Magento World Newsletter (December 8, 2009)
Categorized as : Ecommerce
Every day we perceive a lot of information. No wonder that we forget or lose sight of things that can be really important and useful for us. That's why it is worth reading newsletters - regular emails with articles about news, updates, special offers, surveys.
In our monthly newsletter we share all the results achieved in the Magento extensions development sphere during the month, so you can unhurriedly choose what will be more helpful and efficient for you and your business. It is a perfect way out for those who have missed a chance to join aheadWorks Magento Group and get all the news immediately or just prefer to learn about our development efforts at a time.
View a brief summary of our month’s work below and learn what new surveys, extensions and updates were released in November.
New Survey
We always base on the needs and requirements of our customers and it is one of the fundamental principles of our work. We highly appreciate your opinion and would be very much obliged to you if you found 2 minutes to answer a few quick questions of our survey and defined which products would be extremely helpful for your business. In acknowledgement of your sincere answers we’ll raffle off gift extensions.
Hurry up to become one of 3 winners! The survey ends on December 24, 2009.
We are waiting for your answers and the prizes are waiting for you!
New Extensions
Subscriptions and Recurring Payments
The Subscriptions and Recurring Payments extension by aheadWorks is an ideal tool for those who deal with subscription products and services usually bought with a certain periodicity (bottled water, detergent, pet food, massage). Subscriptions and Recurring Payments will help you to manage them efficiently and in no time.
Listed below are some of the powerful features that Subscriptions and Recurring Payments lends to your websites:
- Adds new product type - subscriptions
- Ability to convert simple products to subscriptions in just 2 clicks
- Simple product can be sold as simple or with subscription option at the same time
- Customizable subscription periods - any day of week can be excluded
- Per-product period types customization
- Configurable shipping per product
- Subscriptions list and statistics in the admin area
- Subscribers listing in the admin area
- Subscriptions statistics and management in the customer area
- Optional first period price, can be different from the normal price
- Membership support - moving customer to a specific group on subscription or unsubscription
Interested? Learn more on the product page.
Advanced Newsletter
The Advanced Newsletter extension will help you increase your subscriber base with a highly customizable user interface and targeted sign-up options, while the segmentation features let you target your subscribers with the most relevant content.
Advanced Newsletter offers numerous features, including:
- Enriched standard newsletter subscription block
- Inclusion of name fields for guests
- Mailing lists segmentation by subscriber groups
- Ability to display/hide segment(s) for particular categories/stores
- MailChimp integration
- Third party SMTP server support means you are no longer dependent on your local server mailing software
Find the whole list of features on the Advanced Newsletter page.
Easy Categories
The Easy Categories extension displays your store’s product categories, so customers can rapidly find what they want. Best of all, you can place your category listings wherever you’d like – your store’s home page, a special category page or another CMS page.
Some of Easy Categories features include:
- The ability to place categories on any page you’d like
- The ability to lay out your categories in columns or lines
- The opportunity to include images with your category listings
- The option to specify the thumbnail size of photos
- The speed needed to upgrade your storefront quickly
View the screenshots and find more features on the Easy Categories page.
Updated Extensions
Please don't forget to check complete changelog on the product pages.
Refer a Friend
The Refer a friend module stimulates your customers to invite their friends to your store. As a result the customers who referred their friends get % or flat rate discount and you gain more clients and more benefit. Let your customers promote your on-line store for you!
Current version: 1.3
Upgrade: recommended from any previous versions
Upgrade cost: free for all versions
What’s new (main changes):
+ New action type - "% from all referrals purchases"
+ Ability to broadcast referral link
+ Ability to refer somebody more than once from different accounts
+ Referrer name is available from the template
+ Triggers limit for every action type
+ Ability to block additive discounts
+ Processing priority default value
+ New rule conditions: for orders greater than X and discounts greater than X
+ Dynamic explanatory label for better rules understanding
+ "Eligible for discount" field in customer area
+ Reworked admin referrers page
Find the complete changelog on the extension page.
On Sale
The On Sale extension allows users to add visually-appealing labels to any product images. The labels can then be displayed in both the product and catalog views.
Current version: 2.1
Upgrade: recommended from any previous versions
Upgrade cost: free for all versions
What’s new:
+ Discount labels threshold
+ Can use Native "New" period for product
* IE pushes description below the image
* Configurable products bug fix
* Clipped label in IE8 fix
To get the whole picture of On Sale features please visit the extension page.
Facebook Link
Facebook Link makes your store promotion between Facebook friends quick and easy. No need to send emails – posts like "I’ve just purchased a great stuff at (your store link)" would automatically appear on the customer’s wall. You can include store, purchased product title, price and links there - the extension uses product variables to make these messages custom and attractive.
Current version: 1.0.4
Upgrade: recommended from any previous versions
Upgrade cost: free for all versions
What’s new:
+ Linking of existing customer accounts
+ Configuration values API Key and Secret are trimmed now
* Hardcoded http protocol for js files
* JavaScript IE7 incompatibility
* Fix for stores requiring registration field "Birthday"
Please visit the Facebook Link page to get more information about the extension.
Follow Up Email
Follow Up Email is a powerful auto-responder and customer relationship tool that helps to keep your site in the customer's mind always. Use this automated email follow up extension and you'll never lose track of your customers even if they have abandoned their shopping carts.
Current version: 3.1
Upgrade: recommended from any previous versions
Upgrade cost: free for all versions
What’s new:
* Duplicate messages on order status events
You can view all features of that powerful extension on the Follow Up Email page.
Frequently Bought Together
The Frequently Bought Together extension has been specially designed to substitute and significantly improve the functionality and usability of Magento’s core module Related Products. Once embedded, Frequently Bought Together displays related products in a neat, comfortable and modern way, employing smooth and eye-catching AJAX and JavaScript effects.
Current version: 1.1.6
Upgrade: recommended from any previous versions
Upgrade cost: free for all versions
What’s new:
+ taxed prices displaying
* out of stock products fix
* price for product with options bug fix
* checkboxes for configurable products
* currency conversion fixed
Need more information? Find it on the Frequently Bought Together page.
Advanced Reports
The Advanced Reports extension by aheadWorks not only allows you to obtain more sales information than ever before, but you can also use the information you cull to better draw conclusions about the status of your business. Whether you want to run reports by countries, hours, days of the week or other criteria, Advanced Reports can help you get a complete picture of your business situation.
Current version: 1.1
Upgrade: recommended from any previous versions
Upgrade cost: free for all versions
What’s new:
+ Sales Report
+ Users Activity Report
+ Sales by Customer Group Report
+ Ability to choose order statuses for processing
+ Reports data displayed by Quarter added
* Special symbols in the SKU field fixed
* First day of week fixed
* Double quantity in Sales by Country report fixed
* Lost session error fixed
Please view more features on the Advanced Reports page.
That was a brief review of our new and updated modules. We are always happy to get all kinds of feedback. If you need a new feature in our product – just let us know – it has good chances to be implemented.
Thank you for being with us and good luck to your business,
Sincerely yours,
aheadWorks Magento department