3dcart version 4.12.1: A Few Small Surprises to Cap Off 2012
3dcart version 4.12.1: A Few Small Surprises to Cap Off 2012
The end of the year is approaching quickly, and 2013 will be a huge one for the ecommerce industry. To cap off 2012 and lead us into the next phase, 3dcart is launching version 4.12.1.
Keeping our software agile and always moving forward is a crucial part of how we keep your store on the cutting edge of commerce. The new version includes new third-party applications like Pay4Me, another trusted payment gateway. We’ve also bug fixes, improvements and new features.
If you’re interested in reading beyond the noteworthy, check out the full list of product improvements in 4.12.1. As always, join the conversation for new features and software improvements by visiting our Uservoice portal for new feature requests at http://3dcart.uservoice.com.
Here are the new items we think you’ll find most important.
Automated Waiting List Notifications
Don’t waste any time; send email notifications the second new stock arrives on waiting list items. Now, you can configure emails to send automatically for products that are back in stock. This feature saves precious time and converts more sales by actively keeping customers in the loop.
Descriptive Product Images on View Cart
For products that are available in different colors or presentations, use the “Dropdown Image” product option to display an unique image that represents each item. With the new setting “Use Dropdown Image option as view cart thumbnail” you can the image of the specific product being purchased displayed as the thumbnail in the View Cart page.
Better Inventory Tracking
There is much we can learn from the past. To offer merchants better product visibility, we’ve added an extra perspective on your archives product-specific inventory log. Past transactions affecting the stock of the product open in a popup window when you’re editing a product and click the stock number.
Keep a close eye on stock in real-time with a new feature for inventory on hold. When you’re editing a product, you can now view the total number of units on hold for open orders that haven’t been shipped or cancelled.
Constant Contact Email Marketing by Cazoomi
Using Constant Contact to run your email marketing operations? It’s one of the most popular email marketing platforms on the market. To add to our continually growing list of close partnerships, we’re happy to announce and add-on from our partner Cazoomi for automatic two-way sync with Constant Contact. Email marketing data and customer relationship management go hand-in-hand with this tight new integration.
A Historic Year for 3dcart
In 2012, 3dcart software has made significant advancements that mirror the growth of our company and the ecommerce industry as a whole. The final update of 2012 polishes off a long list of milestones that our product development team accomplished.
- 9 new version releases
- Tight new integrations with Doba, Facebook, AddShoppers, ReferralCandy, TaxCloud, Shopalize, Bizelo and more
- The unveiling of Facebook Connect, 3dupsell and FraudWatch
- Google Trusted Merchant integration and FedEx certification
- New features for easier multi-store management
- The addition of new in-house & partner-based marketing services around SEO, content marketing and more
Really, these are just a few examples of this year’s accomplishments. We’re looking forward to many more in 2013.
Of course, we couldn’t have accomplished all of this without priceless feedback from customers like you. So please, we encourage you to raise your stake in 3dcart ecommerce software in 2013 and keep those great ideas coming as we plan to set trends for an explosive year in ecommerce.
New & Improved – 3dcart 4.10.1 Is Here!
This last month the 3dcart Development Team has been working really hard, and it shows in the long list of release notes for 4.10.1.
Most of these come from the great feedback we received from 3dcart merchants in our Uservoice portal (3dcart.uservoice.com). So please keep submitting your ideas to help us improve 3dcart. Some great examples are the ability to Duplicate Promotions and to Preview Order Emails.
The most impressive improvement on 4.10.1 is about performance, the changes made to the cache of the application have shown an increase of 60% on the Website Speed of the Home Page and Category pages.
Payment Gateway:
MIGS VPC
New payment method available, the MasterCard Internet Gateway Service is now integrated with 3dcart.
MasterCard Strategic Processing Solutions*| MasterCard®
First Atlantic Commerce
New payment method available, The First Atlantic Commerce processor from Bermuda is now integrated with 3dcart.
Payment Processor – Online Payment Processing & Gateway | FAC)
App Store:
Rejoiner
New Third Party App for Abandoned Shopping Cart recovery
Rejoiner compatible Shopping Cart Software | 3dcart App Store
Bug Fixes
3DSI Payment Gateway
An error was being generated when an order contained multiple quantities of any item.
eProduct Download
The eproducts download was failing for any files over 31.5 MB, the issue has been corrected and the limit increased.
