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SERVER MIGRATION UPDATE

This is a reminder that we will be migrating you across to our new server infrastructure in the coming weeks.
Your website will be unavailable during the migration process and any backend integrations should be paused from sending updates as well e.g. stock quantities.

Migration Process & Communication
When we are due to move your website, we will raise a support ticket to let you know it is taking place.
We will then advise of any followup actions required by you once the move has been completed.
You may need to update your DNS settings if we do not have access to these, plus FTP and Tradebox connections if in use.

Reminder emails have been sent out with full details in the server migration document included in the emails.


NEW in REC+: Introducing Price Tracking History, Improved Reporting & PCI-related Security Enhancements

Spotlight

Price Tracking History
Daily tracking of product prices displayed on a timeline to allow you to see when changes were made.
This provides a base to add more features, such as enhanced reporting as well as introducing price drop alerts for customers. 
When enabled you can view the price changes graph above the prices on the edit product screen. Contact us to find out more.
3607

Faster report generation
Report Builder performance has been greatly improved by building reports in parallel to reduce generation time plus optimisations to some specific reporting blocks, as well as speeding up the coupons report. You'll now notice a new loading bar briefly displayed when running Report Builder reports with the screen loading in a fraction of the time.
3668

Ecommerce & Tracking

Order Manager coupon/discount icons
New coupon/discount icons are shown against orders in Order Manager wherever a discount/coupon was used, with coupon information shown on hover of the icon. Search can now be used to reveal all orders that used coupon codes (or part of the code such as the prefix). This is particularly useful for finding Google Shopping discounts as these all start with "GSD-". Read more about the benefits of running ads with Google Shopping Automated Discounts.
3660

Report Builder - selecting multiple Smart Types
New controls so you can multi-select a mix of different types of users for unified reporting, such as Trade & Dealer, or exclude a specific group of users by selecting all other groups except the one to be excluded.
3651

PDF invoice links can now be added to confirmation emails
Update order confirmation emails with the new secure order.pdf_link template tag link so users can easily download their invoice, without needing to log in. 
3687

Invoice line display customisation enhancements to match branding 
Update your website invoice to match your brand or your existing invoices more exactly, contact us for pricing. 
3686

Product & Category sort order changes are now audited
New audits to help you track when and where changes have been made.
3677, 3679

Duplicate variations detection.
Working with a large number of variations on a product can be tricky to make sure you don't end up with the same option combinations already set up. 
The system will now warn when this happens and continues to warn when you come back to the product later if a duplicate already exists.
Also, to help you find these en masse there is a check for this in the Prroduct Issues report: Admin > Reports > Product Issues > Duplicate Variation Option Combinations
3678

Integrations

Google Shopping Automated Discounts now treated as their own referral/source for traffic tracking
In order to better analyse the effectiveness of the Google Shopping Automated Discounts program, you'll now be able to see that an order came from this source and to be able to filter to just these orders in Order Manager.
3661

CMS & Admin

Page Slice buttons design
Buttons in pages built using slices can now be heavily customised with colours, sizes, padding, font sizing, alignment and more. 
Please note, if you want easily repeatable/consistent buttons across your site, changing the style directly in the CSS templates may be a better choice. However prototyping them with slices is a great option and then have a designer add in the CSS so you don't have to update each one manually.
3674

Security

PCI Password security update - require a minimum 12 characters for new passwords
This increases from the previous minimum of 8 characters to match PCI 4.0 password requirements.
UPDATE: this was initially released in July and then changed in August to only apply when using the Password Meter with additional password checks for upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols. Read more about PCI Compliance requirements.
Please note: Existing passwords remain untouched, this is for new passwords.
3681

SRI usage increased to secure 3rd party script use where possible on all default installed scripts

Subresource Integrity (SRI) is a security feature that enables browsers to verify that resources they fetch are delivered without unexpected manipulation. Templates on your site may need review for PCI 4.0 due to historic use of scripts. Some scripts such as Google Analytics, PayPal, Stripe & Facebook Pixel all need to be kept up to date and are currently unavailable with SRI from these providers. 
3659

Developer

Categories API now allows filtering by a given timestamp, or sorting by a specific field
Using ?since_timestamp=... you can now filter for category changes since a date, similar to how you can filter for products & orders. 
Full information about this and the rest of the API available here.
3670

InnoDB migration for visitor tables
This is a technical enhancement allowing the migration of the large visitors table on each website to the InnoDB file format to reduce backup times. This is also useful when performing any future server updates or migrations. Only performed by technical staff.
3689
 


IMPORTANT: PCI DSS Compliance v4 - New Scanning Service For Ecommerce Sites

What is PCI DSS v4 & What Has Changed?

PCI DSS v4 is the next evolution of PCI compliance affecting ecommerce websites which take payments and it is in effect now. Read documents about PCI v4 here

A significant change is that in the past your website did not need to be PCI scanned since you use 3rd parties to handle payments, such as Paypal, Stripe, Klarna, Barclaycard ePDQ etc, and the burden of PCI compliance fell onto those companies. However that has changed and banks and payment processors may now ask for your website to be regularly scanned as well due to the evolving threat landscape, which is set out under Requirements 6 and 11. There are changes to the Self Assessment Questionnaires SAQs you fill in which now mirror v4 compliance.  Read more about the SAQ changes and requirements here

Why Do Vulnerabilities Arise?

Hackers are always searching for ways to exploit websites with new methods or tools. We have extensive multi-layered security tools and processes to protect your core site from exploits, however there may be scripts that have been added to your site in the past which were secure at the time but a new exploit has subsequently been found for them. These will be flagged up in a scan and require attention to negate the vulnerability.  It's a fast-moving game, even a new script added today could become vulnerable in a short period of time, hence more regular and more comprehensive scanning requirements. 

When Do I Need To Start Adhering To The New Standard?

It will depend on when you did your last 12 month SAQ. Once that expires then you will need to adhere to the new standard, as set out below:

How Do I Do PCI Scans?

Your bank or payment processor may provide you with an approved PCI scanning system (ASV - Approved Scan Vendor) which can be used to perform a scan. Otherwise it will be necessary to purchase this service. The scan produces a detailed report which needs to be checked through to ensure there are no identified vulnerabilities on your website, including picking through false positives. This is best tackled by us since your website application and hardware infrastructure is provided by us. This includes switching some of our security tools into PCI Compliance test mode to eliminate false positives.

How Often Do I need To Run PCI Scans?

This may be needed as often as every 90 days.

How Do I Check What Scripts Are On My Site?

You can use the Script Finder program in the website Admin Centre to see all the scripts that are in use on your website. This is important if you are using embedded payment pages or forms including iframes, such as for Klarna or Paypal Commerce.

What Else Needs To be Updated?

We will have to enable HSTS (which forces the browser to always use HTTPS with your domain) and secure cookies, both are settings in the admin centre. We will also look to introduce other measures highlighted in the new standard which are not already covered. 

What Does It Cost?

We can perform PCI scans for you and interpret the scan reports. The charge for this is £105+VAT per scan request per website. This includes scan re-runs to check any issues identified in that scan are resolved. We can either use your bank's scanning tool if it's provided or a paid service such as HackerGuardian which is typically around £70 per annum. 

Script audits can be undertaken at a charge of £105+VAT.

If we find 3rd party scripts or other work that require remediation, the charge is £105+VAT per hour and would typically take a few hours to complete unless the scripting work was particularly large or complex. You would also need to test your website functionality relating to the scripting work after it is completed to ensure it is functionally working.

Other measures may need to be introduced over a period of time which may have to be charged for and we will advise of this at the time.

How To Book

Please raise a support ticket stating you require a PCI Scan in the subject line and whether you have access to PCI scanning software in the description and we will schedule in the work. 

 

.


Spotlight On Ecommerce Features Released This Year

Top Picks

Here's a roundup of the changes we've released this year so far. It heavily showcases new e-commerce features but you can see all changes in detail covering the Content Management System, sales and prospect management, tracking and of course security updates. Visit the Update page.

If you are interested in enabling these features, please contact your account manager regarding licence upgrade and implementation costs.

Google Shopping Automated Discounts / 'Dynamic Re-pricing'   
Major new feature for ecommerce stores advertising on Google

Google has launched a major new feature to help improve online product sales by dynamically lowering the price of your products shown via Google Ads compared to your competitors. The new product price is displayed on Google's Search Engine Results Pages and once the ad is clicked the price is then automatically lowered on the website product page to match. The amount of discount given can be set as a percentage across all products, or with specific prices on a per product basis. The price offered by Google is honoured for 48 hours only. Read the full article.

Free Samples
Secure more sales by offering free samples to prospective customers as trials, matching up products etc. Mark a product as a free sample with free delivery and as an addon so it doesn't show up in latest products etc. Free samples are ignored in the minimum order value checks at checkout when ordered without other products. However, if you then add a £10 item to cart, that item triggers the minimum value check and prevents the checkout from allowing the order to go through until the minimum order level has been reached. You can also set the maximum number of free samples you allow per customer order. Read the full article.

Re-Engagement Reminders
Remind new customers who haven't purchased to come back to the site, or specific groups of customers who haven't purchased in a set time frame.
Read full article.

Additional Abandoned Cart Followup Email Task
Further to the default abandoned cart followup email, you can now set additional followups such as a week or a couple weeks later as extra reminders to bring in sales. 
Read about all abandonment followup features

Send personal-looking automated emails from account managers
Make automated emails to customers appear as personal emails from your account managers. Great personal touch for increasing open rates.
We've also added BCC support & ability to BCC account managers on emails being sent to their customers so they know what's going on e.g. dropping out of a VIP Club.

GA4 Consent Mode v2
We've updated our consent mode integration to ensure we share if the user has accepted different tracking and ads based storage and personalisation permissions so that Google can respect the visitor's choice. This is to bring the cookie policy, GA4 & Ads integration up to speed with the latest rules and best practice.

Auto Discontinue Products
Set products to automatically discontinue when they run out of stock as part of improving your stock management.

Admin alert emails modernised & improved
We've redesigned all the system alerts to bring them into 2024 and emphasise important actions you need to take.

Google Sheets integration for custom sales data reporting
Automatically sync your new order data to Google sheets allowing you to build custom reports or dashboards that are automatically updated and can be viewed on mobile and desktop devices.

Back In Stock Dates report
A single screen to view back in stock dates for all products and see which have expired but haven't been re-stocked yet.

Customer Order Analysis 
Track trends over time for different groups/types/classifications of customers using this on-screen report and record sales contact actions and updates to main customer notes. Read more about Customer classifications, order analysis, sales summary and product discovery.

Customer Quotes via Manual Orders & Making Payments
We've introduced a new 'Quote order' state for orders, used when quoting via a manual order in admin so that your customer is be able to find the quote in their customer 'Previous orders' section when logged into their account, under a new Quotes tab. 

