Features + a Firefox plugin = a handy inventory check

I recently came across a nice little Firefox plugin called Alertbox that can be used to monitor changes in web pages. The Miva Merchant store I was working on needed needed a way to monitor inventory on a range of products. (Their inventory is updated automatically every 15 minutes from a remote server but this technique could also be used to monitor in-house inventory.) After installing Alertbox, I set up a simple template in our Features module  that displayed the product name, product code and inventory level for the products to be monitored. The products are pulled from a list in Features–it is quick and easy to add or remove products from the list. That template was assigned to a new page, which could then be accessed in a browser allowing Alertbox to go to work. It checks the page every few minutes and alerts you with a sound and unobtrusive icon when the inventory level changes.  As my art teacher used to say, “Simple, but effective.”

Action codes for Miva Merchant

A Pulse user, trying to track down an issue they were having with customers creating accounts, asked us for a list of that Actions they were seeing in their logs. Here is a list of them and a brief explanation of what they refer to:

ALGI    affiliate login
UAFL    update affiliate’s information
IAFL    insert affiliate
AFPW  email forgotten affiliate password
LOGN    customer login
EMPW  email forgotten customer account password
UCST    udpate customer information (on account page)
ICST    insert customer (on account page)
ADPR    add product to basket
AUPR    add upsale product to basket
AUPM    add multiple upsale products to basket
QNTY    update quantity of product in basket
RPRD    remove product from basket
ORDR  add/udpate customer information (during checkout)
CTAX  calculate tax
SHIP  calculate shipping/generate shipping list
AUTH    authorize payment

Speed Matters!

Google VP Marissa Mayer just spoke at the Web 2.0 Conference and offered tidbits on what Google has learned about speed, the user experience, and user satisfaction…Half a second delay caused a 20% drop in traffic. Half a second delay killed user satisfaction.

More at Geeking with Greg.

How to get things done with Twitter

Zen Habits is one of my favorite sites and I generally check every tweet. Here’s a great article on using Twitter for increased productivity.

The $300 Million Button

Hmm, time to take a look at your checkout process? As my brother said when forwarding me the link, this reminded him of Merchant:

It’s hard to imagine a form that could be simpler: two fields, two buttons, and one link. Yet, it turns out this form was preventing customers from purchasing products from a major e-commerce site, to the tune of $300,000,000 a year. What was even worse: the designers of the site had no clue there was even a problem.

The form was simple. The fields were Email Address and Password. The buttons were Login and Register. The link was Forgot Password. It was the login form for the site. It’s a form users encounter all the time. How could they have problems with it?…

The $300 Million Button

Web design inspiration

Here’s a great Flickr set on insprirational site designs.

(Got the link from a tweet by Chuck–thx!)

Merchant 5 Coupons!

We are pleased to announce a long awaited module, Coupons. The module offers many of the same features as the 4.x version of the module, Coupon Manager.

Coupons offers all the typical bells and whistles that you’d expect from a coupon module. One of the notable features is to have category and product specific coupons. If you want to offer a coupon to apply to only two categories (or, really, however many you want), you can have a coupon just for that.

One big jump in usability is a convenient javascript based date picker. Easily select start and expiration dates for your coupons! Here is a screenshot with it in action.

The module also supports offering free shipping and state, country and zip code restrictions. Customer specific coupons (i.e. the customer with login ‘john’ or ‘bob’) are now supported. As with the 4.x version, Price and Availability groups are likewise included.

Some of the other admin screenshots should give you a good idea of what can be done with the module:
Initial Screen

Product and Category configuration

Shipping settings

Customer settings

Group configuration

A new feature I wrote specifically for this module is an option to bulk generate a coupon. If you want to create 50 unique 25% off coupons in your store, you can do that now!

The module also logs all coupons used so you can easily see what coupons have been used in your store.

As usual we are always looking to improve modules we write, so we are certainly willing to listen to any suggestions you may have!

The documentation isn’t completed yet, but it should also give you a good feeling of what the module can do.

Be on the lookout for numerous modules from us over the coming weeks and months! We’re cranking on quite a bit in the workshop at the moment.

FedEx Advanced & LTL shipping

I just completed a new version of the FedEx Advanced for Merchant 5.x module which adds LTL as a shipping method.  It is handled in much the same way as the freight methods that were already in the module.  I.e. a single order’s shipping can be split between regular FedEx methods and LTL and the shipping option will be displayed to the customer  showing how much they are paying for each (and the total shipping).    Options associated with the LTL method include being able to specify the weight cutoff over which a package will be restricted to LTL shipping (the FedEx api will actually return LTL shipping quotes for packages of only a few pounds!), the freight class of the package, and the FedEx LTL account number (FedEx maintains a separate account number for LTL shipping…it’s optional for the module to be able to calculate LTL shipping).  And as with other shipping methods these otions can be configured individually for products configured to ship in a separate package.

In accordance with the options offered by the FedEx LTL api the module can now prompt the customer to select which of the LTL options they need (e.g. “Lift gate required”).

In addition,  this new version also adds a  tab to the order details (under  >Order Processing in Merchant admin) which displays the shipping cost alloted to  various methods (if there was more than one they are listed separately) as well as which options the customer selected.  This same feature has also bee added to  the UPS Custom Integration for Merchant 5.x

An update for Order Status Manager for 5.x

I have modfied the 5.x version of the Order Status Manager.  This update adds two new features:

• Support for displaying the data  collected during checkout (the “note” and other data as detailed in this FAQ) in emails sent to the customer by the stock notification email modules (and third party modules if they support the evaluation of variables) and on the invoice (INVC) page.  Details on how to go about it can be found here.
• Support for displaying customer customer and product data (configured for the customer and products using Merchant’s stock “Custom Customer Fields” and “Custom Product Fields” modules) in the Order Status Manager’s various templates.  Details on how to go about this can be found here.

-Mike

A New Years update for Inventory Manager 5.x

I have done a poor job of posting here since we put up the blog.  It always seemed like such a time and energy consuming great hill to write up something worth reading.     That hasn’t changed but we do need to do a better job of “getting out the word” on the goings-on at VikingCodes.  So I have decided to drop the “worth reading” criteria and will be going with shorter, more frequent posts with the main goal of keeping you informed.

On that note, I have just completed a modification to the Inventory Manager for 5.x that permits the tokens intended for use with the VC Attribute Template module to be used in the “Product Attribute Template”  area of the page templates in Merchant 5.x.  With this change the VC Attribute Template module is no longer necessary for adding inventory information to your attributes and controlling attribute option dispalys based on inventory status.   The use of component tokens as discussed in the  Inventory Manager 5.x documentation applies to  the token use in the  “Product Attribute Template” area as well.   You’ll find more information in the documentation and a brief FAQ on the matter.

-Mike