GoDataFeed
The Godatafeed XML feed was returning an error when a specific product had a hidden category as part of its breadcrumb.
Fedex Label Manager
The rate quotes in the Fedex Label Manager where previewing lower rates than the actual printed label.
Billing Information
When trying to preview new plan information (after upgrading) the page would create an overflow error.
Order Exports
The oweight field now registers the total order weight, before when the total weight exceeded the maximum box weight in Shipping Settings the weight was being saved as “WEIGHT/NUMBER OF BOXES”
DHL Tracking
Implemented new DHL tracking URL to allow tracking numbers from this carrier to link directly to DHL’s website and display the tracking information automatically.
Propay
The Autoship recurring orders module was charging amount/100 for orders when processing them using the ProPay payment method.
Front-end Reset Password
The reset password page was not loading when the store has the “login required” setting per product enabled. Customers were being redirected to myaccount.asp.
System Error Messages
An error caused in some isolated cases, that the system error messages in Settings > Design > System Messages would get duplicated. This caused errors when trying to edit/save messages.
Verify Tax
The Verify Tax link was missing on multiple ship-to orders.
Order Search
The filter dropdowns for shipping and payment methods were crashing the page if the number of orders was too high. From now, those 2 filters will be available only for instances of 25,000 orders or less.
Payments – CBA
The “Checkout by Amazon” Thank you Page was not replacing order variables needed for conversion scripts added manually to the checkout step 4 footer. (i.e. [invoicenum], [ordertotal], etc)
Quick Search
The Admin panel quick search now submits the searchwhen user presses the ENTER key.
Quick Cart
When using the Quick Cart feature, the product page would open within the pop-up modal. Added ‘target=”_parent”‘ to fix.
Coupon
The Orders Export CSV file now contains a new column labeled as “Coupon” when a coupon is used in the order.
Improvements
Admin:
• Product Reviews
The Product Reviews section now allows you to specify the number of records per page and to sort the records by any column. Merchants can now easily view products with reviews pending approval by sorting on the NEW REVIEWS field.
• Preview Order Emails
New PREVIEW button available for ORDER EMAILS under Settings > Design > Emails. This allows to preview the order emails. Note: When an order is available in the same order status as the email being previewed then that order information will be used, if no information is available the HTML variables will be displayed.
• Navigation
The Admin panel navigation has been improved to eliminate the third level of navigation under the PLUGINS and Shopping Engines sections.
Frontend
• Jquery on Checkout and Product page
The default templates for Product page and Checkout have been updated to JQUERY 1.8.1 and the PROTOTYPE library is no longer used.
Blog:
• Title Tags -The TITLE tag for the Blog Categories and Blog Archive sections were just re-using the title from the main blog page. These now include unique page titles to prevent duplicated titles errors on Google Webmaster tools.
• Moderate Comments -A new Setting for AUTO-APPROVE comments under SocialCommerce > Blog > Settings, brings the ability to moderate comments before these are published to the website. This also includes the ability to EDIT comments after these have been submitted from the Admin Panel.
• Edit Comments - New section to EDIT the content of the Blog comments.
• Google Sitemap - The Blog posts are now included in the Google Sitemap.
• Search Posts- The blog posts are now included in the Search results, this requires the setting from General > Settings > Store Settings to be enabled for PAGE SEARCH.
• H1 Tag -The blog post titles now include an H1 tag around them for SEO purposes.
Performance
• Cache Setting: The previous “enable cache” setting is now automatically enabled by default and the setting to disable it is no longer available.
• Advanced Page Cache: A new setting called “Enable Adv Page Cache” has been added to the Store Settings section. This is in addition to the standard cache and it puts the Home page and the Category pages into the store’s cache, thus improving the performance of the site even more. The cache itself takes 2 hours to refresh, or it can be manually refreshed by clicking on the “”clear cache”" button.” This setting will be initially turned on by default.
Orders
• Invoice/Packing Slip:The default invoice and packing slip templates now include a variable that displays the Total Number of Items [numberofitems] in the order. This is the total of the individual quantities of each item in the order.