Product Sales on-screen report
A valuable report for Product Managers and Product Development staff to to compare changes in sales and conversion rates of specific groupings of products, such as a range of product IDs or product categories by date ranges.
Read about Product Lifecycle & Forecast Reporting and Product Sales Report

Product Data Quality Report
Target high value or converting products with data issues to improve their quality and boost sales. 
Read about our wide range of reporting

First Added To Cart (FATC) report
Find which items are added to cart first before buying other items. 
Read about our wide range of reporting

Switching customers between different VIP Clubs / Managing Discount Levels Automatically
Alert customers when they are switched from one VIP club to another with a new email alert using the Email Task 'Swap VIP Club', such as upgrading from a trade club to a distributor club.
Read about the VIP Club system and uses

Our Magento integration now pulls in categories, manufacturers, orders & customers.
New admin areas are now also available for Magento Integration & Magento Order States to help manage the integration and update sync'ing between a Magento instance and REC+

Page Slices Mobile Styles
We've re-designed the way you manage many of the style/design settings with additional support for changing some styles between how they look on Desktop vs Mobile, such as different paddings and text alignments. 

 


New in REC+: Google Shopping Automated Discounts, Free samples and more.

Spotlight

Google Shopping Automated Discounts / 'Dynamic Re-pricing'   
Major new feature for ecommerce stores advertising on Google

Google has launched a major new feature to help improve online product sales by dynamically lowering the price of your products shown via Google Ads compared to your competitors. The new product price is displayed on Google's Search Engine Results Pages and once the ad is clicked the price is then automatically lowered on the website product page to match. The amount of discount given can be set as a percentage across all products, or with specific prices on a per product basis. The price offered by Google is honoured for 48 hours only.

The discount given is stored in Coupon Manager > Google Shopping Auto Discount tab for all resulting visits, not just successful sales. The side benefit is being able to see the level of discount that has been offered by Google which indicates how over-priced it considers your products to be on a given date.  You can cross-reference this to views and conversion rates in the Top Products Report to adjust your price position further in the market, since you may be losing out on visits not coming via Google Ads. 

This feature is available to our marketing clients. Requires cost data to be set up on product/variation records and Google Ads Tracking to be enabled (see 3645 below). Contact us for details.

Setup documents are available on Drive to support staff only: Google Shopping Automated Discounts.
3596, 3646

Free samples
Secure more sales by offering free samples to prospective customers as trials, matching up products etc. Mark a product as a free sample with free delivery and as an addon so it doesn't show up in latest products etc. Free samples are ignored in the minimum order value checks at checkout when ordered without other products. However, if you then add a £10 item to cart, that item triggers the minimum value check and prevents the checkout from allowing the order to go through until the minimum order level has been reached.
Admin > Product Manager > Add/Edit products > Is this a free sample? (under 'Is addon')
3635

You can also set the maximum number of free samples you allow per customer order via:
Admin > Site Settings > Prices & VAT > Free Samples > Max free samples
3636

Ecommerce & Tracking

Back in stock alerts for backorder items
Users buying backorder items can now be opted into alerts to find out when it'll be back in stock.
Contact us to enable this new feature. 
3376

CMS & Admin

Modernised page urls
You can now set Page Manager pages to no longer add .html by default and ensure the urls are lower case in line with current practice by large sites.
Please note this currently only applies to Page Manager pages.
Admin > Site Settings > General > Miscellaneous > More modern page URLs.
3621
You will typically also want to have the previous .html URLS auto redirect to the new ones with this new setting:
Admin > Site Settings > General > Miscellaneous > Auto redirect to the modern URLs.
3624

Email notifications now warn if you have duplicates. 
Email notifications work based on a single rule & group combination. If you have any duplicates here, the system will prompt you to resolve this so that the system knows which to use to send the notifications.
3609

Email Manager warning about slow SMTP
We allow sending via SMTP instead of our default mail server. However SMTP emails are slower which means when sending larger email campaigns it may result in the email not fully sending due to slowness. We now show a warning about this. We recommend using Mailgun to send these emails instead, or contact us and we can help set up an API for faster email sending through most other mail providers.
3631

Integrations

Google Ads conversion code  *Required for the Google Shopping Automated Discounts feature
Increased integration with Google Ads you using Google ads conversion code complete with cart data for the thanks page via this new connect setting.
Admin > Connect > SEO > Google Ads Tracking > Tick: Enable Ads Conversion tracking on the thanks page?
Enter the "send_to" part of the code provided by Google in: Ads Conversion Tracking ID / "send_to"
3645

Unleashed order status updates now mark as "via Unleashed"
To help tell the difference between updates made by admins and those made by the system, we now append "via Unleashed" to these audits.
3604

The Orders API resource per item now contains the "extra_data" field to pass additional custom data to 3rd party integrations.
Such as for use with free samples to pass the name of the free sample item as this extra custom data.
3633

Retirement of old Universal Analytics integrations.
Google has now shut down the old UA analytics in favour of GA4. Read more here
Removed Setting: Connect > SEO > Analytics > Reporting Method
3627

Designer

Added Tiktok, Snapchat, Whatsapp & Vimeo social icons for site footers.
Admin > Connect > Social > find the new Tiktok, Snapchat, Whatsapp & Vimeo URL fields.
You may need to upgrade your site's footer/social-icons template to add these icons in. 
3644

jQuery 3.7.1 upgrade
Minor upgrade to sites using the 3.x version of jquery to keep it up to date with latest security fixes.
Please note, many sites still use 1.x versions of jquery for customisations on pages and this should be upgraded. We have a site setting to enable 3.x in a preview for testing through your web pages and processes and then you can fully enable it if no issues are found or the issues found are resolved.
3625

Modules > you can now select fields to show in the "all" table to make the screen more useful.
Enable via Admin > modules > edit > fields
3614

Thumbnails showing "Image Unavailable" now properly send a 404 HTTP header.
This is to help ensure they can be easily found and not detected as any other sort of issue.
3620


Important Announcement: Google Universal Analytics Retirement & Your Website

This bulletin applies to REC+ users who use Google Analytics to track their website metrics and have not upgraded to GA4. If you do not use Google Analytics or you are already using GA4 then you do not need to take any action.
 

Google officially retired its Universal Analytics (UA) platform in July 2023 and will be stopping all reporting & API access as of July 2024. 

This means that any remaining reporting connections between your websites and UA will cease to function. If you haven't already transitioned to Google Analytics 4 (GA4), it's crucial to do so now to ensure uninterrupted tracking and analysis of your website data.
 

Why the Change?

Google Analytics 4 represents a significant shift in how website data is collected and analysed. It's designed to be more privacy-focused, adaptable to future changes in technology, and better equipped to provide insights into the complex customer journeys that span multiple devices and platforms.
 

What Does This Mean for You?

If you've already moved to GA4: No action is required. Your website analytics will continue as normal.

If you're still using Universal Analytics: You'll lose access to your website data. It's essential to migrate to GA4 as soon as possible.
 

We're Here to Help!

We understand that migrating to GA4 can seem daunting. That's why we offer comprehensive support and services to make the transition smooth and seamless for your website. 

We have put together an in-depth article to guide you through making the changes.

Read how to migrate to GA4

Or if you prefer us to set this up please click Request Assistance to log a support call. Our charge for this is £95+VAT. You will need to be able to access your Google Analytics account for any changes to be made.
 

Get in Touch

Contact us today to discuss your GA4 migration needs and let us help you unlock the full potential of your website data.
 

Further Information

You can read more about this change directly on Google's support site here.


What's new in REC+: Re-Engagement Reminders, Additional abandoned cart followup emails, Custom down for maintenance pages and more.

Spotlight

Re-Engagement Reminders
Remind new customers who haven't purchased to come back to the site, or specific groups of customers who haven't purchased in a set time frame.
Once enabled, this will be available via Admin > Re-Engagement Reminders and Email Tasks.
3574

Additional Abandoned Cart Followup Email Task
Further to the default abandoned cart followup email, you can now set additional followups such as a week or a couple weeks later as extra reminders to bring in sales. 
Add this as an Email Task with the event of Abandoned Order Followup and set up the rest of the details and content as required.
3585, 3588

Custom Down For Maintenance pages
We've split the down for maintenance pages out so that for database maintenance we have a static version which currently is not editable, however the default down page which you can enable in admin > site settings, can now be customised as you need.
New down-for-maintenance page & html/errors/down-for-maintenance.html.twig for the page design. 
3578

Ecommerce & Tracking

V2 variations Google product feed now supports top level products and using the same Google option combinations.
By default the v2 variations product feed shows each variation but this new feature lets you customise this.
Admin > Site Settings > Ecommerce > V2 product feed product split.
3569, 3575

Product Imports > optionally disable price updates
The 'Products' import can now also update base prices of products.
Note: If you're updating product details via this method but using the dedicated 'Product Price Columns (New) prices import for managing prices, you may want to ensure they don't conflict by setting the Products import to not update prices.
3601

Product Manager categories table now shows additional data
Helpful little change to show status & product counts against each category in Product Manager.
3580

Manual Orders can now set delivery directly on the Add Manual Order screen
Previously only possible on the edit order screen, you can now set a delivery method while adding the order to save time.
You can also manually set a custom name & price for delivery here or select based on a delivery method set in the admin area.
3582

Order history audits for when new and updated order emails send.
Additional tracking has been added to show customers have been sent emails. 
Please note, this is just to log that we sent the email, not that they received or read it, or that it didn't go to their spam (this extra level of monitoring is possible using Mailgun).
3590

CMS & Admin

Require setting groups for new admins
If you are using access control rules for admin groups, enable this new setting to ensure all admins are set into a group to make sure they then fall into the correct access group.
Site Settings > General > Require setting a group on new admins
3567

User Manager admins count
New section at the top of user manager to show a count of admin users. This is clickable to reveal all admins.
3565

Prospect Dashboard now available
For ecommerce or CMS sites, you can now access a new Prospect Dashboard overview screen whilst retaining your normal dashboard screen.
Access via the admin sidebar > Prospect Dashboard.
3573

Integrations

Unleashed order status sync
Automatically keep orders on your website in sync with Unleashed order status changes by enabling this feature.
When enabled we'll detect when an order is: complete and mark it as despatched on the site; mark partial shipments; if the order is deleted on Unleashed it will be set to Cancelled on the website.
Admin > Connect > Utilities > Unleashed > Sync Order Statuses
3554

Unleashed customer types
We've added 3 new defines for letting you sync the customer type on new users when sending their data to Unleashed.
Defines: UNLEASHED_CUSTOMER_TYPE__RETAIL, UNLEASHED_CUSTOMER_TYPE__DEALER & UNLEASHED_CUSTOMER_TYPE__TRADE
3576

Unleashed > You can now disable syncing tax rates per product.
If you prefer to set these directly in Unleashed, or don't want the system to sync these outside of orders, enable this feature. 
Admin > Connect > Utils > Unleashed > Sync Products with the site default tax rates. Ticked by default but can be unticked to disable this.
3586

Unleashed log filters
We've added new filters to the Unleashed logs to give you much more granular access to changes made or observed between Unleashed and the website.
3593

