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Ecommerce Templates > Newsletter > February 2010
Welcome to the February edition of the Ecommerce Templates Newsletter where we bring news of the feature packed release of Version 5.9 of the Ecommerce Plus templates along with some suggestions for payment choices and news of the Developer License release.
Version 5.9.2 is probably our sexiest release so far. We have listened to your requests for new features and acted on many of them as well as hopefully surprising you with a few extras.
Updaters as always are available from the updaters page - it doesn't matter which version you are currently running, you can always update to the latest and greatest without going through all previous versions first.
5.9 is now out of beta and includes the following features
Content Management System (CMS)
This much requested feature allows you to dynamically add content
to your site through the online control panel. You can choose
to add the content to existing pages, this might be in the form
of news sections or special offers for example or you can set
up whole page content in a dynamic way 
more details
Dynamic CSS Menu Creation System
The search engine friendly css menus take your category hierarchy
to produce stylized menus for your store. You can choose from
horizontal drop down or vertical pop-out and accordion menus
to dynamically populate your navigation system. The ability to
simply add and control non-product links to the menu makes store
maintenance and navigation a breeze more details
Alternate Shipping Carriers in Shipping Estimator
You can now list alternate shipping carriers in the shopping cart
so your customers can check on the best rates available before
entering any billing or shipping details. This should go a long
way in the fight against cart abandonment.
Cardinal Commerce 3D Secure
Implementation of Verified by Visa to allow your customers to enter
the four digit code from their bank to verify the purchase and
card details more details
Admin Orders Past Order Lookup
When editing / creating an order in the admin orders page, if you
start typing someone's email address that they have used for
past orders or have created a client login account with, the
system will now look up that email and any addresses that are
associated with it. Selecting the email will populate the address
fields and also, in the case of a customer account link the account
to the order created.
Product ID and Product Detail Search
If you start typing a new product id in the product id field, or
product name in the product name field the system will search
for matches and populate a drop down list to select from. When
you select from that list (or click the "..." button
as before) the product details / prices are retrieved from the
server.
New look admin section
We have revamped the admin section providing simpler navigation,
a dashboard feature and a sexy new color scheme. This includes
a redesign of the admin categories page allowing for searching
of categories and also listing of the categories in a more logical
grouping with categories of the same level.
Wholesale and Percentage Discounts on One Account
Both wholesale pricing and percentage discounts can be added to
the same customer login account. This means you can give a customer
say a 10% reduction on the Wholesale Price of a product.
Searching and Quick Delete in Ratings
The admin ratings page now includes more powerful searching and "quick
edit / quick delete" functions. This also allows for the quick
deletion of any SPAM entries.
Other goodies
Due to popular demand, The rating stars now use a 1 out of 5 rather
than a 1 out of 10 system as was the case previously. The admin
ratings page now includes more powerful searching and "quick
edit / quick delete" functions. This also allows for the
quick deletion of any SPAM entries.
Product options that are shown as radio buttons will automatically become checkboxes if there is only one option. This enables selecting / deselecting the option and also as a radio button has no sense for a single option as it cannot be deselected. This enables very neat lists of Yes / No or Want / Don't want options when set up this way or "Multiple Selection Lists".
The admin products page now allows searching through manufacturers as well as categories.
All admin pages are now cookie enabled so you won't get logged out.
Zip, State, Country settings etc entered when using the shipping estimator will now be carried forward to the checkout page.
Google markup added to product ratings so that Google can easily
crawl your rated products.
We get a lot of emails asking for advice on choosing payment methods and ways of increasing the conversion of prospects into customers, thereby increasing sales. After many years running successful stores, it's a no-brainer for us to give customers a choice of relevant payment methods and we're happy to announce an enhanced integration of PayPal’s Express Checkout product, which will give Ecommerce Templates merchants an easy way to increase sales up to 14%**. With Express Checkout, consumers have a choice of paying with their PayPal account or pay by credit card through your existing merchant account.
Besides extending choice to your customers and increasing sales, there are other reasons we believe Express Checkout is beneficial:
If you want to find more about setting up PayPal with Ecommerce Templates, visit our PayPal overview page.
** Jupiter Research
At the end of last year we launched our developer
license. This is aimed at developers, designers or general store
owners who are planning on setting up multiple stores, either
for clients or for their own use. The deal here is you initially
purchase 4 licenses at a price of $499 ( that’s $137 less
than the regular price) and then subsequent licenses at $50 each.
You can choose between any of our templates, even mix 'n' match
between ASP, PHP, Dreamweaver and CSS versions if you wish. Just
let us know which ones are required and we'll send those on to
you more details
If you have any questions or comments about the content of the newsletter, please feel free to post them on the support forum.