| 1999 - 2001 |
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PowerCartPlus™
(yet to be named) had its humble beginnings in 1999.
As a stand-alone shopping cart the first version was a
versatile and very capable shopping cart. We'll
call this "Version 1.0"
Built on the server behaviors designed by Joseph Scavitto
and powered by a SQL database, John Witcher and Kevin
Robson had designed a shopping cart with a great many
benefits that other competitors were still yet to achieve. |
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- Unlimited Departments
- Unlimited Products
- Unlimited Images
- Line Item Pricing
- Line Item Taxes
- Line Item Shipping
- and much more
|
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| 2001 - 2002 |
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| This year John Stanford
joined the team and began implementing numerous changes
that would take the cart from where it was, to where it
is today, and eventually even give it a name. |
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| Version 2.0 |
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| The cart, in its
infancy, was capable of much more than it was being used
for. Being extremely versatile, it was only a matter
of time before its many capabilities began to be utilized.
This version saw the modification of email notices to
the store owner with more descriptive information concerning
the products being purchased. The email now contained
a full description of each item purchased, the options
chosen for each item, and the SKU number for that particular
item. Two separate product detail pages were designed
to serve the different types of products that could be
sold through the cart. A complete overhaul of the
order process and the addition of being able to purchase
with checks or money orders as well as establishing and
integration with the PayPal payment system. |
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| Version 3.0 |
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Line item price
breaks, volume pricing and "member pricing"
options were also added. This allowed the store
owner to offer discounts on certain items (either by percentage
or flat rate) according to the number of items purchased
or even an overall discount on the entire order if the
order exceeded a preset dollar amount.
"Member Pricing" (or volume dealer pricing)
allows separate prices for customers who may have entered
into a purchase "club" or may have attained
a certain dollar amount in purchases over a predetermined
period of time. |
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| 2003 |
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| Version 3.2 |
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With shipping costs
being a major factor for most store owners John added
several shipping calculators to get exact shipping costs
through UPS, FedEx and the USPS. A total of twelve
(12) calculators were written in order to calculate all
forms of shipping through these carriers. An image
upload feature was added to give store owners the capability
to upload department and product images via a web page
interface instead of FTP (which most store owners didn't
even know what FTP was, much less how to use it.)
The new image upload feature also allowed for easy editing
(changing) of the images as well as automatic deletion
of images as departments or products were removed from
the store.
Oh yeah, this is when PowerCartPlus™ was born. |
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| Version 4.0 |
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Version 4.0 saw
the most upgrades being made to the cart. First,
a dynamic drop-down menu was added to the top of each
cart page. This allowed for easier site navigation
throughout the store. The most advantageous of changes
was still yet to come.
What if we had a shirt that came in 4 different colors,
4 different sizes and 2 different styles, but the shirts
were priced differently. Under the old system, that
would mean putting up 32 different products into the database.
Under the new system (detail option pricing) each option
could be given its own price. So if a customer bought
a "Long Sleeve" shirt they would be charged
a different price than a customer who bought the same
shirt in "Short Sleeve". Thus making data
entry easier for the store owner and shopping more convenient
for the customer. |
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Finally, Inventory
tracking was added. As each order is placed in the
cart the items are deducted from the on-line inventory.
When the inventory level reaches a "0" (zero)
the item no longer appears in the store. If a customer
attempts to purchase more of an item that what is in stock
the system over-rides the order and only adds to the cart
what is available.
As items fall below a pre-set inventory re-order level
it is automatically added to a "items needed to order"
page. This helps the store owner keep a better handle
on what is "in stock", what is "out of
stock" and what items need to be ordered. |
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| Coming
in Version 5.0 |
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Dynamic choice shipping
where the customer can choose the type of shipping they
want on their order and get a "real-time" shipping
cost applied to the order.
Real-Time credit card and electronic check processing
for orders. |
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| If you have any
suggestions on how we could make PowerCartPlus™
better, more versatile or easier to use, for either the
store owner or the customer, please let us know by sending
us an email using the cart Q&A Forum. |
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