ShippyPro > No longer logging common errors that otherwise fill up the order history.
We generally log all issues from delivery adapters against orders in case you need to track why specific methods were available or not to a customer. 
However for ShippyPro, it would provide logs in too much detail causing the logs to fill up with less useful information. 
We now strip out common issues such as specific delivery methods not being available based on location etc. while logging real issues.
3591

Designer

Pages & Templates ajax save
Helpful improvement that retains your undo history, unless you reload the screen, and keeps your position in the content when saving changes.
We also introduced a new cleaner save notification that handles page/template errors to make these very obvious when saving. 
3561, 3570, 3572

Mobile specific heights can now be set on Page Slices
3566

Products API sorting improvements for more custom designs
You can now sort by 'updated since' & other advanced sorting options to create more custom designs. See the new ?since_timestamp, since_timestamp_field & sort fields in the API docs: https://design.reallyeasycart.co.uk/api.html#resources--products
3556

Frontend performance improvements with meta preloads.
Added link preconnects to speed up DNS & connections etc. to the 3rd party sites we pull in resources from, such as Google, cdn.js, etc. in both frontend website & backend admin.
3598

Variations on the Products API resource now exposes back in stock dates.
Available as back_in_stock_date on each variation object on products.
3587


SECURITY: Maintaining HTTPS Security, Stopping Spoof Emails & GDPR Compliance

Yes we know that this is a dull topic to cover in a blog post, and we would rather be creating new and interesting features for everyone or cutting our toenails instead, however from time to time we do a sweep around with our clients to check on things like having HTTPS present (so people trust your site is secure) and that your email records are set up to stop spoof emails and increase deliverability especially with large email providers like Gmail, Yahoo and others tightening up on email security in 2024.

In addition businesses need to maintain their GDPR compliance, so if certain things have changed on your website then it needs a re-check.

So, we will be contacting you in the coming weeks with what's relevant to you and to book you in to have it sorted. There is a cost to do this but we will be keeping it as cheap as possible and quoting based on your individual needs.

So grab a cuppa and read on about the key areas that matter and learn some snazzy new phrases to throw around the office and impress people:

Managed SSL Certificate

A website needs to have an SSL certificate added to make it secure and ensure all the content on your web pages can be properly viewed by website visitors or, worst case, to stop them seeing a warning message saying the site is unsafe. You can check your site has an SSL certificate already by going to your website and making sure it starts with "https://" in the browser search bar. Most sites have it, but a few still don't so definitely worth making the move.

Whether you have an SSL or not it's worth having a scan of the website to identify any content / broken link issues that exist and we can then fix them.

Stopping Spoof Emails & Reducing Bounces

The immediate term here is 'SPF' (Sender Policy Framework). It's a method to prevent spammers sending emails from your domain without your permission which people then believe are authentic and get redirected to other sites to harvest their data and defraud them. SPF allows you to define which email servers are permitted to send emails on behalf of your domain. In addition, having SPF set up correctly stops emails bouncing from email services like Gmail, Yahoo and other large service providers. An SPF record therefore needs to be set up if not present or amended where it does not appear correct (which may need us to talk to your IT/email provider). 

Reaching The Next Level Of Email Security

Later in the year, we strongly recommend implementing something called 'DKIM' (DomainKeys Identified Mail) which helps ensure that the content of your emails remains trusted and unaltered during transit. It uses a digital signature linked to your domain to verify the email's source and integrity. And also 'DMARC' (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) which combines SPF and DKIM to provide a robust email authentication system. It allows domain owners to specify how email receivers should handle emails that don't pass SPF or DKIM checks.

To do that we recommend using Mailgun as the email service provider, which is built-in to your website software and let's you send 5,000 emails for free each month . It also brings greater email deliverability rates plus individual email tracking so you can check if somebody did or didn't receive an email when they ask. By the way we could set this up now if preferred, otherwise more on that later in the year and let's at least get SPF sorted.

GDPR Review

GDPR came into place 6 years ago (yes that long ago!), so if you have made updates to your website since last checking it was up to date, such as adding scripts on pages, which you may not even remember doing it was so long ago, installing pop-ups, adding extra analytics tracking, social media stuff, then we recommend undertaking a GDPR review which includes re-checking scripts and cookies via a website scan and that your policies are in place. This is one of those things that nobody ever wants to revisit, but once its' done you feel like you've had a walk through a fresh Spring meadow.

Congratulations for reading this far. Medals will be sent out shortly. Or more likely you will receive a call or email from us to agree what needs to happen for your site. If you want to get ahead of everyone else then you can always call your Account Manager to discuss next steps.

 


Merry Christmas | Support Cover

Merry Christmas!

From everyone at Wildfire we would like to wish you and your families a Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!​​​​​​​ 

Thank you for using our services during 2023

It's been a busy 12 months with many new features added to our REC+ ecommerce & CRM platform including the addition of AI for content and product descriptions and translation, a raft of new page building features, customer sales classifications, enhanced expert answers, VIP Clubs, product lifecycle reports and many other features which are fully listed here plus the switch to GA4 which many customers made with our assistance

More Marketing, More Revenues...

We continued to help customers drive more revenues across paid advertising and brand build on social media. Google advertising remains king of the jungle for gaining revenue and because paid advertising is so critical, we also introduced a new automated monitoring service for Google Merchant Centre so you can ensure all of your products are available to advertise.

Price Compare...

Our essential price comparison app continues to help customers set their prices correctly in the market and this combines well with Top Product reporting to prioritise which popularly viewed products to work on first to drive up conversion.

Increased Security, Fast Performance...

Our server infrastructure remains updated and secure for combatting the ever-present threats from bad actors on the web. Whilst we seldom ever talk about this, rest assured it remains the cornerstone of our service for keeping your REC+ website secure and performant.

Again, thank you!

We'd be nothing without our customers and as always we value your custom and look forward to doing great things together in 2024.  


CHRISTMAS SUPPORT
Starts Friday 22nd December - Tuesday 2nd January 2024
During this period we provide technical support over the Christmas period, namely server and uptime monitoring. Regular support and project work resumes on our return.

Change Freeze Thursday14th Dec - Wednesday 3rd January 2024
We will not release any new REC+ software changes after Thursday 14th December until we return in the new year.

System Availability
You can view service status on our WildfireNet twitter account 

Raising Support Requests
Please log any calls on our ticket system as the office will be unmanned for this period or email [email protected]


New in REC+: Ad Feed Tracking & Customer Sales Classifications

Two major new feature sets have been added to our Advanced Edition of REC+ to help track issues stopping ads appearing in Google and to increase revenues based on segmenting customers based on purchasing patterns and displaying suggested products in their account area.

Google Merchant Centre Summary & Alerting Tool

Advertising on Google? Don't miss out on sales! Make sure your products are able to be advertised on Google Ads with this essential monitoring and alerting tool.

How GMC Works 

Products are uploaded from your website to Google Merchant Centre (GMC) to then be advertised within your Google Ad campaigns. GMC has strict conditions on whether a product is set up correctly to be advertised.

What This Tool Does

This tool enables you to monitor higher level account issues and which products have issues according to GMC and send out email alerts to staff plus to be able to view them on a summary screen within Admin which is easier to access  rather than logging into GMC. The issues shown are a direct reflection of how GMC reports them. More features will be added over time.

Read more

Customer Sales Classifications, Sales Summary & Product Discovery

These features help you achieve greater revenues by better understanding your customer base in terms of their buying patterns, performance against annual targets and showing customers best selling products & categories they haven't previously purchased, plus producing customer-based reports. This feature set comprises:

Sales Classifications
Classify customers according to their sales performance and risk levels

Sales Targets 
Measure customers actual v target revenue over a 12 month period

Individual Customer Reporting
Use Report Builder to build customer-specific reports which can be printed / saved as PDFs

Sales Summary & Product Discovery
Show trade/distributor customers a summary of their sales on their account page and display other popular categories & products they haven't yet purchased 

Read more

 


We Celebrate 15 Years Today!

🎉 Exciting News: Wildfire Internet Celebrates 15 Years of Success🎉

It is with immense joy that we announce the milestone of Wildfire Internet turning 15 years old. Since our inception in 2008, we have witnessed remarkable transformations in the realms of Google, website development, and digital marketing. Throughout this journey, we have constantly adapted and updated our services, employing innovative software and robust security measures to ensure our clients' continued success.

When we were presented with unprecedented challenges during the pandemic, we stood steadfast in our commitment to supporting both our clients and our team. As we stride into 2023, we have proudly pioneered the integration of AI into our software, marketing services and client business strategies, unleashing the full potential of this powerful technology.

We extend our heartfelt gratitude to all our clients for placing their trust in us over the years. We recognise that it is their unwavering faith in our capabilities that has fuelled our growth and inspired us to reach new heights. Also, our appreciation to our dedicated and longstanding Wildfire team, who are the very essence and heart of our company.

Should you seek guidance on expanding your business or enhancing its profitability, we invite you to contact us today. Our experts will collaborate with you to identify the perfect solution tailored to your unique needs.

Here's to another year of remarkable achievements and shared success!

Wildfire Logo

Ecommerce Specialists

- Expert advice, software, AI and digital marketing -


New in REC+: GA4 Reporting, VIP Club changes, Expert Answer followups and more

Spotlight

Expert Answer followups
Follow up with customers who asked questions about products but haven't since purchased to see if there's anything else you can help with to help bring in the sale.
To enable Expert Answers Followup Emails, go to: Site Settings > Leads & Alerts > Enable Expert Answers Followup Emails
PR 2999

GA4 Reporting
As part of the recent move to GA4, we now support Google's latest Analytics Reporting/Data APIs to pull in analytics data onto your dashboards & reports in admin. 
PR 3028

VIP Club

VIP Club reporting
We now keep track of how many customers are in each VIP club & level each day and report this back to you on the VIP club screen with new graphs to break down and compare this data by day, week or by month.
PR 3025

VIP Club level previews
Quickly preview how your changes to the VIP club levels will affect the number of users in that level before you save.
PR 3012

Track VIP Club on orders
We show a customer's current VIP club on orders in admin but sometimes you may want to know what VIP club level they were when they placed that order, in case it's since changed. If the customers current level does not match the one saved on the order, we'll add a line to the vip club message on orders to let you know the level they previously had. 
PR 3011

Toggle VIP Club summary on customer home. 
By default if you have VIP club enabled your customers will see a simple summary, however you can now disable this and instead we can use the customer hub template to create a more custom display for users around their vip club level. Contact us for pricing.
PR 3046

CMS

Sliders now warn if your content may break the slider display
Sliders can be linked to URLs but if you were to put another link inside, then this would break the display of the slider due to browsers restricting nested links. To help admins and designers, we detect this on save of a slider panel and warn you so it can be resolved. 
PR 3002

Audit search improvements
The admin comments area now has improved search capabilities for audits such as filtering on the related item ID & audit action. 
PR 3027