Products
• Extra Fields
Additional extra fields for products have been added; extra_field_11, extra_field_12 and extra_field_13 are now available as 3 new extended descriptions extra fields. These are available on Product Edit and will display automatically in product page. Can also be imported via CSV, pull via Advanced API and exported when doing a custom products export.
• Bundles
New setting for “Bundles – Add subitems weight” that will include the weight of each bundled item in the order when the main item is added to the cart. This weight will be used for the order and considered for shipping calculation.
Marketing
• Duplicate Promotions
New DUPLICATE Promotion button that allows to create a copy of an existing promotion with the same attributes.
SEO
• Products and Category URLs
Automatically do a 301 redirect on Products and Category pages when accessing the page via an URL that includes the product or category ID but the name does not match. This was usually an issue when renaming a product or category, where the URL would change but the previous URL would still work.
•Deleted Products and Categories
When accessing a product or category page that has been deleted, the system will generate a 404 and check if any PAGE REDIRECTS are in place to redirect the visitor to a different product or category page. This discontinues the ERROR message for the product or category are no longer available and will generate a browser 404 error instead.
• Recommend A Friend
The TITLE for recommend a friend page was using the one for the Waiting List. Changed this to use the correct TITLE and to include the product name.
• Shop By Price
Implemented a 301 redirect from empty pages to the first page of the section. So if page 16 had no products, previously it would display a blank page, now it redirects to page 1.
• Shop By Price Titles
The TITLE tag now includes the PAGE number to prevent duplicated titles errors on webmaster tools, so the page title is unique for each on of the pages.
• Google Sitemap
The Google sitemap now includes the 1st level of sub-categories, this was previously limited to just the main categories.
• Product Page
The default template for product page now includes a NOFOLLOW on the links to “Email A Friend” and “Write a Review”.
Introducing Community Alert: 3dcart’s Free Fraud Protection Service

The 3dcart team has been hard at work and is excited to announce the launch of ‘Community Alert’— a free service that calculates risk based on the experience of other 3dcart merchants in the community. Community Alert is the first service of its kind in the ecommerce industry and currently in beta to current merchants.
HOW IT WORKS: Each 3dcart merchant has the ability to contribute to the Community Alert by reporting fraudulent orders to a community database. Based on these reports, retailers taking part in the program receive a free Community Score that rates the risk of accepting the transaction. Scores are generated in real-time as orders enter the merchant’s system so retailers can make decisions on the fly.
SCORING: Scores are rated based on three color-coded levels of risk and a 10-point number scale, making them simple to read and react to quickly and efficiently. The score for each customer also lists the number of transactions associated with them across the community.
PRIVACY: 3dcart guarantees complete privacy for each merchant that takes part in the program. Even though fraud statuses and scores are shared with the community, no information from stores or shoppers is compromised, ensuring total anonymity and protection of other sensitive data.“Community Alert strengthens the bonds of 3dcart’s merchant community while offering a free way to improve security and minimize risk,” said 3dcart CEO Gonzalo Gil. “We added the feature based on two major differentiators: proactive recognition of potential fraud and the power of experienced human intervention to help measure the actual risk.”
3dcart Offers Facebook Connect To Merchants
Earlier this month, we talked about Facebook Connect and how it is revolutionizing the way online business leverage the power of social media. Now, 3dcart merchants can tap into that power with 3dcart’s new built-in Facebook Connect integration.
3dcart’s Facebook Connect add-on displays a button on the “My Account” and “Checkout” pages. If the customer clicks the button, they automatically sign in using their Facebook account. First-time customers and return customers who chose not to save their personal information must fill out their payment information separately, ensuring no privacy issues.
The premium feature offers online retailers:
More Conversions
By simplifying sign-in, customers can bypass creating unique IDs and passwords, removing a major barrier of entry to a potential sales conversion (and future conversions). With more customers identifying themselves before they buy, retailers gain powerful insights on their audiences, enhancing revenue generation.
Empowered Social Marketing
With access to customer data and social graphs, retailers gain immediate visibility into audience behavior, interests and favorite brands. Facebook connectivity also simplifies how customers share the products they buy and the online retailers they frequent.
Personalized Interaction with Customers
Identifying customers immediately gives retailers the opportunity to target recommendations based on previous purchases and interest-based information. Relevant products are more likely to catch a customer’s eye, increasing the chances they’ll buy.
