The Ecwid Blog>15+ Ecwid Updates for Time- and Cost-Effective Store Management

15+ Ecwid Updates for Time- and Cost-Effective Store Management

Posted by Anastasia Prokofieva

Did you know that you can set up pre-orders in your Ecwid store, get directions for local deliveries right from the Ecwid Mobile App, use new payment methods, and so much more? It’s time to get you up to date!

Check out Ecwid updates that make managing an online store more pleasant than ever. No matter what you need—from saving time to enhancing your store—we’ve got you covered.

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Get Fast and Secure Payments with Lightspeed Payments

Lightspeed Payments is a cost-effective and secure payment method that helps manage your payments right on your Ecwid control panel. Your customers will love it just as much as you. It provides them with a fast and simple checkout experience.

Here are some benefits of Lightspeed Payments:

Payments processed through Lightspeed Payments are displayed on the Finance page in the Ecwid control panel

Lightspeed Payments is currently available in the US only.

Set up Lightspeed Payments in your online store using this guide from the Help Center.

Grow Your Revenue with Pre-Orders

Is your product temporarily out-of-stock? Are you planning to launch a new item? You don’t need to hide products from your customers. Let them pre-order items instead!

With a new setting in the Stock Control section on the product edit page, you can easily allow pre-orders for currently out-of-stock products and variations. The products remain available for purchase even after reaching zero stock.

Customers see that a product is available for pre-order

Pre-orders are super useful when:

With pre-orders, your customers won’t miss a best-selling product and you will grow sales for items that are about to hit the shelves. Win-win!

To make things even more convenient, pre-orders and pre-ordered products are also highlighted in your Ecwid Mobile App. You don’t have to switch to your desktop to check if you have pre-orders.

Learn how to start accepting pre-orders in our Help Center.

Benefit from a Lightning-Fast Ecwid Store for WordPress

Drumroll, please, for a new version of the Ecwid WordPress plugin that drastically speeds up your storefront loading! The load speed is several times higher compared to the old plugin version.

This update improves the shopping experience on your ecommerce WordPress site. Your customers will see the Ecwid storefront immediately after they open the store page with no delay. This convenient and seamless shopping experience means potentially more finished orders.

Having a fast-loading store is also incredibly important for improving your SEO. The loading speed affects how high your site is in the search engine results. So, the faster your store is, the better the chance of it ranking higher in search results.

Make sure to update your Ecwid plugin for WordPress to get a new, faster version of your online store. Be sure to check how much quicker your load speed becomes with Pagespeed Insights!

Make Your Checkout as Flexible as You Need

To adjust the standard checkout to your business, you can add custom fields to any part of your checkout page in less than a minute—without coding!

Custom fields allow you to collect additional information from customers, such as gift messages, tax IDs, packaging preferences, delivery preferences, and whatever other information you might need.

With the latest update, you have more options for customizing your checkout fields. You can:

Find out how to add and manage custom fields at checkout in the Help Center.

An example of a custom checkout field with a $3 surcharge for gift wrapping

Save Time Managing the Store on the Go

With Ecwid Mobile apps for iPhone and Android, you can manage your online store wherever you go. With our recent updates, the app simplifies store management like never before.

Here are the new things you can do with your Ecwid Mobile App:

Getting directions for local deliveries from order details in the Ecwid Mobile App

Design Every Detail of Your Storefront

With the latest design settings, you can change the layout of your product pages as you see fit. Go to the Design page of your Ecwid admin to try some of these product page settings:

Zoom-on-hover effect allows seeing small details of product pictures

Set Up Out-of-Stock Settings per Product

After the recent update, you can set up out-of-stock settings for both specific products and entire catalogs if needed. You can:

Setting up out-of-stock options for specific products helps keep customers interested in certain items and simplifies managing seasonal products.

You can set up out-of-stock settings for a specific product when editing it. Just choose the preferred option in the Stock Control section.

You can let customers see the out-of-stock item on the storefront but prohibit purchases

Learn more about setting default behavior for out-of-stock products in the Help Center.

Pro Tip: Use the Mass Update tool to enable the same out-of-stock behavior for several products simultaneously.

Retain Foreign Shoppers with a More Localized Store

If you sell abroad or your business is based in a country with several official languages, it helps to make your store multilingual. This way, customers can shop in their preferred language, improving their shopping experience and promoting more sales.

All you have to do is add translations of your catalog, like product names, descriptions, options, and category names. Ecwid by Lightspeed will automatically translate the rest, like texts on buttons, invoices, and notifications.

With the latest updates, you can manually translate more details in your Ecwid store, such as:

Also, remember the Store Label Editor tool? It allows you to customize text labels throughout your store (for example, change “Add to Bag” to “Add to Cart” or “Favorites” to “Wishlist”). With the latest update, you can also add translations to your custom texts via Store Label Editor.

Adding translations to store labels in Store Label Editor

Check out the Help Center for the detailed how-to on localizing every part of your online store.

Spend Less Time Managing Taxes

To save you a headache when managing taxes in your online store, we enabled automatic tax calculations for more countries. That includes South Africa, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and Spanish regions, like the Canary Islands, Melilla, and Ceuta.