Ecommerce & Reporting

Product issues report > detect zero priced products
Both the site issues & detailed product issues report now alert you when you have zero priced products, even if there is a retail price but specific group prices are zero.
PR 3018

Hidden categories
Categories used only for promotions on your site can be hidden so they do not display.
Available to set via Admin > Add/Edit Category > Hide this category from the website
Categories Export > is_hidden => 0 or 1
PR 3001

Orders now report if the custom accepted cookies or not
Sometimes order counts in Google Analytics & Ads will not match the website and one reason for this can be that users didn't accept cookies and so can't be tracked. To help you identify if they did accept cookies or not, we now indicate this on a per order basis alongside the traffic source & medium and on forms.
PR 2997

Report builder > filter the ecommerce revenue report type by traffic medium.
You can now optionally report on specific traffic source/medium's such as just Ads/CPC sales in reports in Report Builder.
For example you might wish to see ad-generated revenue across different states.
PR 3048

Report builder > option to default all reports to exclude VAT.
Easily set all Report builder reports to exclude VAT.
Admin > Site Settings > Prices & VAT > Reports > Default the Order Info Reports & Report Builder to exclude VAT.
PR 3010

Sales targets export against users
If you're using the sales targets feature, the users export will now contain their sales targets for easier management & mass modification. 
PR 3007

Checkout confirm screen > Newsletter signup
As well as offering newsletter signup during customer registration, you can also prompt for this on the checkout screen as a reminder during the order process. 
Admin > Site Settings > General > Registration > Newsletter > Enable Newsletter Signup on Checkout confirm screen
PR 3028

Integrations

Unleashed > Delivery tracking
Automatically update orders on the website when you add tracking codes against orders in Unleashed. 
Admin > Connect > Utilities > Sync Shipment Tracking
Contact us to have the required scheduled task set up as well. 
PR 3031

Google Analytics > Cookie improvements
Google Analytics sets cookies when loaded, because of this we don't load their script until the user accepts the cookies in order to ensure your site follows GDPR compliance.
However, if the visitor doesn't accept cookies until the 2nd or 3rd page view, the previous URL google would be seen as internal and they would assume the user came here directly instead of via organic search or Ads. To resolve this, we now hold onto the visitors previous and entry URLs so that even if they are several pages down the line when they accept cookies, we replay the original pageview event for Google so they can track them correctly.
PR 2996

Designer / Developer Changes

Modules > New file upload field type
Similar to the existing image field type, you can now have modules attach related files such as PDF downloads. 
PR 3004

Module audits
We've now implemented audits for the Modules system so any new modules created, updated or removed will have full audits as well as changes to their items inside. 
PR 3033

Form Builder > Ajax helpers for forms
If you're building custom forms or calculators on sites and using frameworks like Vue.js, you'll want to submit the data via Ajax. We've simplified how this works and also offer a helper example ajax call directly from the edit form screen in admin.
PR 3003

jQuery upgrade
Allows easily switching from 1.x to 3.x as well as a 3.x-preview where it'll stay 1.x for most visitors but admins will see 3.x to help test the migration. 
Admin Site Settings > General > Front end Javascript > jQuery Version
PR 3019

New template keys for detecting subscribed users
user.send_emails now allows you to detect if a customer is subscribed or not, as well as user.send_emails_encrypted_id which gives you access to the hash used in subscribe or unsubscribe links for logged in customers. 
PR 3040


New in REC+: Modules within Page Slices, Expert Answers reporting, security and more

Spotlight

Using Modules With Page Slices
Our modules system, for use when adding data records in a structured way, is now even more flexible. You can bring in module items directly to pages built with page slices. This gives you the best of both worlds, allowing you to build pages with the flexibility of page slices while keeping your content structured for easy reuse, mass management, importing, and uniformity. 
PR 2984

Expert Answers Sales Report
Our Expert Answers system has a new report available that helps you identify sales resulting from answered questions, thereby gaining insight into the impact answering questions has on your revenue generation to help motivate sales and support teams. 
To access the Expert Answers Sales Report, go to Admin > Reports > Expert Answers Sales Report.
PR 2943

CMS & Design

We've added a quick link to Content Search from Page manager.
Content Search, our useful admin program for finding content on your site, can now be accessed right from the page manager screen where you'd find most site pages set up.  
PR 2945

Timeline reminders
In the admin area, we have a website timeline available for you to track when key changes on the website and it's marketing have been made. 
Now when saving Site Settings, the Connect area or making a new template live, we prompt to ask if this is something worth adding to the timeline to help encourage the use of this. The info is then useful when tracking changes in visitors & conversions on your site to see what made the improvements. 
PR 2971

Ecommerce & Reporting

Product filter tags cleanup.
While managing large volumes of tags against all your products, over time there will inevitably be old tags no longer in use. This new report helps you track these down and keep the tag list on your site clean, as this is used by customers when filtering products. 
Available in Admin > Product Filter Tags > Report: Tags not in use
PR 2981

Users Making Purchases report includes additional fields. 
This is a useful report showing each customer and their sales as well as other key data about them. the new fields include their business names, VIP club & level if you use this on the site, their saved vehicle (again if in use), smart type including if they are a Retail, Trade or Dealer account, as well as if they have been granted access to the Dealer/Shopify exports. 
PR 2969

Shopify export for Dealers now offers additional non standard Shopify fields. 
These currently include the packaging sizes but we'll expand on this in the future. This is primarily for use with other platforms and is not supported by Shopify.
PR 2987

The categories export now also contains a "shopify_category" column.
This allows you to set the related category for the Shopify export for it's sub products. 
PR 2987

Price List > Exclude specific categories
If you're using some categories only for promotional purposes, you may want to exclude that category from Price Lists shown on the site and their export. 
Available via Add/Edit Category > Exclude this category (and all sub-categories) from the Price List App.
PR 2961

Price List > Indicate discontinued products on the front end
The Excel version of the export already marked discontinued products in red but this now extends to the front end of the website.
PR 2956

User Manager > Revenue Range setting
To the bottom right of the user manager screen you'll now find a new drop-down for "Show Revenue over the last:" where you can select the range you want to use for the revenue totals shown against each user in the above users table.
PR 2952

User Manager > VIP override filter
If you're using the VIP club, from time to time you may want to set several specific customers to be in specific levels. Using this new filter in User Manager you can find all the customers with these custom levels set.
PR 2951

Purchase Order Coupons
The purchase_order.html.twig can now also show coupons/discounts applied to orders for dispatch teams that need to take actions when these are on the order .
PR 2957

Purchase Order VIP Club Tags
Your Purchase Orders can be customised based on the VIP club and level the customer is part of via the purchase_order.html.twig file.
PR 2950

Picking lists can now show more details about orders with new template tags.
New template tags inside each order object in the picking_list.html.twig file for user details, order dates and item prices.
PR 2963

Integrations

Alto properties feed
For Estate Agent sites, we have a new integration to bring in your properties to display as items on the website directly from the Alto feed using their Zoopla format. 
Contact us to find out more about this.
PR 2964

Further security improvements on the platform and servers to keep everything secure and up to date.
PR 2967 PR 2977
 


New in REC+: Page Slice, VIP Club and other changes, plus server security updates

Spotlight

Redesigned Page Slices Interface
We have updated the page slices interface to make it more straightforward and intuitive. The new design includes new features that allow you to name different blocks/slices on the page for quicker reference and collapsible sections for easier drag and drop positioning.

Twitter API Version 2 Update
To keep pace with Twitter's latest updates, we have upgraded to the new API version. In order to keep posting your new products and posts to Twitter, you may need to reconnect with Twitter via the Admin > Connect screen. 

Ecommerce & Reporting

Top products report conversion rates are now 2 decimal.
This allows you to view this metric at a more granular level.

The Partial Shipment option can now be restricted by smart type.
There's an existing site setting that can be enabled which allows customers to select if they are happy for their order to be sent in partial shipments or wait for the entire shipment at once. This new setting allows you to restrict this to a specific smart type, e.g. only your dealers.
PR 2912

Product Launch alerts are now fired at point of change rather than on an hourly schedule.
Customers subscribed to product launch alerts will now receive these whenever the status changes, especially useful when it is changed by an import rather.
PR 2850

Vehicle search > further customisation for text
We've added customisable definitions so you can modify all the content shown to users around the Vehicle search, find these over in Admin > Site Definitions. 
PR 2937

VIP Club

VIP Club Rewards & Requirements can now be dragged into the order you'd like them to display on the front end to users in their VIP club page.
VIP Clubs > Levels > Add/Edit > Rewards & Requirements
PR 2924

VIP Club requirements for reviews can be marked as optional.
There's often a delay between an order being placed and it then being dispatched, received and used, meaning there can be a longer time to collect reviews. To cater for this we have made reviews an optional requirement so that customers can still move between bands without reviews. Set this in VIP Clubs > Levels > Add/Edit > Product Reviews Requirement > Do not make this a compulsory requirement to achieve this level
PR 2918

Integrations

ShippyPro Click & Collect
When using our ShippyPro delivery adapter, you can now offer an alternative click & collect delivery option at checkout. 
Connect > Delivery > ShippyPro
PR 2908

Discontinued products now indicated in Shopify export.
The 'Published' field will now be set to False when the item is discontinued, also Status will be set to archived instead of active. 
Contact us to find out more about our export options for Distributors.
PR 2903

Server security
We wish to highlight that several new server security improvements have been implemented to keep your websites up to date and secure. 
PR 2906

Unleashed weights support against products can now be disabled.
Sometimes you may want to use "each" as your measurement rather than an exact weight.
This lets you switch all products away from using weight measures when sending them to Unleashed.
PR 2923

 


IMPORTANT: Switching To Google Analytics 4

This bulletin applies to REC+ users who use Google Analytics to track their website metrics. If you do not use Google Analytics then you do not need to take any action.

On July 1, 2023, Google's standard Universal Analytics properties will stop processing new hits and you will be moved to Google Analytics 4, their next-generation measurement solution to record your website metrics. We have put together an in-depth article to guide you through making the changes or asking us to make the changes.

If you use Google Analytics for tracking visits, ecommerce conversions, form / download events or are running Ads then you will need to take immediate action to set up GA4 in the next 2 weeks.

Read about migrating to GA4

 


New in REC+: Customer hubs, GA4, more page slice features

A new year brings new REC+ features, here's our spotlight for this month:

Spotlight

Customer & Distributor hubs
This is a major update to the customer account area where logged-in users manage their details, quick re-order etc.
This area is now fully templatable so that you can add links to extra services you offer or workflow processes. You can also have separate templates for different user groups, for example a general retail customer hub, another for distributors with different services available as you can see in the example below. 

 

Available to enable via Admin > Customise user area > Show Customer Hub as Dashboard? and edit the template: html/customer_home/customer_hub.html.twig
For design assistance please contact your sales account manager. 

Google Analytics 4
The latest version of Google Analytics is now supported in REC+ and it is important you take action if you use this for your website reporting.
Read more in this article

Page Slices
A whole new raft of features have been added to Page Slices to make content more dynamic on the page to increase interest and engagement. Read about these below.

