Your Store Wizards October 2019 Update

Scott SanfilippoWell, it’s finally here!  The much anticipated fourth quarter, the time of the year most eCommerce store owners look forward to.  For me, it’s always an exciting time. From getting promotions and sales ready for the holiday shopping season to making sure inventory is on hand and employees are ready to tackle the influx of orders.

Here at Your Store Wizards, we’re in the middle of our own holiday prep.  We’ve been upgrading the servers that power many of our apps, working with clients who need last-minute tweaks done to their store before the rush, and mapping out what’s to come in 2020.  

However, like many platform and software providers, we won’t be making any major code changes to our apps for the remainder of the year.  That doesn’t mean we’ll be resting on our laurels, in fact it’s the opposite.

I mentioned previously that we’re planning on launching our most popular apps – Search Magic and AMP Wizard – on BigCommerce and Shopify in Q4 of 2019 and Q1 of 2020.  Our development team, under the leadership of our founder Don Cole, will be wearing out their keyboards over the next few weeks and months to make that happen.

Regardless of the time of year and whether or not your business sees increases during the fourth quarter, we’re here for you!  Our support team is always standing by to help with any issue that may impact your store.  

Platform Migrations

Over the past two months, we’ve been getting more and more requests from store owners to help with platform migrations.  Whether you’re moving to and from Magento, BigCommerce, Shopify, Yahoo!, or some other platform, chances are we can help.

Moving your store from one platform to another is no easy task and it’s not a decision that should be made quickly.  There are many things to consider before deciding to move and we can walk you through all of that if this is something you’ve been thinking about.

If your plans for 2020 include platform migration, now is the perfect time to begin having a discussion with us.  After an initial consultation, we’ll take a look at your store, let you know what can be moved and what can’t, discuss the data transfer options, and provide an estimated timeframe.

To schedule a consultation, email us at support@yourstorewizards.com

Search Magic for the Holidays

One thing you must have in place for the holidays is a good in-store search application.  After all, you want your visitors to be able to find everything they’re looking for while they’re shopping.  For the most part, the out-of-the-box search app most eCommerce platforms include just don’t cut it and are very limited in what they offer.

But a good advanced search product doesn’t have to cost a fortune and shouldn’t come with a contract!

Search Magic Comparison Chart
Search Magic Comparison Chart

If you’re currently using an advanced search app and your contract is coming up for renewal, talk to us.  Same for those who don’t have an advanced search app and are considering one. We’ll give you a demonstration of our flagship product, Search Magic, and show you just how much money you can save while continuing to offer your customers a robust advanced search engine.

Search Magic, like all our apps, is a month-to-month service with no contract to sign and comes with that fantastic Your Store Wizard support you’re used to receiving.

To schedule a demo, email support@yourstorewizards.com and we’ll work to have it up and running for you in time for the holidays if you purchase by October 31, 2019.

TaxJar Update

Internet sales tax continues to be an issue that is clear as mud.  But one thing is certain, more and more states are jumping on the bandwagon to grab their percentage of your sales.  I recently wrote a blog article about four more states that started collecting tax as of October 1, 2019.  

If you’re selling online, chances are you’re going to have to start collecting sales tax on more and more orders as time goes on, so why wait to become compliant?

TaxJar makes it easy for merchants to collect, report, and remit sales tax in states where it’s required.  We partnered with them to easily have the service integrated in your Yahoo!, BigCommerce, or Shopify store.

To learn more, and to sign up, email support@yourstorewizards.com and we’ll walk you through the process.

For current TaxJar users, our integration has been updated to allow you to set a global product tax code for all items in the store.  This has been rolled out to all users earlier this month.

One More Thing

Before I close this month’s update, tomorrow we will be having our quarterly leadership meeting where we’ll be planning our roadmap from now through the end of the year.  We have many, many exciting things to discuss and I can’t wait to share the “what’s next” with you in my November update. 

I’ll tip my hand and say we’re going to be rolling out some new free tools (one that I’m very excited about), relaunching one of our site performance products, and introducing a…. Whoops!  Almost let that one slip out…. 

Just stay tuned to our Facebook page and subscribe to our blog by entering your email in the upper right-hand corner of this page so you don’t miss a thing.

As always, thanks for your business and happy selling!

Scott Sanfilippo
General Manager, YSW

 

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