More questions on features

[Psalty]

Sorry to bombard you with questions but I have several more:

1. Can we assign search keywords to products for use by the site search engine? For example, if we know that a product is commonly searched for by its misspelled name, we could include that misspelling as a search keyword.

2. Has AC ever considered implementing parametric search (I hope I am using that term correctly) which as I understand it would allow customers in a specific category to choose specific search parameters, e.g., HD TV's between 37" and 42"?

3. Will the new email system allow confirmation emails to be product specific? For example, if a customer purchases a gift card, the customer will receive an email with gift card usage instructions. I realize this may be complicated as customers may purchase many items from multiple categories.

4. Will this version allow conditional discounts or coupons of the type that requires a customer to purchase product X or a product from category X in order to receive a discount on product Y or from category Y? For example, purchase a TV and receive a discount on all TV stands.

5. Will this version allow for certain products to be only accessible by certain customer levels or logins?

Thanks for your time.

[Shopping Cart Admin]

Hello,

1. You could add the words in the product description field using the same color as your background.

2. If you create your categories in this manner, then the current search.aspx page which uses refinement drill down would likely work for this purpose.

3. emails are not product specific, however gift cards and esd products have there own emails. Using esd you could create product specific emails.

Your last two requests are not often asked for, so they are features that will be in 7.1/7.2. (Early 08)

4. Work around: Add the TV stands to the tv as a kit at the lower price. Create a coupon good for X off the selected TV/TV stands, but with a minimum purchase requirement that would need a TV to be included to meet the minimum.

5. Would require customization. It's been done with 5.5, not sure of the complexity in 7.0.

Two other missing features of AbleCommerce 7.0, spaghetti code and incomplete features that require you to enter things like customer ID's into fields using comma separated lists. Our new codebase was designed for a large feature set and will be able to be expanded on over the coming years without the mess found in other products.

[Psalty]

What fields does AC search into? Title, Summary, Description, More Details, Manufacturer Part Number, Product Template? Is this configurable?

[Psalty]

One other question:

For items, categories, etc. that are made to be accessible only by direct url entry, are those items hidden from search engine (google) indexing as well?

[Shopping Cart Admin]

Hello,

1. the advanced search page wasn't in the demo store, you can see it via the link below. Adding additional criteria to search forms isn't a tough thing to do. I'll put in a feature enhancement for the additional fields, but I cannot say if it will make it into final.

http://demo.ablecommerce.com/ac6/advancedsearch.aspx

2. If a category or product is hidden then there a no links to the page, so it's impossible for google to find and index them.

[Shopping Cart Admin]

Hello PSalty,

These additions will make it into the next release.

1. If the user selects 'description' it should also search 'summary' and 'more details'.
2. if the user selects 'SKU' it should also search 'Manufacturer part number'.

3. I want to add a 'Keywords' field to the products Table, which will go under the HTML Head area (on product editing), where people can add keywords and frequent misspellings. It will always be searched regardless of the 'search setting'.

[Psalty]

That's awesome. Thanks Mike.

Does next release mean Beta 2?

[Shopping Cart Admin]

Hello,

Yes it does! I'll read your mind and answer your next question. 8 to 10 working days for beta 2. Which will have all known issues fixed along with the 36 'additional' enhancements.

[Psalty]

Wow, you guys can read minds too?

I have another question...

Can the ESD be used just to deliver serial keys? We have a membership club that we sell online that gives our users a special membership code that can be used for discounts on our separate photofinishing services site (we mail them a membership card too which can be used in our retail stores).

[Shopping Cart Admin]

Hello,

Sure. But you'd need to at least deliver a text (pdf,etc) file, which could contain instructions on redemption instructions in this case.

[mitch]

Hi guys

Currently the Product Finder keyword search appears to search only on product name.

Are there any plans to incude keyword searching by description / summary / more details / keywords etc as the default for the Keyword search in the Product Finder?

Hello PSalty,

These additions will make it into the next release.

1. If the user selects 'description' it should also search 'summary' and 'more details'.
2. if the user selects 'SKU' it should also search 'Manufacturer part number'.

3. I want to add a 'Keywords' field to the products Table, which will go under the HTML Head area (on product editing), where people can add keywords and frequent misspellings. It will always be searched regardless of the 'search setting'.

[sohaib]

Hi guys

Currently the Product Finder keyword search appears to search only on product name.

Are there any plans to incude keyword searching by description / summary / more details / keywords etc as the default for the Keyword search in the Product Finder?

Hello PSalty,

These additions will make it into the next release.

1. If the user selects 'description' it should also search 'summary' and 'more details'.
2. if the user selects 'SKU' it should also search 'Manufacturer part number'.

3. I want to add a 'Keywords' field to the products Table, which will go under the HTML Head area (on product editing), where people can add keywords and frequent misspellings. It will always be searched regardless of the 'search setting'.

Hello,

The above mentioned features were for AdvancedSearch page. On this page these features are already implemented.

But I see what you mean ... The simple search page (Product Finder) should also search in the search keywords ...

I have added a new bug for this
http://bugs.ablecommerce.com/show_bug.cgi?id=5895

Thanks,
Sohaib

[Will]

Seems like the simple search should search in all fields available for a product (sku, name, description, main description, keywords, etc.) as well as custom fields we add.

[Shopping Cart Admin]

Hello Will,

That would put a huge load on the server for every query, not sure that's a good idea.