CMS & Design

Page slice entrance effects
You can now set animation effects on slices which activate when the user scrolls the slice into view, such as fade or slide, to make your web page gain more attention.

Page slice hover effects
Also found in Animations is a new Hover selection, allowing you to zoom in or out of an image, change it's colour, lighten, darken or give it a slight tilt when loading.

Slice button alignment & opening in a new tab
You can now set the alignment of button slices, as well as optionally have them open their link in a new tab.

Slice single column containers
Similar to multi column layouts, you can now add a single column container to group together multiple sub slices when you want them all to have the same outer padding or background image spanning between them.

New slice background size properties
Increase backgrounds up to 125%, 150% and 200% on slices to zoom in on smaller images or images where their aspect ratios don't match how you want them displayed on the site.

Horizontal line slices
These can now have a custom colour set.

Button slices
Styles now come with simple hover effects

Image content block alignment in slices
New Advanced Options > Image Align setting allowing to change the alignment of images inside their slices

Page slice editor > fixed name, slug & update button area 
To make editing large pages easier, the save button and name/slug fix to the top of the screen. 

Customize User Area Rework
Settings in this area are now better organised to help you set which content is shown to logged in users on their home screen.

Ecommerce & Reporting

Product Reporting Types now renamed to Product Groups
Naming change only. Use Product Groups for extra classifications of your products rather than categories. Used in admin and for reporting.

Page product filters for tags & product groups
Via Page Manager store settings and Slices select which products are shown based on product tags and product groups. 
https://github.com/WildfireInternet/rec/pull/2725

New product sorting options available when listing via page manager
On add/edit page there are new product sort options for "Price (High to Low)", "Price (Low to High)", "Name (A-Z)" allowing more customisation for showing products on pages.

Dashboard products show drafts & product manager status summaries
This improvement helps you see how your products are split across different statuses on the site.

New import available for delivery addresses
This allows for easier imports when migrating sites.

Expert Answers > send answers from the admin user by default instead of the company. 
Send answers from the signed-in admin which then allows replies to go direct to them for an easier followup flow.

Expert Answers > product display/link improvements
The product columns are split out to make it easier to see which product a question is for with a link back to the edit screen to let you lookup product details faster when answering questions.

Expert Answers > full text editor available for answers
You can now send full rich formatted replies to questions asked on your site using ckeditor e.g. links and screenshot/images to help with the answer. 

Preview Expert Answers email
Designers can now preview the Expert Answers email while designing it. 

Expert Answers additional product details available in the template
Designers can now render the product and basic details about it into the answer reply emails to help smarten these up.

Download Search Partial Codes
The download search now allows users to find instructions on products more easily using partial matches. This is good when they don't know the whole code or a variation of a code is no longer sold. The search result indicates it's only a partial match so they can decide for themselves if it's correct for them. 

Prospect Manager

User Account Managers
Assign account managers to customers and enter summary notes per customer.
Site Settings > General > Enable User Account Managers

Integrations

CKEditor browser spell check
The WYSIWYG editor we use for pages etc. has it's own spell check you can enable but it doesn't show by default. 
We now enable the browser's built in spell checker so that you can see the spelling issues live as you type. Then to fix you can either enable the editors spell check, or hold ctrl while right clicking the error to see suggested fixes.

Shopify export now supports "cost per item"
This new column indicates to your dealers the price they pay in additional to the existing RRP price column. 

Unleashed > smarter error log messages
We've improved the error logs to help indicate the best resolution for an issue.
 


New in REC+: VIP club dropout emails, new page slices for ecommerce categories, Dealer export files & more.

CMS & Design

Categories Page Slices
We've added 2 new Page Slices for adding categories to pages easier:
"Categories - System" - List all categories on the site, or ones from a sub category. 
"Categories - Curated" - Select each category manually and drag and drop the sort order they are displayed in. 

Embed responsive iframes in Page Slices
When using page slices to embed 3rd party code into your site, if they utilise iframes for embeding the content (as many do), you can now tick to automatically make the iframe responsive for better display on mobile and tablets.

Further enhancements for Page Slices will be coming out soon.
 

Prospect Manager

Bulk delete quotes
You can now delete quotes entered in mistake or as duplicates of others. 
This can be done via Admin > Prospect Manager > tick the quotes you want to remove and at the bottom of the screen click the "Delete Selected Records" button.
Contact us to find out more about our Prospect/Quote management tool. 
 

Ecommerce & Reporting

VIP club dropout emails
To help make sure users don't suddenly drop out of the VIP club without warning, we've added 3 new email notifications you can send via Email Tasks:
1 month, 2 weeks, 1 days 
Create persuasive messaging within these emails in the /html/email/templates/vip_club_warnings.html.twig template 

Cart indicators for items excluded from in cart deals. 
"Excluded from offer" will appear next to cart items when a deal message shows and the item isn't part of it. This currently supports category exclusions but we plan to expand this to other coupon settings as well. 

New Product Issue report for products with encoding issues
When importing data we require the files in UTF-8 encoding and our exports are in this format as well. 
However, if you convert from UTF-8 to another encoding, and then back again, it may cause encoding issues in your data. This new check highlights any issues on a list of products. 

After product imports we now run Product Issue checks
Important product data quality checks are now run directly after an import with an option for you to easily view them. You'll see these after your next product data import on the site. 

Improved VAT reporting when changing settings
We now record VAT settings against orders so that if they are updated in the future then we have a record of the settings at the time. 
 

Integrations

PDF product catalogue
Our auto generated PDF catalogue listings of your products now gives even better control over the category chapters of the PDF. 
We show the existing category description that displays on the website, but there is a new field on the edit category screen which allows you to enter different category text to appear in the PDF. 
Additionally, there is another field to show content directly after the categories products, better allowing use of the available space of that page for adverts or information 

Distributor product data exports
We can now enable a feature on your site to send a common format export file (in this case we used the Shopify export format) to allow distributors to import your products easier (especially if they use Shopify, however the file's columns with a few changes should in theory work well with many other systems).
Contact us to find out more about this paid feature for Premium licence manufacturers only. 

Following on from the above feature, we also now have a way for Distributors to request access to the file.
This allows you to control who can have access and monitor if they are frequently downloading the file to keep their stores up to date. 
Once this feature is purchased, you can then enable it in Admin > Customize User Area > Enable Shopify Export Area?
Customer home > Shopify export (only shows if smart type not equal to 1/retail and it's enabled).
Admin > Dealer Export Access Manager
Admin > Email tasks > new event available for Dealer Export Access Approved
Admin > Email Notifications > new notification for Dealer Export request
New defines for DEALER_EXPORT_ACCESS_AREA & DEALER_EXPORT_ACCESS_AREA_INFO for customer area.
 


New in REC+ in November: Early bird & exclusive deals, new order exports for delivery, improved imports for sales and more.

Spotlight

'Early Bird' access and 'Exclusive products'
For selected customers, allow the purchase of specified products on an 'early bird' basis (allowing the purchase of upcoming products before the offficial launch date), or on an exclusive basis for products set as 'Enquire Only' (selected customers can purchase whereas everyone else can only send an enquiry).
Both new features are enabled on each product record and each customer that has access either manually or used in VIP Clubs as rewards within specified levels where the customer assignment is then handled automatically.
Read more about this and also the VIP Club feature.

Order exports for delivery companies
Delivery companies are working towards increased automation and some now ask for uploads of order items. The first file format is available for DHL.
In Order Manager you go into the order items section and in the export section select one of the available courier formats . You can then upload it to the courier company.
Additional formats will be quoted for other delivery companies upon request.
Contact us to enable this for you on your site and to find out about our other delivery integrations. Charges apply.

Set Special Offer pricing more easily using the Product prices columns export/import
The Product prices columns import/export now also handles changes to product statuses and special offer dates ranges.
This means you can change prices and put products on offer in the same import/export file without needing to use Batch Products Processor.
This also provides a good alternative to using Price Manager.

CMS & Design

Personalise site content using VIP club rules 
You can now personalise sliders and content displayed to visitors based on their VIP club and level via the Personalisation system and in templates. 
Admin > Personalisation Rules > Add/Edit Personalisation Rule > Smart Type, VIP Club & Level
New template tags available inside the "user.vip_club" object.
VIP club is now shown on the customer homepage for logged-in users displaying their current level and the ability to scroll through and view other levels.

Page Slices by default for building pages 
We've been working on improvements to our page slices system and now all new sites will have this newer page builder available to them by default. 
We've also made it easier to get it enabled on all existing sites, contact us to find out more about this new method of building pages. 

Page search improvements
Site search for pages has been improved to use a better scoring system and now also includes content blocks as well as the default page content. 
This returns better search result matching especially when multiple pages talk about the same topic.

New page slice blocks available
We've added a range of new slices in including buttons, horizontal lines, lists of links & page menus. 
These all help building up new landing pages using the page slice builder and building more custom experiences without the need for designers, while still letting designers customise the slices themselves where needed.
We've also added further settings to some of the existing slices, for example setting the aspect ratio of a map easily.

Ecommerce & Reporting

Discontinued products can now longer be purchased 
Products marked as discontinued can no longer be bought from the site. 
If this change affects you, please reach out to us and we can help improve the flow going forward.

New delivery report for 'county/state'
US sites can use this  to see sales performance across each state. UK sites can see performance across counties.

Prospect Manager 'Funnel by status' filters
Easily filter your sales funnel status to distinguish between open, won and lost quotes over time. 

New product slices and content blocks
You can now easily list your products onto pages by status/category/etc using the system products slice, or pick specific products and drag and drop into order with the curated products slice.

Price List "You Save" Column
Show a column of how much your dealers/distributors save per item vs the retail price in the Price List feature.
Enable via Site Settings > Prices & VAT > "Show difference between "Your Price" & "Retail Price" as a percentage"

Product import column checks
Both the product and user imports now have improved checks to recognise if required fields are missing, and the file format is correct.

Coupon improvements
We've reworked how coupons are checked to ensure they still qualify while in the cart, as well as soime small design improvements for the display of coupons in the cart. This includes showing the before and after discount price more clearly, crossing out the before price, plus cleaning up the line showing total discount & which code was used.

Integrations

Google Site Name & Website Schema Support
Adds Google Site Name support.
By default we use the Company (Site) name, but this introduces a new setting to "Override site name" and "Enable website schema markup (includes site search action)"
Admin > Site Settings > SEO > Site Name

Faster Google Analytics load after cookie popup
We've optimised how Google Analytics runs on the site after a user accepts the cookies to run immediately if permission is granted, ensuring any visitors who bounce quickly between pages are fully tracked. 

'Connect' and 'Edit user' areas new modal prompt for confirming & describe the changes being made
A confirmation modal pops up when changing and saving data for better audits. You can also set a note here at the same time to remind you or other admins why a change was made.  