3dcart’s Facebook Connect feature is now available through the app store for $199. For more details or to get started, visit store.3dcart.com/facebook-connect-for-3dcart.html.
Image via Lakeshorebranding.com
Introducing: The 3dcart Template Store
The 3dcart team is so excited to launch the 3dcart Template Store today which will grow the template store, help graphic designers reach out to new clients and bring more design options to 3dcart merchant! The new Template Store allows designers to submit their creations for 3dcart store themes and generate a steady stream of revenue.
Designers can register for 3dcart Partner Program, upload their online store template designs and earn 30 percent on every store template sold. We’re excited to offer designers an opportunity to connect with the more 15,000+ online stores across 12 countries currently on the 3dcart platform.
“The 3dcart platform offers merchants the best marketing features to attract visitors to their website – at the same time, the design aspect is vital for an online store to engage and convert these visitors into customers,” said Jimmy Rodriguez, CTO of 3dcart. “The new template store allows 3dcart merchants to launch their website in no time, with an affordable and high-end design created by professional designers.”
3dcart’s unique approach allows graphic designers with limited HTML skills to participate in the program because 3dcart handles the HTML/CSS implementation, as well as support issues. Assuming the template is accepted, designers earn their payout based on how many templates they sell—the better the template, the larger the payday.
“The new template program from 3dcart gives designers like us the opportunity to showcase our talent to the 3dcart user base,” said Danielle Stein of Boutique Design Studio. “The designer template program is so simple that we don’t even have to code the website. We just submit a photoshop file with our design. It’s an exciting opportunity to grow our design business.”
At $99 for regular and $199 for premium, smaller online retailers looking for a lower upfront investment often purchase store design templates rather than shelling out for custom design work.
The complete details about the guidelines for submission and registration process are available a thttp://www.3dcart.com/template-guidelines.html. Submitters should pay careful attention to guidelines around header features, side widgets, main navigation elements, homepage, featured products, footer navigation and file formatting.
Register For 3dcart’s Social Media For Merchants Webinar
Join us Monday, February 27, 2012 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EST for our webinar: Social Media For Merchants: Building A Social Media Marketing Strategy That Converts
Thank you for all of you who gave your great feedback on what you wanted to discuss in the Social Media Webinar! On average you rated social media marketing’s importance in eCommerce as a 4.5 on a scale of 1-5!

After tallying all the votes here is what you wanted us to cover in the webinar:
- Google+
- Blogging
So that’s exactly what we are going to do!
But don’t worry if you voted for Pinterest, Stumbleupon or Linkedin,we will focus on those topics this month on the 3dcart blog.
In addition to covering the above, you can expect to learn:
- Basic terms and practices of social sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+
- Best practices for engaging your store’s community
- Tactics and techniques to reach new customers
- How to maximize your social media time-spend
Take Advantage of Group Buying Benefits with Group Deals
Take Advantage of Group Buying Benefits with 3DCart 4’s Group Deals Feature
Group buying has exploded into one of the hottest retail trends on the market—so why hasn’t your business cashed in on it yet? Groupon is one of the fastest growing startups of all time, and businesses everywhere have enjoyed the benefits of working with the company.
The only major drawback of working with a group-buying platform like Groupon is that you’ll have to pay out on the sales you make. It’s a fair system, but your business is already taking a cut on profits by offering the deal. If you’d like to run a group buying campaign, cut out the middleman and start an organic deal with “Group Deals,” a new feature included with 3DCart 4.
The new “Group Deals” feature empowers you with the ability to move inventory quickly by selling large blocks of product offered at a discounted rate to a minimum group of participants that must be reached for the deal to go through. Take a look at the points below to understand how launching your own group deal can help you convert more sales.
1. Go viral.
Groupon exploded onto the scene as a result of social media and the ease with which shoppers can share content. If you have a following on your social media channels, corporate blog, newsletter or other marketing channels, your customers can help you go viral because it’s in their interest to share the deal with others so enough people buy and it tips.
2. Keep all of your profits.
Yes, you’ll have to take a hit on profits to offer a deal—but the potential for new customers and more conversions can make it all worthwhile. As we mentioned earlier, Groupon takes a cut from every deal they launch; by organizing your own group deal, you’ll take less of a hit on your profits by cutting out the middleman. The feature is easy to use and integrated directly into your online store.
