http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/1350-Conversion-15-Reasons-Why-Consumers-Will-Leave-Your-eCommerce-Site

Any other suggestions?

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/68143.html

Enjoy!

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/1257-Shipping-Rates-Flat-Rate-Boxes-Usually-Save-Money-

Enjoy!

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.

Right out of the gate, PDG Commerce provides the ability to get real-time rate quotes for major shipping carriers including UPS, USPS, FedEx, and prior to their moving out of the US market to focus on international shipping, DHL. With any one of these carriers, PDG Commerce can send the shipping weights of the items being ordered (can be entered as dimensional weights for oversize items), the origin zip code of where your shipments originate and the customer’s shipping address and get back immediate quotes directly from the carrier. You can specify specific services (e.g. ground, overnight, etc.) or offer your customers a comparison of all the service types offered by the carrier with a “radial” option for them to choose their preferred method. “But what about my packaging and handling costs”, you ask. Keep reading and we’ll talk about the options available to you to help “pad” the quote from the carrier.

Setting up the rate quoting ability for any of the carriers above is generally a simple task that can be completed within a few minutes. Each carrier will have a registration process that you must go through in order to subscribe to their services. Fortunately, there are no costs in order to subscribe and you are NOT required to have an account with the carrier in order to use their quoting tools. Once you’ve registered, you’ll specify some options for how you ship your products. Do you have a daily pick up with the carrier or will you be dropping it at one of their facilities? Will you be using your own packaging or packaging supplied by the carrier? Remember that each of these options, just as if you were filling out the “get quote” form on the carrier’s own site, will impact the final quoted price. As a result, it is very important that you choose the correct options in order to get the most accurate rates possible.

In addition to the real-time quoting options, PDG Commerce will also allow you to create your own shipping “tiers” in order to incorporate your own unique shipping tables. Based on the weight of the total order, the quantity of items being ordered or the subtotal value of the order, you can specify variable amounts to match any of the tiers specified. For example, if you want to charge $4.99 shipping if the user orders up to 3 items, and $6.99 if they order between 4 and 6 items, you can set up a “ship by quantity” rule set that says if they order between “1″ (start of tier) and “3″ (end of tier) to charge $4.99 with a second tier from “4″ (start) to “6″ (end) with a cost of $6.99. You can set up as many tiers as you need, and when you feel confident that you’ve accounted for your typical order volume and want to have an “end all, be all” charge “$X.XX if they order “Y” or more, a dash ( – ) as the tier max will serve as infinity and apply that rule set to anything greater than the specified minimum for the tier.

Important note regarding “ship by weight” and “ship by subtotal” shipping tiers… You need to accommodate for “fractions” of a whole. If you set up a tier that says charge one amount for orders between “$0.00″ and “$10.00″ and your next tier is from “$11.00″ to “$20.00″, guess what happens when someone’s total is $10.59? It doesn’t match either tier and no shipping costs would be applied!!! Same thing for weights if you plan to put in fractional weights for items. For the sample above, the preferred setting would be a “$0.00″ to “$10.00″ tier and then a “$10.01″ to $20.00″ tier.

As promised, now we’re going to talk about how you can set up additional costs for packaging, handling and other costs that might not be part of the initial rate calculation. As is often the case, we’ll be giving you a couple of different options (we like to make everyone happy…).

For someone wanting a quick “down and dirty” set up, you can use the “additional shipping” field for the shipping method to specify an additional dollar amount (e.g. putting in $2.00 would add a “one time” $2.00 to the quoted amount) or an additional percentage of the quoted amount (e.g. putting in 10% would result in a $15.00 quote getting $1.50 added). The costs that the end user sees will be labled “shipping & handling” and will not itemize which is part of the quote and which is part of your additional costs. Note that these values can either add to or subtract from the quote. A positive amount/percentage in the field indicates an addition to the quoted amount. A negative value (e.g. -2.00 or -20%) would discount the quoted amount.

If your needs are a little more complex, another option available to you is to combine any number of the shipping calculators. For example, you can set up the basic quoting system to quote one of the carrier’s rates to get the actual shipping costs, and then set up a “ship by quantity” table that will add in only the cost for your additional packing and handling expenses. You can combine any number of these shipping options in order to achieve the most accurate quotes possible.

Last but not least… Advertise your low cost shipping! If you charge only the actual carrier’s rates, let people know that from the moment they enter your site. Dispel the myth off “inflated” shipping charges right there on your home page or on a “shipping policy” page. Something else to consider is offering free shipping if the user exceeds a certain threshold. PDG Commerce will allow you to set up a shipping discount when you’re setting up the shipping rule. If you want to offer free ground shipping for orders over $50.00, you’ll tell PDG to discount shipping by “100%” for orders over “$50.00″ subtotal. Then make sure that you mention this offer consistently throughout your site to encourage visitors to keep shopping until they meet that threshold. Even if they ultimately spend more money with you, the perceived value of getting something for nothing (e.g. “free shipping”) can entice users to keep on spending!