Our users asked, and we listened!

This past month, we took our users’ requests (some were highly requested) and built a few brand new features for our platform. These new feature upgrades are fairly large, but we’ve made them very easy to understand and to use.

Professional Store Themes

A Store Theme encompasses several components, including: layout, look and feel, behavior, features, and logic. When Content Shelf first launched, we offered a single theme. As of this notification, we have completed our themes engine and now offer four themes… plus there’s more to come!

Our new themes include:

Super Simple Theme – The Super Simple Theme is designed for small-medium size businesses. It’s a single page storefront designed for two products, but can easily showcase up to ten if desired. The top of the theme has generous space for a logo, navigation for the store pages, and MicroSite pages. Each product listing is neat and clean with room for product images, pricing, options, a detailed description, social engagement, samples, and an “Add to Cart” button. There are four pages included with this theme (Product Page, View Cart, Checkout, and Confirmation) and the required skill level is “beginner.”

This theme is available with the following packages: Lite (default), Premium, and Premium Plus.

Basic List Theme – The Basic List Theme is designed for medium-large size businesses. It’s easy to link to this theme from any website, blog, or social media page because it’s a self-contained storefront. Products within this theme are laid out in a neat, clean, and easy to navigate list format for any buyer. The top of the theme contains a breadcrumb trail, enabling the buyer to see where they are within the purchase process. An area for a logo, the ability to sort products, the ability to define the number of products per page, and a quick view of items that have been added to the cart rounds out the top of the theme. The left side of the theme provides collapsible category/sub-category navigation, a search area, and integration with MicroSite pages—all of which is easily accomplished. There are five pages included with this theme (General Product Page, Detailed Product Page, View Cart, Checkout, and Confirmation) and the required skill level is “intermediate.”

This theme is available with the following packages: Premium and Premium Plus.

This theme is the original theme that launched with Content Shelf’s launch.

Basic Grid Theme – The Basic Grid Theme is designed for medium-large size businesses. It’s easy to link to this theme from any website, blog, or social media page because it’s a self-contained storefront. Products within this theme are laid out in a neat, clean, and easy to navigate grid format for any buyer. The top of the theme contains a breadcrumb trail, enabling the buyer to see where they are within the purchase process. An area for a logo, the ability to sort products, the ability to define the number of products per page, and a quick view of items that have been added to the cart rounds out the top of the theme. The left side of the theme provides collapsible category/sub-category navigation, a search area, and integration with MicroSite pages—all of which is easily accomplished. There are five pages included with this theme (General Product Page, Detailed Product Page, View Cart, Checkout, and Confirmation) and the required skill level is “intermediate.”

This theme is available with the following packages: Premium and Premium Plus.

Store Widget Theme – The Store Widget Theme is designed for any size business. After creating product pages on a website or blog, it’s easy to incorporate Add to Cart Buttons, View Cart Buttons, and View Sample Buttons for a customized look and feel. When buyers browse product pages, items can be added to the shopping cart before they are finally directed to a customizable dedicated store checkout page upon checkout. This theme does not use categories or MicroSite pages. There are two pages included with this theme (Checkout and Confirmation) and the required skill level is “advanced.”

This theme is available with the following packages: Premium and Premium Plus.

All themes are managed within the Store Settings tab within the Store Appearance area.

Store Integration Widgets

The long awaited Store Integration Widgets are complete and ready for use!

We apologize for the delay in launching this, but development was tough due to tablet browser behavior (specifically making it work on an iPad). In the end, this feature is absolutely fantastic and enables our clients to completely customize their store.

Here’s How it Works:

Step 1 – Create product pages on your website or blog.

Step 2 – Incorporate Add to Cart Buttons, View Cart Buttons, and View Sample Buttons to the product pages.

Step 3 – When buyers visit your site, they can browse through your store and add items to their cart. Upon checkout, the buyer is transferred to your dedicated Content Shelf Checkout Page.

Store Integration Widgets require the use of the Store Widget Theme.

The Button Wizard

Our new Button Wizard provides a three step process to create store buttons.

Step 1 – After choosing the store the button is for, users can choose the type of button they want.

Step 2 – Users will have a choice between pre-designed image buttons or customizable text & color buttons (with the ability to see the buttons as they are being created).

Step 3 – This final step provides the actual button code that can be copied and pasted into the user’s website or blog.

The new Button Wizard can be found by clicking on the Sell navigation link located on the left-hand side of the User Dashboard, then by clicking the Button Wizard tab at the top of the page.

Buyers Using Different Drop Box Accounts

Little did we know when we integrated Dropbox that this feature would be so popular that buyers would want the ability to use multiple Dropbox accounts. After receiving tons of requests for this, we created a Disconnect Button for Buyers located in the Account Profile area. By using the Disconnect Button, our users can select a different Dropbox account for the next download.

Additional Store Filters

We’ve added a sort filter to the general store pages (for themes that have these filters). This filter will allow buyers to sort lists of products by “Newest First” or “Oldest First.”

Sales Price Visual

The themes that show a sales price in the details of the product now also show the sales price when looking at the general product information.

Miscellaneous

As with all upgrades, we’ve fixed some bugs in our code, made some performance enhancements, and upgraded the look and feel of a few areas to make our users’ lives easier AND help our clients sell more of their products.

Coming Soon

Make sure to follow our blog because we’re putting the final touches on some MONSTER NEW FEATURES that we’ll be launching in the weeks to come.

Thanks for your continued feedback and suggestions.  We appreciate it and we’re listening.