3. Run as many group deals as you like.
Groupon has expanded to promote thousands of companies across the spectrum of business—and that means you’ll have to wait your turn to launch a deal. With your own group deal feature, you can run your deals whenever you want. No more waiting in line, no more compromising on when you want to run your promotion. For instance, if you sell Fourth of July decorations, it’s a popular time of year for any store to run a promo, so good luck striking a deal with Groupon. Your store’s built-in group deals function makes it simple to take advantage of the holiday and drive higher sales.
4. Control how you promote.
The middleman always has the best opportunity to promote its brand when you work with LivingSocial or Groupon. Without the middleman, your brand won’t have to share the spotlight. You have complete control over how you promote your deal, so make the best of it!
Group Deals are new in 3dcart 4. This in addition to Daily Deals, Make-An-Offer, Autoresponders and 3dFeedback make 3dcart 4 the ideal solution for your online store.
About the Author:
Jimmy Rodriguez is CTO and co-founder of 3DCart, developer of an e-commerce suite for businesses of all sizes. As an authority on e-commerce best practices, Jimmy combines more than 8 years as an e-commerce developer and web programmer with SEO, social marketing and business intelligence.
How Product Recommendations can Boost your Sales 10-25%
Big retailers like Amazon.com and Netflix reap big profits through product recommendations, “Customers who bought this, also bought…” This is because recommendations help your customers find what they’re looking for. They create a better shopping experience. Because of this, they also boost sales. Personalized recommendations convert browsers to buyers, generate larger average order values, lower cart abandonment and result in more repeat business. Recommendations have quickly gone from a nice-to-have to a must-have. They are an integral part of your online marketing and customers expect them.

You might be thinking you already have recommendations, because you manually enter them through your admin panel, or have business rules that pull recommended product from the same category as a viewed product. Perhaps you’re thinking that your merchandising or sales expertise is better than any automated system could be. But using intelligent, automated recommendations is not only easier, forget the resource-intensive maintenance effort you may be used to; Our customers’ tell us they receive a much bigger sales boost as well. For example, Smartpakcanine.com boosted revenue a whopping 36% over manual recommendations. On average, most retailers experience a 10-25% increase in sales. If you’re not yet using personalized product recommendations, you’re definitely leaving money on the table.
So, how does it work?
Automated systems provide much more robust recommendations by leveraging your existing data, including historical sales data, new sales data, and product catalog information. The resulting recommendations are displayed on your site – including in product detail pages, landing pages, within the shopping cart, even in email. Different types of recommendations can be used in various locations throughout your online store, but all take into consideration what a customer is looking at, who they are and/or what’s in the cart.
Delivering this personalized experience, by leveraging the sales and product data you already have, is easier and more affordable than you might think. We’ve created a plugin for 3dcart that makes integration a cinch. You don’t have to change your page templates or do any coding. This means no IT or agency bills. It takes less than an hour to integrate, and uses historical sales data so it’s smart on day one.
Here are a few things to consider when adding recommendations to your site:
- Ease and speed of integration with your ecommerce platform
- Minimal start-up time, meaning that the system does not require a lengthy burn-in/learning period prior to being able to start making recommendations
- Ability to generate recommendations for each customer, known as one-to-one personalization. Some vendors are selling market segmentation solutions as personalization. These segmentation solutions categorize shoppers into only a few segments, and, thus, are not as effective as a true personalized recommendation system. They also take longer to setup.
- Ability to generate effective recommendations even for products with limited sales volume or history
- Try before you buy trial
- Transparent pricing, avoid long term commitments, set-up fees and hefty integration charges. These can add significantly to the total cost of ownership.
For more information, you can download our free whitepaper, “Personalization Q&A”, or contact me at amy@4-Tell.com or 503.516.1800.
Amy Weissfeld is the Senior Director of Sales and Marketing at 4-Tell. She has 7 years of ecommerce and interactive experience, successfully leading companies of all sizes. At 4-Tell, Amy works to bring value to clients and partners by helping strategically implement 4-Tell’s personalization and recommendation solution.
–
We’re Plynt Certified: What It Means for Your Business
Because a lot of personal data passes through our software, it’s important to get a check-up to make sure we’re closely following guidelines for PCI compliance and general secure data transmission. We’re proud to say that after a vigorous testing period by Plynt, a third-party security testing verification and certification company, we’ve passed with flying colors for a second year in a row, which means your customers’ personal data is safe and secure.
