You’ll access the new functionality within the ‘product details’ section of your PDG admin:

When you click the “multiple categories” link, the follow page will appear (note that the categories appearing in this sample will be replaced with the categories actually set up within your storefront):

The primary category that the product belongs to, as well as any ‘parents’, will automatically be checked. These checkboxes will be grayed out as they cannot be unselected. All other categories within your storefront will appear in an indented list based on the product hierarchy. You may select up to 100 additional categories that you would like the product to appear in from the list simply by checking the box located next to each category. Note that if you want the product to appear in multiple levels of alternate categories, you must click EVERY level that you want the product to appear within (e.g. if you click the box next to “apparel -> mens -> shirts”, product would not be displayed in the “mens” category. Although this is exactly what happens with the primary category that the product belongs to, within the multiple category display, you must explicitly set every level that you want the product to appear in.

Hope everyone enjoys this new functionality!

Some of the main PDG Commerce Version 5 New Features & Tools include:

PCI PA-DSS Certified – PDG Commerce Version 5 has been tested and certified as PCI PA-DSS compliant. The only software of its type (e.g. storefront) to achieve this certification and be recommended for new deployments on the PCI’s list of approved softwares, this certification helps make a merchant’s own PCI DSS certification simple and straight forward.

Improved Administration Panel with New Tabbed Layout – The Version 5 administration panel has undergone a tremendous make over, greatly simplifying a merchant’s navigation through both initial set up pages and pages you’ll access on a regular basis.

Full XHTML Compliant Storefront/Catalog Coding – PDG Commerce Version 5 introduces full XHTML strict compliance within both the HTML templates distributed with PDG Commerce, as well as any portions of code that are generated by PDG Commerce.

Unlimited Product Images and Automatic Resizing – Merchants can now upload and display an unlimited number of images for each product within their PDG storefront. As the merchant browses their computer for the image, PDG Commerce automatically creates a thumbnail and large image based on the merchant’s specifications. PDG Commerce Version 5 also provides an “alt text” field for each group of photos in order to maintain XHTML strict compliance and increase visibility for the product within search engines.

Navigation Breadcrumbs – PDG Commerce Version 5 can display a “breadcrumbs” trail at the top of your catalog pages in order to remind the customer where they are currently shopping within the storefront and provide 1-click access to return to the “parent” level of the category they’re currently shopping within (e.g. Clothing -> Mens -> Shirts -> Men’s Dress Shirts ; each respective link would direct the user back to the “top” area for that specific category).

Full Purchase/Order History for Registered Customers – Customers who register with your PDG Commerce enabled site will be able to view the details for all prior purchases – INCLUDING purchases that were completed prior to your upgrade to PDG Commerce Version 5. Within the details of their prior purchases, the customer can elect to add any or all of the items purchased in prior transactions to their current basket and can even choose the option of replicating the entire order. Users can also view the current payment and shipping status of the order based on the status of the order within the new Version 5 Order Manager (more below…).

Improved Product Searches – PDG Commerce Version 5 will allow your customers to search for products within certain categories – both parent and sub-categories. Searches within parent categories will automatically search within all respective sub-categories as well. Also, Version 5 will allow merchants using QuickBooks Point of Sale to provide a “search by size/style/color” function to their site (e.g. Show me all women’s shoes in size 7.5).

Improved Product Category Display – PDG Commerce Version 5 provides a nested unordered list display of your product category hierarchy, providing a simple way to introduce DHTML/CSS/JAVA based menus displays to provide accordion, fly-out and other dynamic menu options within your storefront (e.g. click/hover on parent category to see subcategories of that parent without having to load another page).

Shipping Cost Estimator – Customers shopping at your PDG Commerce Version 5 site will be able to get a quick estimate on shipping costs without having to go through the checkout process. Simply add a form to your basket or any other page to collect the zip, state and country of the shipping address and the customer’s preferred shipping method. Upon submitting, the page will reload displaying the estimated shipping costs. Better still – the shiping information will already be prepopulated for registered users shopping within your store – providing a 1-click shipping estimate.

WYSIWYG HTML Editor for Company Information Pages and Product Long Descriptions – Easily insert HTML encoded information for any of your PDG generated “company” pages, as well as long descriptions for your products. Just like working within FrontPage, Dreamweaver, etc., simply enter the text, choose your format options (size, color, styling of text), insert images and other formatting options and PDG Commerce Version 5 automatically creates the HTML code for your display.

What’s New, Best Sellers and Other Custom Item Lists – PDG Commerce Version 5 allows you to insert a dynamically generated customized display of products within any of your PDG generated pages. This feature allows you to display a current list of “newly added” products, “best sellers” within your storefront, or build your own “custom” item list (e.g. “May Specials” or “Mother’s Day Flowers”). Choose from preprogrammed lists or create your own list within the PDG administration panel.

Administration Panel “Dashboard” – Providing a quick-glance view of your store’s operation, the Version 5 dashboard displays your top selling items, daily sales totals, version information and more. Subsequent Version 5 releases will provide additional customizable ‘widgets’ to tweak the dashboard to your satisfaction.

Version 5 Video Documentation and Tutorials – Based on feedback received regarding our QuickBooks and QuickBooks Point of Sale Integration Tutorials, PDG will now be offering future product documentation in video format. Providing a direct 1st person example of set up will allow new users to easily implement and set PDG Commerce features just by viewing and replicating what was demonstrated in the video docs.

Pricing information for new users interested in purchasing PDG Commerce Version 5 can be found at http://www.pdgsoft.com/commerce_purchase.htm .

Existing PDG Commerce users interested in upgrading to PDG Commerce Version 5 can find upgrade information at http://www.pdgsoft.com/commerce_upgrade_purchase.htm .

Finally, PDG Shopping Cart users interested in upgrading to PDG Commerce Version 5 can read more about their upgrade options at http://www.pdgsoft.com/commerce_upgrade_cart_purchase.htm .

Hope everyone enjoys!

If you are interested in participating in the Beta release, please email support@pdgsoft.com. We will contact you within the next 1-2 business days with the information necessary install PDG Commerce Version 5.

This particular merchant was using QuickBooks Enterprise for their inventory and accounting needs.  Their former web store provider had advertised QuickBooks compatibility, however they were quickly discovering some of the limits of the integration.  The “QuickBooks compatible” shopping cart created an Intuit IIF import file, which then had to be manually imported into QuickBooks.  This method provided only a one-way integration with QuickBooks, web orders into QuickBooks, and did not offer any method of getting product and stock levels from QuickBooks into the webstore.  They were also severly limited with how transactions were imported into QuickBooks; their fulfillment process required a sales order inside of QuickBooks, as opposed to an invoice/sales receipt.

The merchant explained that with the PDG Commerce and its built-in QuickBooks integration, they had literally been able to eliminate a full time position within their office.  Fortunately, they were able to relocate the user to another more important area (sales & marketing!), but they told us that the savings they are enjoying will easily add 5-figures to their company’s bottom line.  Between the payroll savings, elimination of monthly fees and a percentage of sales they were paying to previous web store provider and the elimination of costly “out of stock” customer service issues, they had recovered the full cost of their PDG Commerce license and support services and their own design/integration costs in less than a month!

For those of you who are reading this and still doing things the hard way, we encourage you to consider a PDG Commerce/QuickBooks combination (visit http://www.pdgsoft.com/quickbooks.htm or the Intuit Marketplace at http://marketplace.intuit.com/AppID-2527-Overview.aspx to learn more).  With the current economic climate, we’re hoping that we can help our users not only “Work Smarter, Not Narder”, but to also “Spend Less, Make More”.

PDG