Describing it as the most significant upgrade since the fall of 2005, eBay's ProStores division announced version 7.0 of its e-commerce-building service on Thursday. This version is designed to give ProStores merchants a variety of new features, most of which focus on listing design, page customization, and the capability for merchants to streamline listings to eBay.
Updates are also designed to allow merchants to offer multiple shipping options to customers, the option to promote more products on their store's home page, and a new editor so they can spend less time editing and designing their product pages.
What You See is What You Get Editing
In what looks to be valuable tool for merchants, version 7.0 incorporates a new what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) editor. WYSIWYG basically allows you to edit and design without any knowledge of HTML page coding. Stores images and text can be dragged and dropped into place, allowing you to concentrate on design and not the code behind.
Previously, the ProStores product had design options that helped merchants not wanting to work in HTML code, but The WYSIWYG editor is the next generation for these merchants. Julian Green, director, ProStores says that the WYSIWIG editor solves a "pain point" for non-HTML savvy merchants.
"Previously merchants could use the wizards and templates, but would go to the design studio, which is somewhat more advanced, to make any customizations. Now they have the best of both worlds; easy set-up with the wizards and templates and then the ability to make customizations using the WYSIWIG editor, without needing html expertise. Those starting out can use the wizards, templates and the WYSIWIG editor. Intermediate folks can use the design studio allowing complete customization and control of html and a handy interface to perform common tasks, but not fully WYSIWIG. Advanced folks can use the DreamWeaver integration to easily modify ProStores templates and add store design tags."
New eBay Integration Features
In February Chris Tsakalakis, Senior Director of Advanced Solutions for eBay Inc., told ECommerce-Guide.com that future versions of ProStores would continue to focus on improving ease-of-use along with better eBay integration. Version 7.0 certainly stays consistent with that message as saving time and offering merchants better integration with eBay Stores are focused areas of improvement in this updated version of ProStores.
For starters, merchants can create and save an unlimited number of eBay listing templates meaning they also save on editing time when listing items from their ProStores site to eBay. The templates come with support for some of the more popular eBay auction features like Second Chance Offers, multiple shipping carriers and a Return Policy field. Additionally, merchants can list in eBay Motors (parts, accessories and vehicles categories) directly from ProStores 7.0.
Since many ProStores users are also registered eBay users, improvements for maintaining a uniform look and branding between a ProStores site and an eBay Store are available to merchants. ProStores merchants who have an eBay Store can copy some elements of their eBay store design to their ProStores site.
Another new eBay integration feature includes the capability to use eBay Express through ProStores 7.0. eBay Express provides U.S. shoppers with an easy and convenient way to find new items at fixed prices from qualified eBay merchants. Qualified listings from ProStores merchants (who meet the eBay seller criteria for eBay Express) can opt in for this service and will automatically be displayed on eBay Express.
More Options - Same Price
For those looking to enhance product promotion on their Web sites, ProStores 7.0 allows merchants to display up to five feature products or categories on the home page or choose to have images alternate randomly so that a different product or category is showcased every time the page is refreshed.
Shipping is also a whole lot easier for merchants. New shipping options allow you to offer multiple shipping carriers - including USPS, FedEx, UPS, UPS WorldShip and Canada Post to your customers. You can also use PayPal to pay for postage and create a U.S. Postal Service mailing label directly from within ProStores.
Merchants will undoubtedly be pleased to learn that subscription fees for ProStores sites have not changed any with version 7.0. The subscription fees start at $6.95 per month for Express with a 1.5 percent successful transaction fee. ProStores Business, the most popular tier according to eBay, costs $29.95 per month, Advanced is $74.95 and Enterprise is $249.95, each with a 0.5% transaction fee. Each progressive tier offers sellers advanced functionality and design options. Changes to the tiers with this version makes the storewide-sale promotion feature (including free shipping or percent-off sales on all store inventories) available at the Business tier, where previously this feature was only available to Advanced and Enterprise tier subscribers. Currently ProStores is running a promotion that offers a free one-month trial and the waiving of any setup fees.
Much like the ProStores 7.0 update, Green said he believes future versions of ProStores will continue to be driven by merchant feedback as to what is of value to help them be successful.
"Looking forward, the themes tend to be around continuing to build on ProStores leadership in ease-of-use, rich feature set, helping merchants generate and manage buyer demand, and making sure that ProStores works as well as possible with other solutions that merchants use such as eBay, Paypal, Shopping.com, other channels and business systems to which ProStores enables merchants to submit."
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