 


New in REC+: CSV exports & reporting changes, Facebook Pixel support, find customers at risk of leaving and many more features

Spotlight

  • CSV exports have moved away from tab/.txt file formats to general comma separated values (.csv)
    Some older reports and the Google product feed still use tab/.txt files however all the main exports now use CSV for opening easier in Excel.
     
  • Facebook Pixel support
    We now have built in support for the Facebook Pixel tracking, including "add to cart" and purchases.
    Enable in Admin > Connect > Social > "Enable Facebook Pixel Tracking" & "Facebook Pixel ID"
    Process to follow to add the pixel in FB:
    Go to https://www.facebook.com/events_manager2 > Click the green + icon on left sidebar for "Connect data source" > Website > Enter a name for the pixel (e.g. company name or website) > enter url > Pixel only > Install code manually > ID is in the code provided (e.g. fbq('init', 'ID HERE');) > enable advanced matching > Continue.
     
  • Users Making Purchases report now shows risk level for customers who might be going away.
    To help you track if customers who used to order frequently haven't ordered in a while, this report now shows a risk level next to each customer as well as an average for how frequently they normally buy. 
    Export this report, sort by the highest risk level and this gives you a good start point of customers to reach out to. 

CMS & Design

  • Email Manager > Sending tests will now send through the same email proxy system. 
    This improvement will help you detect broken links easier as it means normal email program proxies for links won't hide broken links as the link is always forwarded on to us first like when you send it out.
     
  • Better spam checks for blog comments
    Spam bots are on the rise and to help prevent them adding spam messages and links to your site we've beefed up the spam protections on blog comments to stop the majority of these. 
     
  • Custom content blocks
    This allows designers to create custom blocks like the built in ones from https://design.reallyeasycart.co.uk/content-blocks.html
    As an example we've moved our quote type content block into this system so you can see how this works.
    Custom content blocks have a folder html/content_blocks/ where inside there are X.html.twig files and matching X.json files, where X is the reference name for your content block.
     
  • New util twig functions for html_attr() and html_el()
    Useful for generating html elements with dynamic attributes:
    < button {{ html_attr({ class: "demo", disabled: true }) }}>< /button>
     
  • Page slices - dev/alpha release
    Slices are a new way for letting admins build up page content easier, rather than as a single editor field or using a set template with specific content blocks. The slices are a series of mini templates each with content blocks inside,from which the admin can build up layouts. 
    With the abilitiy to create column layouts and blocks of content, images, videos, forms and much more the slices will help admins buildand manage pages easier. 
    For designers this also let's you build up common slices and blocks to re-use content more easily across pages and sites as all slices are editable via templates. 
    You can add slices to any layout template file like so:
    {{ rec_slices() }}
    Or pass classes like so to make full width slices with centered content like the header/middle/footer sections:
    {{ rec_slices(sliceOuterClass="layout-container", sliceInnerClass="layout-container-inner") }}
    Page manager > edit page will detect these like it does content blocks and will render a slice editor.
    This then lets you add slices which are from the html/slices folder.
    In this folder you'll find sub folders for slices, these sub folders help categorise them, you can add any new sub folders you like, or add to the existing ones to add new slices.
    You'll also find a slices.html.twig file in here which controls how the slices are actually loaded when the system finds a rec_slices() call.
    Inside slice files you can add as many rec_block() calls for content blocks as you need, and you can even nest rec_slices() calls inside slices to create columns / nestable templates. However, the only new part here is for slices files, both rec_block() and rec_slices() calls need to pass slice=slice, this tells the block or slices that they are inside another slice to make sure they are handled as auto unique and unique by the slice too, e.g. {{ rec_block('Youtube Video', type="youtube", slice=slice) }
    Slice html.twig files each can have their own .json conf files to control their name shown back in admin as well as add additional settings that are shown in admin when using that slice.
    Slices are also available to download/export via the Developer import/export in admin.

Ecom & Reporting

  • Order Info Report > CSV Exports
    Core Order Info Reports are now available via CSV export with full data down to the day, month or year for you to build custom reports in excel or to view the raw data.
     
  • Autoparts CSV changes
    If your site uses the autoparts CSVs to manage products, the file is now available as a CSV instead of Tab/.txt file and with the new settings you can have additional price fields for including VAT as well as hiding the older autoparts import mode that would append the make/mode/year to product names.
    Admin > Site Settings > Ecommerce > Autoparts > new settings for "Use the Auto-parts default name mode only" and "Include inc. VAT prices in import/export"
     
  • Top product report now available as a CSV export
    Admin > Reports > Top Products Report > New button to the top right for "CSV Export"
     
  • Product live date
    Adding under the created at date, we now store a date for when a product was first marked as live. 
    This can be useful for reporting to see how long a product has been available especially if it was previously in draft for a long time.
     
  • Product development cost
    Track the time it takes to design, prototype and build your products with this new field on add/edit product for Development Cost.
    Enable this with the new Site Settings > Prices > "Enable development cost tracking" setting. 
     
  • Manual orders VAT improvements
    Adding an order manually will now auto select VAT rules based on the users group and region like it would on the front end checkout.
     
  • Return reasons comment / further information field is now required.
    This ensures customers provide additional info before returning items.
     
  • Tag group filters for reports
    We've added a Tag Group filter to Order Info Reports (& in turn Report Builder), as well as Top Products Report.
     
  • Top level default category report
    New "Product count" columns to the categories, manufacturers & tag groups order info reports.
    New "Top level default category" order info report, also extends to report builder.
     
  • Ecommerce revenue inc/ex vat modifier & new category, manufacturer & smart type filters
    Admin > Report Builder > Ecommerce Revenue report now supports filtering by category, manufacturer & smart type and it now supports the inc/ex vat modifier also used by all the order info reports.
     
  • Email Manager copy and paste product tags
    To help you send to customers based on product tags they've bought before, you can now copy tags from any products edit product > filter tags page via the new "reveal currently selected tags list". Then back in Email Manager when selecting filter tags there's now a field for you to paste in those tags.
     
  • Loyalty coupon tweaks
    We've added "user.can_use_loyalty_coupon" to invoice template as well as "user.smart_type" to both the invoice, purchase order email confirmation and thanks templates so you can add messages about your loyalty coupons everywhere.
    Loyalty coupons can also now be filtered to only apply to specific countries.
     
  • Twig access to simple product listings with rec_products()
    {{ rec_products(limit=5, status="featured") }}
    {{ rec_products(limit=5, status="special_offer", sort="bestsellers") }}
    supported options: limit, status, sort, category, manufacturer
    As well as 2 additional functions:
    {{ rec_categories() }}
    {{ rec_manufacturers() }}
    supported options: both support limit, rec_categories also supports category for showing sub categories of a given parent category ID.

Integrations

  • Google Shopping feed support for sale prices
    Previously in the Google product feed we would send the normal or sale price as the retail price to Google to keep this simpler. 
    We now support sending the 2 different prices so that Google can tell when a product is on sale, as well as the sale date range if set against a product.
     
  • Our Google My Business integration has been updated to keep ahead of their upcoming deprecations.
    This is our integration to pull in reviews from your Google business profile onto your site.

Unleashed

  • Bundles support for Unleashed. 
    We now support our Bundles/BOMs system with Unleashed, allowing you to build bundles on your site and have them be split out to each sub item when sending to Unleashed.
    Edit Product > BOM / Bundles tab > Sync option for Price now split into "Default Price" vs "Additional & Group Prices".
    Please note, only default price is currently supported with Unleashed here.
     
  • Setting to control sending per delivery and charge line codes so you can relate delivery methods and charges to sales accounts on Unleashed.
    With this enabled, setup products on Unleashed with codes matching the name of the delivery method or code for the charge type.
    Admin > Connect > Utilities > Unleashed > Send Delivery & Charge Line "ProductCodes" (enabled by default)
     
  • When copying products in batch product processor, these products are no longer sync'd to Unleashed by default.
    This allows you to change their codes and other details before syncing them with Unleashed.
     
  • Unleashed stock updates now supports assembled items
    We will now count stock of items that are built up from other items.
     

 


Changes In Visitor Traffic Volumes & Conversion Rates

Following the cookie change on 8th September to maintain GDPR compliance in line with ICO guidelines (see this article), some sites have seen a noticeable drop in recorded visitor volumes in Google Analytics. This does not mean your site is receiving less traffic, it means some visitors are not being tracked until after they click to accept cookies. Previously we tracked every initial visit (unless Do Not Track was enabled on the user's device) but then stopped tracking if they didn't click to accept or turned off non-essential cookies.

So in practice, the drop in volumes is mostly going to be from visitors who would visit a single page and then bounce off straightaway and this traffic is of negligible value.

The upside from this is the conversion rate recorded in Google Analytics is likely to increase as the ratio of orders to tracked visitors will be higher. 

How Do I Record Most Visitors & Still Comply With GDPR?

Google is moving its analytics and ad tracking to a consent model and also using aggregated tracking for non-consenting visitors which is in beta mode for a limited number of advertisers. Read more about this on Google

There are other cookieless analytical tracking tools that can collect visitor data and still comply with GDPR,  which are typically chargeable such as fathom. They will also differ in how they classify genuine traffic, real people versus bots and crawlers, so their visitor numbers may not be a direct tally with the way Google works.

Could This Impact my Ad Tracking?

People who purposefully choose to Reject cookies will be excluded from ad tracking data and so there could be an increase in this as the cookie banner has a more visible 'Reject' button than before, again in line with ICO guidance (previously people had to navigate via cookie settings). It is still possible to place an order without clicking 'Accept' first and those orders would not be tracked in that case. The cookie banner has also been made slightly larger to encourage more people to choose their preferred consent.

Will This Affect My Order Levels?

No. Genuine visitors to the site will still continue to place orders, this is just a question of whether they are tracked in Google Analytics and Ads. What it does mean is that some order data is no longer tracked in their tools making order levels look lower if you use these tools for order revenue analysis. However, it has long been the case that Google has had discrepancies tracking this data even between its own tools, and neither does it exclude returns and cancellations. The correct and accurate place to get your order data is from REC+ > Reports > Order Information Report or Report Builder where you can build your own custom management reports.

In Summary

Changes were enacted to make sure we closely follow ICO the latest guidelines on cookie tracking. Do not be alarmed if your visitor numbers have reduced since 8th September 2021, your conversion rates will likely have increased as a counter-balance to this and it will not impact your ability to take orders. For accurate order revenue data use the tools available within REC+.


GDPR Compliance & Warranties

We recommend all website owners regularly check their GDPR compliance as it remains your responsibility to be compliant. This means ensuring you regularly scan your site for cookies, especially after adding or removing any 3rd party scripts, and provide a means for visitors to enact their preferences. Our cookie manager tool is provided free to help you record and display your cookies but is not in itself a warranty for GDPR compliance. You must also ensure your cookie and privacy policies reflect your current GDPR compliance practices. We can provide cookie scans and updates to cookie manager for a charge of £295+VAT.

