Latest release of online offering for small, midsize businesses beefs up
shopping features, automation for merchants, clients
San Jose, CA
October 13, 2005 ProStores, an eBay company that enables small- and
medium-sized businesses to establish customized e-commerce sites, has rolled out
new functionality and features in its newest Web storefront solution release,
offering improved inventory management capabilities, among other
upgrades.
The improvements apply to all four available tiers of
ProStores, from the basic ten-item Express store to the Business, Advanced and
Enterprise stores, which offer unlimited product inventory. The upgraded product
was slated to become available at www.prostores.com starting October
10.
The upgrades in ProStores 6.0 include increased integration with
eBay, search engine optimization tools, beefed up inventory management
capabilities and expanded shopping-cart options. Every ProStores site will be
upgraded automatically, without charge, when version 6.0 is released. Store
owners will be notified of the product upgrade through an e-mail newsletter and
where merchants log onto their sites.
"ProStores 6.0 incorporates
feedback from our merchants and includes more of the expanded features they seek
to manage their online storefronts effectively," said Chris Tsakalakis, senior
director of stores and platforms for eBay Inc. "We have made the shopping
experience more convenient, easier and flexible at all ProStores tier levels
with this latest upgrade."
Increased Inventory Management
Options
Inventory management is now available in all four
available tiers of ProStores, including the Express and Business tiers. The
ProStores solution, which launched in June 2005, initially offered inventory
management for Advanced and Enterprise tiers only.
The new release
enables ProStores Express merchants to set whether they have one or many of up
to ten items they have for sale. In the Business tier, merchants now can
indicate the exact quantities available for each of their items. With the higher
ProStores tiers, store owners can enable backorders and list quantities by a
variety of attributes, such as size or color.
Elsewhere, eBay said that
the shopping experience using ProStores 6.0 will make it faster and easier for
shoppers to check out. Shoppers can now purchase on a merchant's ProStores site
without registering. Merchants can choose to require registration or not, or let
the customer decide. The registration feature aids returning or repeat customers
by automatically remembering their billing and shipping information, eBay
said.
Greater eBay Cross-Functionality
While
ProStores enables merchants to operate a storefront independent of the eBay
marketplace, the software also provides integration with eBay. Integration of
ProStores with the eBay marketplace has been beefed up in the 6.0 upgrade,
allowing merchants to import numerous photos of their eBay listings of products.
ProStores 6.0 also enables merchants to upload product files they create with
eBay's free Turbo Lister software.
In addition, ProStores 6.0 gives
merchants the option of letting the ProStores software automatically optimize
elements of their online store for search engines. This upgrade includes tips to
help merchants improve their store's position in search-engine
results.
Improved navigation allows shoppers to add or delete items
easily from their shopping cart and to access the shopping cart from anywhere on
the merchant's ProStores site. Shoppers also can enter a ZIP code to determine
the actual shipping cost of an item prior to checkout.
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