my customers who read the wording ‘awaiting shipment’ thought that it was my company that was waiting for a shipment of stock! not his order waiting to be shipped.
    Many thanks for all your help
    Regards
    Mike

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    March 10th, 2010 at 4:12 am

    Hi Mike. You can edit your email templates in a simple WYSIWYG editor under the “Store Design” link (top right of your control panel) and then under the “Email Templates” tab. You can’t change text for the order status however feel free to add it as an idea at http://community.bigcommerce.com and if enough people vote for it we’ll build it!

    [Reply]

  15. 15.

    Doug Kelly (March 9th, 2010, 3:33 pm)

    Once again you guys have raised the bar for all the others to jump. Best of luck on the Award.

    [Reply]

  16. 16.

    Chris (March 9th, 2010, 8:16 pm)

    Brand new customer here. Upgraded from a pretty terrible competitor off yours. Love the update work you’re doing. That import export improvement is crucial.

    I also would love to see a slug for custom category URLs.

    Thanks.

    [Reply]

  17. 17.

    Mike W (March 10th, 2010, 10:56 pm)

    Hi Mitch,

    I am really excited for the new features. When I signed up last year I knew a few important things were lacking and I was counting on your ongoing development to catch up. Between the community you setup for us to voice our needs and your response to those needs with ongoing development I am happier each day I am a customer. In the past I have been vocal in my criticism and now I would like to be just as vocal in my praise.

    Great job responding to our feedback with updates and new features!

    Mike

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    March 11th, 2010 at 12:43 am

    Cheers for the feedback Mike. As you now know we do whatever we can to get your feedback into the software. We’re getting a lot better with our releases too, so expect a LOT of new stuff in 2010, starting with version 5.6 next week and then with version 6 shortly after.

    [Reply]

  18. 18.

    Danny (March 15th, 2010, 11:07 am)

    Did this happen already or has it been delayed?

    [Reply]

  19. 19.

    Joe Richey (March 15th, 2010, 1:45 pm)

    I simply love Big Commerce and I appreaciate all you guys do.
    We work at http://www.closeoutdirect.com and we just started in
    Dec 2009 with the site and have already done over 500 orders and $70,000
    in sales….. We we were having some slow sales prior to the switch. OMG and the SEO I get plenty of free traffic from search engines as a result of using Big Commerce…. You guys rock thanks JOE

    [Reply]

  20. 20.

    Marcus (March 18th, 2010, 12:47 pm)

    Hi to everyone at Big Commerce,

    First of I’d like to congratulate everyone there for creating (in my opinion) the best shopping cart on the market. Its even more impressive the speed at which you work to implement new customer driven idea’s.

    We have nearly finished the first build of our first big commerce store, switching over from one of your competitors.

    I understand that release date’s get pushed back along the way and could change again but we was hoping you could give us a new release date, supposing things at your end were to all go to plan.

    We are very eager to go live with our first Big Commerce site but we are holding back for 5.6 as we are dependant on some of the new features.

    Thanks in advance,
    Marc

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    March 18th, 2010 at 10:48 pm

    Hi Marc. We’re confident of releasing BigCommerce 5.6 this coming Wednesday, 24th March. We had a few marketing-related tasks that pushed the release back a week or two longer than anticipated but these things happen.

    [Reply]

  21. 21.

    Nick (March 27th, 2010, 10:06 am)

    Hey Mitch,
    Always following your posts and your updates and I love the ‘how to’ you tube videos you create. Keep them coming, you guys are doing a great job.
    I’m sure this question was asked somewhere and I didn’t see it, but I was curious if there will be integration into stamps.com or shipworks.com with this upgrade. I need to open an account with someone and I’m not sure who to do it with because I’m not sure who will work with the big C. If you guys could maybe an API that would include someone like ordercup, they do some good stuff with an easy web based app. Anyway, I’m looking forward to 5.6 and checking every day to see if it has hit! Thanks Mitch

    -Nick

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    March 27th, 2010 at 7:09 pm

    Hi Nick. We’ve decided on Shipworks (http://www.shipworks.com) for shipping integration for version 6. It was the most popular request from the community and it’s a very affordable service for our small business merchants. There’s a full API around BigCommerce, however, if you did want to build integration into Ordercup – but we’ll also build integration with Ordercup in a future release.

    Hope that helps.

    [Reply]

  22. 22.

    GrievousAngel (March 29th, 2010, 6:38 am)

    how do i upgrade to BC Version 5.6?

    thanks,
    billy

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    March 29th, 2010 at 8:04 pm

    Hi Billy. There’s nothing you need to do if you’re running BigCommerce 5.5 (check the footer text in your store’s control panel) – your store will be upgraded automatically. If you’re still on version 5.x.x then you’ll see a note in your control panel to schedule an upgrade with appropriate info.

    [Reply]

  23. 23.

    Kate (May 24th, 2010, 11:10 pm)

    I vote for OrderCup over ShipWorks.

    [Reply]

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