 


Server Infrastructure Upgrade Tues 14th September 2021

WEBSITE INFRASTRUCTURE UPGRADE - NEXT TUESDAY

As described in previous bulletins, as part of our continuous investment in the technology that powers your website and provides security and data backups, we are upgrading our infrastructure next Tuesday, 14th September starting at 7am. This means your website will be offline until the upgrade is completed and a temporary notice will be displayed to visitors as shown below.

HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE?

The upgrade will take a number of hours to complete and so you should expect your site to become available again during the course of early afternoon onwards.

WHAT ACCESS IS THERE DURING THIS PERIOD? 

During this period visitors will not be able to access web pages nor place / view orders and site administrators will not be able to login.

HOW WILL I KNOW WHEN MY WEBSITE IS AVAILABLE AGAIN?

You can visit your normal website domain URL to see if it available online again and once it is then continue to login and administer your site as normal.

WILL I LOSE ANY DATA?

No. We are copying all existing data across to the new infrastructure and have already performed some test migrations to ensure data integrity.

WHERE CAN I VIEW UPDATES ON THE MIGRATION?

Go to our WildfireNet twitter account to view updates and remember to follow us: https://twitter.com/WildfireNet

HOW DO I CONTACT YOU IF I HAVE ANY QUESTIONS?

Raise a support ticket or send us an email to [email protected] and we will respond as soon as possible. 



New in REC+: Scheduled emails, Lloyds Bank Cardnet, Product review images

Feature Spotlight

  • Scheduled emails
    Through our built in Email Manager you can now schedule when to send your email campaigns ahead of time, contact us to enable this new feature.
    These scheduled emails are also now shown on the dashboard so you can see which emails are scheduled to be sent out soon.

     
  • Lloyds Bank Cardnet payment processor now available
    Available in Admin > Payment Processors & enter connection details in Admin > Connect > Payment Processors > Lloyds Bank Cardnet Connect

     
  • Product review images
    You can now let customers upload images with their reviews. Contact us for design changes, a small charge applies.
    New Site Setting: Ecommerce > Product Ratings > Show New/Pending Reviews
    New Site Setting: Ecommerce > Product Ratings > Allow users to upload image on Product Reviews
    New Template Tag: {{ review.images }}
    New System Page: review_image_upload_terms_and_conditions
    New Template: /0-base/css/modules/review-images.css
    New Template: /0-base/html/store/product_info/reviews_terms_of_use.html.twig
    New Template: /0-base/js/modules/review-images.js
    Modified Template: /responsive-base/html/store/product_info/reviews.html.twig
     
  • Prospect Manager export
    In Quote / Prospect Manager you can now export a CSV of filtered results allowing you to work with these directly via Excel if needed.

Ecommerce

  • Checkout personal or business account toggle switch
    When customers register or checkout on your site, you can let them pick between registering for a personal or business account.
    Admin > Site Settings > Ecommerce > Checkout > Enable Account Type Switch
    New definitions: ACCOUNT_TYPE_PERSONAL, ACCOUNT_TYPE_BUSINESS & ACCOUNT_TYPE_LABEL
     
  • New tags on Invoices for showing delivery options and per line statuses
    This allows further flexibility within your invoice templates. Small charge for design.
     
  • Youtube thumbnails on product pages
    You can now pull in youtube thumbnails rather than just a play button on product pages with videos on them.
    A designer will need to add {{ youtube_thumbail('youtube video url') }} into the product_info.html.twig template file in the relevant place for the thumbnail image url. Small charge applies.
     
  • Addon & bundle component audit improvements
    Changes to addons and bundles now add their related product codes to their automated audits to help you track changes on products easier.
     
  • VAT switcher now shows Inc vs Ex VAT on checkout totals.
    Helping to clarify which price is being shown when switching between showing inc or ex vat prices on a site.

CMS

  • Search tags & blacklist improvements
    We've been working to decrease spam searches on websites, these are where malicious bots make searches on your site to submit spam, fill up popular searches with irrelevant terms, attempt to find security issues and so on.
    As well as improvements to this we've redesigned our Admin > Tag Wall Manager which exposes popular searches as well as blacklist terms, where words in a soft blacklist are not recorded, and words in the hard blacklist are blocked entirely.
     
  • Simpler add page screen
    To make managing new pages simpler on sites that use content blocks we've added a faster new page screen as well as a new way to import pages faster.

    Admin > Site Settings > General > Miscellaneous > "Use simpler add screens where available"
     
  • Added a new section type content block
    Sections allow for greater control over large section/blocks of content on sites with support for showing images or video to the side of ckeditor content, e.g.
    {{ rec_block("Example section type", type="section", unique=true, repeatable=true) }}

API / Integration

  • Unleashed dismiss error
    On the Unleashed Log area in admin, in the error filters we now have buttons to dismiss errors that have been manually resolved on Unleashed directly.
    Unleashed Log > view entry > Dismiss / Un-Dismiss button.
     
  • Unleashed > new defines for sales groups
    3 new defines available for this: UNLEASHED_SALES_ORDER_GROUP__RETAIL/TRADE/DEALER
     
  • Tradebox manufacturer and VAT class
    New tradebox csv columns: Item VAT Class, Item Manufacturer, Combined Manufacturer VAT Class
     
  • API > added order verification info to the orders responses.
    Available in the API > Orders resource > "payment_data" object.

 


New in REC+: Unleashed software integration , PayPal Commerce, Bundle improvements and more

Feature Spotlight

  • Unleashed & Xero Integration
    REC+ now integrates with Unleashed's inventory management software designed to help businesses manage their stock and manufacturing processes with integration into Xero accounts. The integration allows products to be populated into Unleashed from the website, the creation of new customers and orders and stock control, plus matching product categories, manufacturers and user group price lists.
    You can view each order has been sent to Unleashed on the order information screen, as well as new export/reports to help you relate your categories, manufacturers and user groups between the website and Unleashed.
    As well as the connection to Unleashed, we offer logs of all activity back and forth, a way to simulate events, ability to sync specific products and settings to control whic data is synchronised. 
    Read more about how Unleashed integrates with REC+ on freshdesk and what to do next.


    Unleashed software

  • PayPal Commerce
    Paypal have launched their new Commerce Platform with the potential fotr better rates and the ability to show the form collecting card details embeded directly into the checkout process. All data continues to be stored and handled by Paypal who remain responsible for PCI compliance.
    Read our freshdesk article on how to set this up on your REC+ site, alternatively we can implement this for you for a small charge, contact us via a support ticket. 

  • Product Bundles improvements:
    A range of improvements have been made to the product bundle system allowing the bundle order lines to be split into their components for integration; syncing the prices, costs and weights and discounts of the component lines so that these are added up onto the overall product bundle for you. 
    This also supports bundles made from components with different VAT rates ahead of new legislation that is under consultation. 
    Here's a preview of some of the new options available, contact us to find out how bundles can work for your site:

  • User VAT & EORI Numbers
    Collect customer VAT and EORI numbers at checkout to help when shipping to business customers in the EU
    Enable this via: Admin > Site Settings > Ecommerce > Checkout > Request Customer VAT & EORI Numbers
    New definitions are available in case you want to rename these: VAT_NUMBER, EORI_NUMBER, VAT_NUMBER_HELPER_TEXT, EORI_NUMBER_HELPER_TEXT
    This changes some existing template tags: Invoice - user.vat_number => order_tax_ref and user.vat_label => order_tax_ref_label
    As well as adding in some new ones: Invoice & Purchase Order - user.vat_number, user.vat_number_label, user.eori_number and user.eori_number_label 
    Read the full article here (scroll just over halfway down). There is a charge of £395+VAT to help set this up for you.

  • Google My Business (GMB) Reviews Integration
    This new integration allows you to pull GMB reviews of your business from Google and store them in your website. 
    These reviews can currently be displayed on a page via the template system, or via the reviewsonmywebsite service, however we plan to add a page app soon so you can easily show off your reviews on any page. 
    Connect via: Admin > Connect > SEO/Analytics > Google My Business
    View your GMB reviews in Admin via the new Google Reviews link in the program sidebar.
    You can read in full about how we handle reviews and complaints on our freshdesk article

  • Google Customer Reviews (ecommerce orders)
    Google Customer Reviews are collected from your customers after they place an order on your ecommerce site. When customers reach your thanks page at the end of the checkout process, a popup will appear from Google asking if they can contact them later about their purchase.
    If the customer clicks YES they are emailed by Google approximately 8 days later to ask how the order went and about each item in the order.  These can earn review stars which Google can then display on Ads. Here's a preview of the Google popup:

     

    Connect this up in Admin > Connect > SEO > Google Analytics > Merchant ID & Enable Google Customer Reviews popup on the thanks page.

  • Email Manager Export Including Google / Facebook Ads Customer Match
    Export email addresses from campaigns in Email Manager > Sent Email as either email addresses only, or in a format ready to use with Google and Facebook's Ads Customer Match systems (email addresses, names, country and postcode).

    Email export for Google Ads Customer Match

Report Builder

A range of new reports and features have been added to Report builder including:

  • Form scores
    You can now report on your CES or NPS ratings collected by your forms over time. 
  • Custom titles
    Add your own custom titles for each report to make them more meaningful for your business, rather than using the default titles. 
  • Actions & comments
    Add and keep track of actions in the new Actions & Comments field which is available at the footer of the report you are building and can be included on the report when it is produced. 
  • Line chart totals
    Line charts now show a total/summary line above them to with the differences between the current and comparison date ranges.

Ecommerce

  • SMS & Postal marketing opt in on guest checkout registration
    Gain GDPR consent for SMS or direct mail marketing campaigns during the checkout process or by editing the user profile data in User Manager. These new opt-in fields are also included in the Users export. You can change the wording that displays during registration in Site Definitions > CHECKOUT_POSTAL_OPT_IN_TEXT & CHECKOUT_SMS_OPT_IN_TEXT
    Turn this on via Admin > Site Settings > General > Registration > Newsletter > Enable Opt-In SMS Signup / Direct Mail Signup.
  • Detailed order report now includes cost & profit margin data per order line
    This report now includes Cost & Profit Margin columns as it gives you order line detail, as opposed to the Order Profitability Report which only reports this information at the overall order level. This report can also now be downloaded for you to use in Excel. 
  • Product Issues Report includes variations
    Checks added for Duplicate Variation Codes, Product Options Without Variations and Variations Without Product Options to help you track down common issues when you need to use unique variation codes for integration.
  • "Possible missing variation combinations" on products
    On the product options tab under variations, there are suggested additional variation combinations of options to prompt you to set up all possible combinations. 
    Edit product > options tab > under variations table it'll now show "Possible missing variation combinations" if any are found.
  • Tradebox order transmission indicator
    When using Sage / Tradebox integration, in Order Manager > order screen there is an indicator to show the order was sent to Tradebox plus a link to the full log entry for additional details of other orders included in the batch. This is useful if there is an issue on an order within a batch that then stops Tradebox processing the whole batch.


