October 2012 Newsletter
Never a dull day here at Tribulant Software, we always say… and those words never rang truer than they have this past month. We have been as busy as ever with improvements, additions and other behind-the-scenes scurrying about, making sure that Tribulant Software remains your No.1 destination for quality WordPress plugins that simply work.
Table of Contents
- New Plugin Releases
- Partnership with PlatinumPopup
- Setting the Record Straight
- Price Increase
- To Renew or Not to Renew…
- Find Us on Facebook
New Plugin Releases
Shopping Cart Plugin v1.6.9
We’re happy to announce the release of version 1.6.9 of our WordPress Shopping Cart plugin, with the following added features:
- New overview page with totals, orders, stock and a chart/graph
- Authorize.net CIM integration (extension)
- Guest Checkout (extension)
- Echo Global Logistics (extension)
- Featured products
- Supplier role in WordPress for suppliers
- Customer role in WordPress for new users/customers via checkout
- Custom post types for products, categories and suppliers
- …and many more added & improved features and fixes
Guest Checkout Extension Plugin
This nifty little plugin allows customers to purchase and checkout without having to register or login to an account.
With the WordPress Shopping Cart plugin users/customers are required to register/login during the checkout procedure to continue with their purchase. This could slow down the checkout procedure and reduce the conversion rate on your shop.
This extension plugin eliminates the register/login step of the Shopping Cart plugin and lets your users/customers go through the checkout procedure without having to go through that extra step. Improve your customers’ experience and increase sales conversions now!
First Data API Gateway Extension Plugin v1.2
The First Data API Gateway extension plugin gives you the ability to accept credit card payments through First Data in the WordPress Shopping Cart plugin installed on your WordPress website.
This integration will keep your customers on your WordPress website at all times and won’t send the customers away to a payment page outside of your website ever.
See the First Data API documentation for installation, activation and setup instructions in order to use the gateway correctly. Also see the release notes for changes made in v1.2 of this extension plugin.
First Data e4 Web Services API Extension Plugin
Sell products on your WordPress website using our WordPress Shopping Cart plugin and your First Data Global Gateway e4 account.
This integration of First Data uses your First Data Global Gateway e4 account and connects to First Data using API so that your customers are kept on your website at all times. Customers are not sent away which increases sales conversions.
Get the First Data e4 Web Services API extension plugin to start selling!
Authorize.net CIM Extension Plugin
An amazing extension plugin to capture sales and save card profiles for your customers using your Authorize.net account and the CIM feature.
It links up to your existing Authorize.net AIM payment method which processes Authorize.net payments directly on your website without sending customers away. What is added is that on the payment page customers have the option to save their card details to reuse at a later stage. If a customer saves the card details it will be available next time the customer goes through checkout so that the customer doesn’t have to fill in all the card details again.
Get the Authorize.net CIM extension plugin to increase sales conversions on your existing Authorize.net AIM payment method in your WordPress Shopping Cart plugin.
Echo Global Logistics Extension Plugin
This is a shipping module for the WordPress Shopping Cart plugin. It allows you to fetch real-time shipping services/rates for your customers during checkout using your Echo Global Logistics account.
As your customers add tangible products to their basket and go to checkout a shipping quote needs to be established. This extension plugin will make a request to Echo and respond with a list of shipping services/rates from multiple carriers which are available for the origin, destination, weight and dimensions of the order accordingly. The customer then chooses the preferred shipping service and rate that they want to take.
Get the Echo Global Logistics extension plugin for user-friendly shipping quotes in your WordPress Shopping Cart plugin.
Nochex Payments Pages Gateway Extension Plugin
Are you a UK merchant wanting to sell products on your WordPress website? You can use our WordPress Shopping Cart plugin with the Nochex Payment Page Gateway extension plugin and start selling in minutes.
The Nochex Payment Page Gateway hosts as secure payment page for you over SSL so your customers are sent through the checkout procedure on your WordPress website away to Nochex to make a payment and they then return back to your site with an order confirmation “Thank You” page.
Click here to apply for your Nochex account and get the Nochex Payment Page Gateway extension plugin to hook it up with and start selling within minutes. This is a Nochex approved shopping cart.
PlatinumPopup Partnership
Coming soon: a Popup Plugin that holds its own with the best the market has to offer!
