We have put a great deal of thought into the checkout process in Cerizmo. Our single-page checkout form is designed to be as intuitive as possible, not ask for redundant or unncessary information, and not require prior account sign-up (or even worse - require them to go verify an email account before they can order). Complicated checkout processes, especially those spanned over multiple pages or ones requiring mandatory registration are very common in e-commerce systems and have long been associated with abandoned shopping carts (lost sales).

We have recently made several improvements and changes to the checkout form in our on-going attempt to make it as simple, and fool-proof, as possible. Recent changes include the following:

1. Small notes describing form field have been added - so your customer knows why we ask for email and password, and what to do if they are an existing customer.
2. All customer accounts are now activated immediately, whether they complete the order (and pay) or not. In the event that  a customer does not complete the order, they can still log in as an existing customer the next time around.
3. Customers who attempt to order again in the future, but select “new customer” even though they have an account, will be reminded that they already have a password and given a chance to log in (or retrieve a lost password).
4. Customers are automatically logged in and saved with cookies so that when they return to the store for future purchases, they will already be remembered and not have to enter their email or password again, unless they choose to log out or order with a different email.
5. If an existing customer does not remember their password, they can now continue ordering without their password by simply checking “I forgot my password”. They never have to leave the checkout page, and a new password is generated and emailed to them automatically after they complete the order process.
6. Since all customers are now saved whether they complete the order process or not - this will enable new features in the future, such as being able to email a customer with a reminder that they added items to their shopping cart but did not finish ordering. This will help reduce abandoned shopping carts and lost sales for customers who did not have time or for other reasons were unable to finish the order process.

Below are a few screenshots of the new checkout form and its enhancements:

Returning customers will automatically be logged in and can skip email/password entry.

Existing customers will be prompted to log in, or they can have their password reset without leaving the checkout page.

We’ve just pushed a major update to Cerizmo that greatly enhances, and simplifies the item creation form.

• Item creation and file upload is now done in a single step, with live upload progress bars.
• Instant thumbnails on image uploads - select an image, see a generate thumbnail immediately.
• All parts of the item form work independently: queue up a large file to upload, upload thumbnails, and write your item description all at the same time.
• Changes are saved as they happen. If you get disconnected or simply don’t have time to finish everything, don’t worry - it will all be saved for you as an “uncompleted item”. Go to Store > Items in your control panel and select uncompleted items to continue editing anything you didn’t finish.

The new file upload progress bars require the latest version of Flash. Don’t worry - this is probably already installed on your browser (it is on over 98% of browsers already). if not, you can download the plugin here: http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

Below are a couple of screenshots of the new features in action:

Upload progress bars and instant thumnails

Edit anything while file uploads are in progress

We are about to push out a major update which will greatly simplify the process of creating a new items and handling your files. It will also change the way files are stored and used.

File Upload/Item Creation Changes:

1. An upload progress bar is being added so you can see the progress of your file being uploaded to the server. You can also queue up to three files to be uploaded while you wait.

2. New items won’t be made available in your store until you finish uploading your files: so if you get disconnected, fall asleep, or go out to walk the dog and forget all about your store - don’t worry: your files will be saved automatically and you can activate the item when you’re ready.

3. Adding an item and uploading files (item downloads) has now been combined into a single step. You will no longer have to go to your file library to upload a file, and then later attach it to an item from a drop-down list. You can now upload new files or select existing files from your library during item creation.

4. Since file upload and item creation are now done at the same time, files which are not used on any items will automatically be deleted. This will prevent unused files from counting against your disk space limit, and also allow us to save disk space on the server side too!

Keep in mind that due to change #4 above, when this patch goes live, all files which are not currently being used on items will be purged from the system within 24 hours. If you have uploaded files you aren’t ready to sell yet - don’t panic: just create a new item, attach those files to the item, and set available for sale to off. This will save the files on that item until you’re ready to go live.

Category Changes

We have noticed a pattern of new merchants creating many categories before adding any items, such as ones they may use in the future. These categories were displayed in your store even though they were empty -which may have confused customers and/or made your store look incomplete (not a good thing either way).

With this change, categories you create won’t be shown in your store until you put some items in them. This is the default, but if for some reason you want empty categories displayed anyway, you can enable the Display Empty Categories setting to override this.

We’ve made a few minor tweaks and a few bug fixes to Cerizmo tonight. One of them transparent, three you can see on your store:

1. The word ‘Welcome” is no longer hard-coded into the front page of your store, to allow for more customizability. If you want to add it back (or do it in your own native language for non-English stores), use the Welcome Message under Settings in your Merchant Control Panel.
2. The extremely approximate expiration time on download pages is no longer displayed (the one that would say “in about 2 days” when it was 2 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes). We felt the exact date (which is still listed) is sufficient.
3. The Shopping Cart link at the top of your store now displays the number of items in the cart.
4. Orders which added state sales tax through PayPal automatically (via your own settings) should now process properly with Cerizmo.

Discount code support is finally here! You can now create custom codes for your customers to use to apply discounts to their shopping cart purchases. This feature is available to all Premium and higher accounts. Options include the following:

- Discount Code Name
- Discount Code (for your customer to enter)
- Flat or Percentage Discount
- Minimum Cart Total (to be eligible for the discount code)
- Minimum Cart Items (to be eligible for the discount code)
- Maximum Uses (customers who can use the code before it expires)
- Expiration Date

To use this feature, log into your Merchant Control Panel and go to Store -> Discount Codes.

Create your discount code in the Merchant Control Panel.

Discount code option will automatically be shown at checkout if the purchase is eligible.