     
  • Stop back orders being taken only on specific products
    If your site is set to take backorders (i.e. you take the order even if there is no stock available) you can now stop certain products from being sold by entering a "0" into the  "Stop Selling When Stock Qty Reaches This Amount" on the product record in the Stock tab. This allows more control on what you wish to sell. 
    Enable this via Site Settings > Stock > "Stop Back Orders Via Stop Selling Qty Field"
  • PayPal Order ID Prefix - For use on multiple sites using the same Paypal account
    If you use the same PayPal account for taking payments on multiple sites,  use this new setting to prefix your order IDs so that they remain unique across 2 or more sites (otherwise a previously used order ID will cause a conflict with Paypal).
    Available in Admin > Connect > Payment Processors > PayPal Order ID Prefix
  • Improved product ajax audits
    With this behind the scenes feature we've been working to improve our reports around related product data such as options, attributes, images, variations and more.

User Management

  • Receive Notifications When New Businesses Register
    Receive an email notification when new businesses register on your site so you can follow up with them accordingly. These are identified as a new business by virtue of them entering their company name in the Business Name field during registration.  
    Set this up in Email Notifications > New Business User Registration emails. 


     
  • Filter for 'Businesses only' in User Manager & Email Manager
    Filter to list businesses only instead of including all retail customers in User Manager and Email Manager for better targeting. 

CMS

  • Improved Content Block Tag Filtering
    New filters have been added in Admin > Content Blocks to help manage larger number of content blocks. 
  • Module item meta tags
    Available on add/edit module item pages in a new meta tags area at the bottom of the form to help set those tags for improved SEO.

Developer

  • New email templates for: Double Opt In Email, Quote Email, User Registration Email.
    With these now in place, all system generated event-based emails should now have moved from Page Manager to templates
    Available in the /html/email/templates/ template folders.
  • Additional product template tags in product_info.html.twig.
    New arrays available for: {{ dump(product.categories) }}, {{ dump(product.options_array) }} and {{ dump(product.filter_tags_array) }}
  • Customer home template
    A new template around the text content shown on the customer logged in homepage is available here: /html/customer_home/content.html.twig allowing you to add more custom content or list products via the templates here. 

API

  • Google my business reviews available via /api/v1/google-reviews
    Business reviews can now be pulled in here and this can be used via the template system with easy ways to access lists of reviews or averages for creating badges showing star ratings etc. 
  • User controller post multi users now shows email & mem code in responses
    To help 3rd party devs with debugging we now output additional data in batch responses to help track down issue data. 
  • Product API: Improvements to variation code error handling
    Variation code errors would previously halt the update of a product but now these allow the main product (and batches of products) to update, while reporting back that the request was only a partial success if there were errors involved during the variation updates.
  • Products list by tags, can be useful especially when calling the api via template system to list out a specific tag of products.
    If you're building something more custom around product tags and you want to pull in specific filtered products without use of the product filter system you can now do so via the api. 

 


What's New & Important In 2021

In this newsletter we are going to cover a number of important subjects including legislative changes affecting VAT, Google's latest algorithm change, an upcoming upgrade to your website server infrastructure plus the newest ecommerce features in REC+.


VAT Legislative & Customs Changes 

1. EORI Numbers & Country of Origin

Brexit has meant that you are required to provide your EORI Number and Country of Origin information on product lines, which we have described in previous bulletins. You can now also store individual customers' EORI and VAT numbers on their user record should you need to refer to them. Go to freshdesk article

2. EU VAT Changes 1st July 2021

New rules come into effect for the calculation and collection of VAT when selling to the EU as outlined on the EU website and also described on the Sage website. We will be issuing a software update for this before the changes come into effect.

3. UK VAT on Product Bundles

A consultation is underway until end March 2021 to clarify the law on how VAT is calculated for product bundles where there are products with differing VAT rates. We will be pre-emptively issuing a software update to handle this in the coming weeks.

Note: Product Bundles was offered free of charge to use until 31st January 2021 and that offer has now expired. Please contact us for pricing.


Google Page Experience

Google is changing its algorithm to include a new signal for page experience. Here's what it means to you...

1. Mobile Friendly

Most sites are now mobile friendly. If yours isn't then this is a great time to get in touch to discuss moving to a refreshed site design that looks great on mobile devices too.

2. HTTPS

Your site should be running under HTTPS. If yours isn't then we can help you to migrate and provide you with a free SSL certificate.

3. ALT Text

We already automatically produce ALT text on your product images, however make sure you have ALT text set on any images you add to pages and blog content.

4. Pop-ups

Also known as interstitials, when these are intrusive then that's a no-no. Having to close 3 pop-ups when you load up a website is not what a good user experience is about.

5. Page Load

Pages should load quickly without content jumping around as it does so, like you might've seen on some large news websites where you click on the wrong thing as the content is still rendering. It's important to note that having a lot of plugins on pages can also slow down load times.

We can perform a technical analysis on the home, product and category pages to identify issues or improvements you may wish to proceed with. The cost is £595+VAT. 

6. Safe Browsing

Since 2007, Google has steered visitors away from search results where the website looks like it has been compromised. This has never concerned us as we deploy multiple layers of overlapping security and application scanning to keep your site protected.

CLOUDFLARE
Faster Page Load + Extra Security + Reduced Bandwidth

Cloudflare is a free service that serves page content faster and increases security further. In January alone, Cloudflare stopped over 280,000 potentially malicious events on the sites we have it deployed across. In addition it reduces bandwidth usage which enables us to keep your service charges lower, especially as sites grow in size which then increases your charges.

Contact us to schedule moving to Cloudflare.


Website Infrastructure Upgrade

As part of our continuous investment in the technology that powers your website, provides security and data backups, we are planning to upgrade our infrastructure in the coming months. We are currently planning this with our data centre specialists and will advise of more details in due course including secheduled downtime slots for data migrations. 


Newest Ecommerce Features

These are some of the latest / most useful recent ecommerce features.

1. Report Builder

Build custom ecommerce performance reports to analyse your success across a range of metrics including revenues, delivery, payment, returns, ease-of-use ratuings and more. 

Available in beta preview till 30th April 2021. Access via Reports > Report Builder.

2. Sage Integration

Integrate your web orders and stock levels with Sage via Tradebox, which also integrates with Amazon and ebay. Contact us to discuss your requirements.

3. Unleashed & Xero Integration

Integrate your website with Unleashed's best practice inventory management software and Xero for accounts. Used by manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors.

Contact Unleashed directly to discuss your requirements first.

4. Google Customer Reviews

Collect reviews via Google and have your star-ratings appear in Google Ads. Combine this with REC+ Expert Answers to provide buying assistance at the point of interest.

5. SMS & Direct Mail Opt-in

Collect consent for SMS marketing and direct mail campaigns via the checkout process, in compliance with GDPR. use this data with your preferred 3rd party services to send SMS and direct mail.

6. Offer Paypal Credit On High Value Products

Make it easier to pay on high value products by offering Paypal Credit on select product pages. Another popular alternative is Klarna. 


REC+ 2020 Feature Recap

2020 was a little bit of an unusual year, but at least here on REC+ we worked on a range of new features to help your site sell.

Here's our highlights, in no particular order, top features you may have missed in 2020 that we think are worth checking out:

  • Site Update Banners
    The site updates offer a simple way to show a top banner to your visitors. 
    We've been using this to show customers info on latest deals or let them know about new COVID guidance being followed. 
    Here's an example of this live in use:

    Read more in our December post
     
  • Multi Store
    The new Multi Store feature creates new opportunities to sell your products and save you time by replicating products from your master store to other REC+ stores you operate
    Read more in our May post
     
  • Product Variations
    Variations is our solution to handling stock between Products and multiple Options. 
    Each variation can have a unique code, stock level and cost that can relate to the different size, colour and other variations of your products. 
    We aim to move more option details to variations in the future such as pricing to allow even more fine grained control. 
    Read more in our July post
     
  • Bundles and BOMs
    Sell bundle deals of products together with a special bundle price, or make a product up from multiple other component/material products and keep track of stock. 
    This new feature allows you to create a wide range of offers, including gift sets, multiples, by the case.  
    Read more in our freshdesk article
     
  • Tradebox Sage Integration

    Tradebox allows us to integrate with Sage50 and SageOne, this year we added worked on improvements to this as well as a new stock sync to keep your stock on the website up to date with stock changes back in Sage. Tradebox also allows integration with Xero so contact us if you wish to discuss integration. 
    Read more about Tradebox Sage integration in our freshdesk article
     
  • Facebook & Instagram Products
    Advertise your products to new audiences on Facebook & Instagram easily.
    This utilises our existing Google Shopping feed to easily integrate with Facebook & Instagram shop tabs and their advertising platform.
    See this live here: https://www.facebook.com/ForgeMotorsport/shop
    Read more in our August post
  • Klarna

    Klarna is a fast growing and popular way to spread payments into regular installments.

    Read more in our August post
  • Stripe Checkout
    Stripe offers a modern & simple checkout experience offering the latest payment methods such as most cards, Google Pay & Apple Pay.

    Read more in our February post
     
  • ShippyPro

    ShippyPro offer a wide range of delivery services for live rates at checkout. 
    Read more in our October post
     
  • Product commodity codes & country of origin
    Working with new international shipping rules, we now offer commodity codes & country of origin settings per product with ways to pull this data onto invoices and product pages. You can set these against each product or against multiple products at the same time via the batch product processor or our product exports. 
    Read more in our December post
     
  • Delivery VAT numbers
    Further helping comply with international shipping rules, some regions may require you collect a VAT number or similar for delivery such as a "CPF Number" in Brazil.
    Read more in our November post
     
  • 3D Models & Augmented Reality
    Render fantastic 3D models of your items directly on product pages and pages throughout your site with AR support.
    Read more in our October post
     
  • Order Info Reports
    A fantastic new set of reporting to analyse a range of order metrics including Return Reasons, Order Statuses, Payment & Delivery methods, UK vs International, Retail vs Trade and more.
    Read more in our August post
     
  • Timelines
    It's important to keep track of major site changes and changes you've made to your marketing plan to see how these impact your visitors and sales. 
    To do this we have a new Timelines area in admin that let's you easily keep track of your important dates.  
    Read more in our August post
     
  • Content Personalisation Rules
    Personalisation rules let you determine how content is displayed on your site for different user groups. For example, setting parts of your homepage content to display different messaging for different types of customers. This is achieved by detecting the user, identifying which group they are in and switching content blocks to show one created for their user group.
    Read more in our May post
     
  • Quickshop
    Especially on B2B sites, your customers may want to quickly lookup product codes or even a CSV of codes and how many of each they want to add to cart without hunting round the site to find each. 
    This works with our previously mentioned Product Variations codes to allow you to quickly adding a specific option combination of a product to cart too.
    Read more in our February post
     
  • Expert Answers
    Allow users to submit questions on any page or product and easily reply & publish the question and answer on your site.
    Helps you to seal more conversions and to improve your content and gain additional natural keyword phrases for extra indexing by search engines.
    Read more in our January post.

Please note: Charges can apply to some features and their implementation.

Our full 2020 REC+ update posts:

 


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