We take pleasure in announcing that an agreement has been forged whereby Tribulant Software will take over the development, sales, licensing and support of the PlatinumPopup WordPress plugin.
We acknowledge the role that properly used popups play on websites today, and have felt for a while that we should add a professional grade popup plugin to our “repertoire.”
Once released from the Tribulant Software stable, the plugin’s name will change to WordPress Popup Plugin.
Setting the Record Straight
It was recently brought to our attention that WP Engine, a hosting provider that specializes in WordPress hosting, had added our WordPress Newsletter plugin to their list of “Disallowed Plugins” (scroll down and search for ‘wp-mailinglist’).
Upon inquiry we received the following answer from Austin Gunter from WPEngine.com:
“The issue is with mailing list plugins in general, not any particular one. It comes down to a choice about how we run WP Engine. We have SMTP servers designed to send normal emails in WordPress, but using WordPress to send a newsletter to thousands or tens of thousands of recipients falls outside those bounds. We recommend that our customers use MailChimp, or Constant Contact, or Aweber etc if they are sending emails at that scale. Yes, this means that certain plugins won’t be allowed on our servers, including paid ones.”
They did say, however, that the plugin can be used with an external/remote SMTP server.
Price Increase
The end of October 2012 heralds a 10% price increase on our plugins. The 10% will be approximate, since prices will be rounded up or down to create round totals.
Some of the extension plugins will be increased by this margin as well, but the update subscription extension & renewal costs will remain the same.
To Renew or Not to Renew…
Although some customers might grumble about it and view plugin update subscriptions as a money-grabbing racket, that view couldn’t be further from the truth. The fact is that it allow us to maintain a high standard of plugin development, maintenance and support. This translates into value for money for you, our customer.
Why is Updating Your Plugin Important?
Anyone who has been involved with WordPress for a fair length of time will have noticed at least two things:
1. WordPress is by far the best free CMS (content management system) platform there is today. Well – we think so anyway, and of course we are biased.
2. The only constant thing in WordPress is change!
To expand on the second point above: WordPress itself and its many thousands of themes and plugins are constantly evolving. The authors of WordPress and the thousands of authors of third party themes and plugins could not possibly keep all other themes and plugins in mind when creating/updating, so there will always be the issue of conflicts between themes/plugins and security issues which need to be addressed more often than not.
Then of course there’s always the need for improvements and additions, mostly fueled by changes and evolution in the marketplace, and the vivid imaginations of some users 😉
Keeping up with all of the above in order to deliver products that are a cut above does not come cheap, contrary to what many may think. Competent personnel and time are necessary “luxuries” – there is just no getting away from them.
For the good of both your Tribulant-powered website(s) and the Tribulant community, please make sure your plugin update subscriptions are up to date. Even better – you might consider automatic renewals. They are less intrusive and over before you know it! 😀
So do take action now – simply visit our downloads area (while logged in to your account) and click on “Renew Updates” or “Extend Updates“. You can use the “2012” coupon to get a 10% discount on your renewal/extension.
Find Us On Facebook
For instant news updates and announcements, like our Facebook page to see our posts in your news feed on your Facebook account. If you use Facebook for personal and/or business use, this is certainly a very useful way of staying in sync with us!
I’m a devoted hubby and father, and a WordPress convert (read: nut) of several years now. I love anything to do with plugins, themes and website creation. Working at Tribulant Software marries my love of WordPress with my sense of responsibility towards my family, and that makes me one very happy camper.
I live in Centurion, South Africa, although I spent seven years in Russia and wouldn’t exchange the experience for anything. My wife is Ukrainian, we speak Russian and our little girl is growing up tri-lingual (Afrikaans, English and Russian).
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Great tutorial.
And also I’ve found a fantastic plugin regarding wp-ecommerce referred to as “WP E-commerce Authorize. Net”.
http://codecanyon.net/item/wp-ecommerce-authorizenet/4494116
This kind of Plugin permits the particular WP E-Commerce Store owners to accept credit cards. Normally it takes less then 5 minutes to set up which is definitely the swiftest solution to integrate Authorize.net.
Hello! I’ve found a nice plugin for for wp-ecommerce called “WP E-commerce Authorize.Net”
http://codecanyon.net/item/wp-ecommerce-authorizenet/4494116
It will allows the WP E-Commerce Store owners to accept credit cards. It can take less then 5
minutes to set up and is by far the quickest way to integrate Authorize.net.
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