Automatic taxes determine a precise tax rate at checkout depending on where you and your customer are located.

You no longer need to manually calculate taxes or adjust tax settings according to tax changes in your country. All tax rates are up to date and automatically updated when a country announces upcoming changes in its sales tax rules.

Also, you can set non-standard tax rates (zero, increased, or reduced) for different products to comply with the local tax laws.

See the full list of countries eligible for automatic tax calculations and learn how to set them up in the Help Center.

Drive More Repeat Orders in a Click

Now your loyal customers will love shopping in your online store even more. With the new “Repeat order” button, you can allow your customers to quickly repeat any past one-time purсhases with just a single click. That makes the shopping experience even more seamless for customers when they need to re-order their favorite product from you.

Enable the “Repeat order” button to save shoppers time. They will never have to search for their desired products again.

Customers can repeat orders in a click on their account or in an order confirmation email

Here’s how to enable repeat orders in a couple of clicks.

Save Money with Discounted USPS Shipping Labels

With Ecwid by Lightspeed, you can get shipping labels right from your control panel. Through the control panel, you buy them and print them. All that’s left to do is to put the labels on your parcels and drop them off at the nearest post office.

Not only can you buy discounted shipping labels from your Ecwid admin, but you can also save on shipping! With our latest update, buying a USPS shipping label through your Ecwid admin is 10% cheaper than before.

Here’s a guide to buying discounted USPS shipping labels from your Ecwid admin.

You can also buy shipping labels in the Ecwid admin if you are from Belgium or the Netherlands. If you are from another country, you can buy shipping labels using apps through the Ecwid App Market.

Bring Back Shoppers with Retargeting Facebook Ads

In just two minutes, you can set up automated retargeting ads on Facebook for your Ecwid store. This will help you reach customers that visited your store but didn’t buy anything yet. Your retargeting ads will remind them of a product they viewed and encourage them to finish their purchase.

You can launch your Facebook Ad campaign right from your Ecwid control panel with the help of Kliken. It is a marketing tool that simplifies the process of purchasing, creating, and targeting your advertising campaigns. It also optimizes the campaigns and provides you with ad performance statistics.

Learn how to set up retargeting Facebook ads in the Help Center.

Spend Less Time Managing Product Ribbons

Product ribbons help you highlight featured products on your storefront, whether it’s a bestseller, sale item, new product, or any other item that deserves a spotlight.

Examples of product ribbons

Now you can update sale products faster with our improved product ribbon tool. When adding ribbons to items, you can easily reuse any existing ribbon. Just click on the “Ribbon text” field. You’ll see a drop-down list with any product ribbons you have already created for your store.

Save Time Bulk Editing More Product Details

You might already be familiar with Bulk Product Editor, a spreadsheet-like tool that lets you update product information for dozens of products at the same time. This tool saves you time and effort when you need to edit many products at once, as you don’t have to open product pages one by one to make changes to item information.

Now you can edit even more product details in bulk! That includes product ribbons, weight, and dimensions of product variations. Save time with our new and improved bulk editor.

Bulk editing ribbons for sale products

Improve Your Online Store SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) helps your online store rank higher on the search results pages. The latest update helps ensure your store is optimized for search engines, making it easier for online shoppers to find it.

Instead of using the default meta tags created automatically from category names and descriptions, you can set custom metadata for category pages. Now you can be in control of making your category pages look more attractive to potential customers on the search results pages.

As we mentioned in the multilingual store update section above, you can also translate product category SEO metadata.

See what else you can do to improve your Ecwid store SEO in the Help Center.

Power Your Store with New Apps

The Ecwid App Market has dozens of apps to adjust your online store to your business needs. Browse these new apps to improve the shopping experience in your store and simplify your business processes.

Check out new apps for simplifying store management:

Setting up a store schedule with the We’re Open app

Or, try some new apps for designing your storefront:

An example of a menu layout you can make with the Mega Menu app

You can also add some new regional and digital payment options:

Accepting cryptocurrency with Aurpay

Don’t forget new apps for improving shipping and delivery:

Tracking shipped orders with the TrackFree app

Attract more customers and grow orders with new marketing apps:

Encourage customers to order more with the AOV app

Make sure your customer support is spotless with these apps:

You can ask customers to verify their number when they place an order during checkout with Checkout with phone OTP app

Or, you might want to check out these apps if you’d like to connect your store to other platforms:

Stay Tuned

Make sure you don’t miss new tools that simplify your day-to-day routine. You can find more information about tools and updates here:

Have an idea of how to make an ecommerce store work better for you and thousands of other merchants? Need help fine-tuning your Ecwid store to your business’s needs? Don’t hesitate to contact our Customer Care team with your questions—we’re happy to help!

 

 

About The Author
Anastasia Prokofieva is a content writer at Ecwid. She writes about online marketing and promotion to make entrepreneurs’ daily routine easier and more rewarding. She also has a soft spot for cats, chocolate, and making kombucha at home.

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