Plynt has worked with more than 400 companies to ensure data passing through their systems is highly resistant to hackers and other malicious activity online. Plynt Certification joins the many security accolades 3DCart customers already enjoy, including TRUSTe, Verisign TrustSeal and McAfee Secure designations.
The testing process is extremely thorough. Plynt computer engineers act as hackers and try to break through the security of the 3DCart system to simulate what kind of damage an actual attack may cause. Obtaining certification relies on 3DCart’s ability to enact strict preventative security measures, which our software was able to do.
As it goes with any business, your company and your customers form a bond built on trust. Highlighting that trust before any transaction occurs helps you form an immediate bond with a potential customer, increasing conversion and helping you deliver a stalwart, trustworthy brand online. Think of this certification as another way we’re working to strengthen our relationship with you, our customer.
Today’s real risks and consumer worries over fraud and identity theft require strict compliance with Payment Card Industry standards. With so many online retailers dependent on how we position our software, 3DCart would like to reaffirm our commitment to staying on the cutting-edge of PCI compliance. To help our customers understand how critical PCI compliance is, we plan to continue building our knowledge base to offer more resources for our customers. Visit http://www.3dcart.com/pci-compliance.html to learn more.
Accept International Orders Today
App Store News – International Checkout
In today’s article, we’ll be showcasing 3dcart’s integration with International Checkout.
(Available in the App Store)
Why would I want to use International Checkout?
For many online merchants, the idea of accepting international orders can be an exciting prospect. After all, the moment you get that first order from a whole continent away, it can feel like your store has “gone global” and now you’re playing in the big leagues!
On the other hand, that international order can also carry some anxiety along with it. Inevitably, questions like the following will go through your mind:
- Is it a valid credit card?
- Do I need to worry about the exchange rates?
- Am I being paid in US dollars?
- What about duties and taxes?
- Did I charge them enough for shipping?
- What about customs?
- Is it even legal for me to ship or do business there?
- What if they want to return items? Will I be able to communicate with them?
Questions like these have kept many online merchants from making their stores available to international customers. Question like these have kept many stores from progressing to that next level and increasing their revenue.
International Checkout’s goal is to help answer these questions.
How does it work?
When you integrate your 3dcart store with International Checkout, your global customers will see a new button in their view cart page that looks like the following:

When they click on this button, the customer and their cart items are taken to your International Checkout profile where the order is finalized.
Afterward, the International Checkout team will go to your store and place the order on behalf of the international customer. When they place the order on your store, International Checkout will use their own U.S. based corporate credit card as well as their corporate shipping address here in the U.S.
When the items are received, International Checkout will ship the order out to your global customer and take care of the rest.
Best of all, International Checkout is FREE!
Becoming an International Checkout merchant partner costs you nothing.
So, reviewing those questions from earlier, here’s how International Checkout helps to answer them:
- Is it a valid credit card?
- Do I need to worry about the exchange rates?
- Am I being paid in US dollars?
Answer: When the order comes through your store, you’re being paid by International Checkout’s team using their U.S. based corporate card. International Checkout takes care of exchange rates and customer settlements.
- What about duties and taxes?
- Did I charge them enough for shipping?
- What about customs?
- Is it even legal for me to ship or do business there?
Answer: International Checkout will handle all of these situations. Using the service, your international customer will have the option of including Duties and taxes wherever applicable. International Checkout will handle all of the shipping charges for the order exclusively. You need not worry about the cost of shipping internationally.
Furthermore, International Checkout will handle all of the customs and legal considerations needed for the order.
- What if they want to return items? Will I be able to communicate with them?
Answer: International Checkout will also handle all of the returns and exchange processes by adhering to your store’s very own returns policies. International Checkout will also handle all customer service issues pertaining to your international customers with their very own world-class, multi-lingual customer service team!
If all of this wasn’t enough, International Checkout will also help promote your site to its customer base by featuring your store in their merchant partner directory located at http://www.internationalcheckout.com/

As you can see – although taking your store to the global market can be exciting and scary at the same time – 3dcart and International Checkout will help you ease those fears and open your store to a whole new group of customers!







