Meet CS-Cart 4.16.2 with improvements to storefronts and “Buy now with 1 click”
We have released CS-Cart Store Builder and CS-Cart Multi-Vendor 4.16.2. It is a patch release that brings minor improvements and fixes issues. Below, we’ll only cover the most important changes that make CS-Cart more efficient. You can find the full list of changes of version 4.16.2 in the documentation.
Improvements to storefronts in CS-Cart Multi-Vendor Ultimate
The owners of the most comprehensive Multi-Vendor edition will see a couple of improvements to storefronts: notifications for vendors coming from an expected storefront, and better API for storefront admins.
Vendors receive emails from the relevant storefront
Owners of CS-Cart Multi-Vendor create storefronts for different audiences or branches of business. You can create a storefront for different groups of products, or for different countries—with their own languages, currencies, etc. Vendors register on the marketplace through any of the storefronts.
The problem is that notifications for vendors could from different storefronts. For example, when a vendor registered on one storefront, they could sometimes receive a letter with the name and logo of another storefront.
We corrected this behavior in version 4.16.2. Now Multi-Vendor remembers which storefront the vendor has registered on. For the vendor this storefront is the main one, so the next vendor notifications come from it:
- registration and activation of the vendor accounts;
- approval or disapproval of the products after moderation by the marketplace administrator;
- necessity to pay the debt to the marketplace.
In cases when the buyer places an order from another storefront, the vendor receives a notification from the storefront where the order was placed.
API: Rights of storefront administrators were separated
In Multi-Vendor 4.15.1, we added the ability to assign administrators to specific storefronts. This is useful when you want to let your admins see only the data that is relevant to them.
In version 4.16.2, we changed the behavior of the API for administrators assigned to storefronts. Now the administrator will see the same data as in the admin panel: for example, they won’t see “extra” categories from other storefronts, etc.
“Buy now with one click” now behaves the same way in all situations
CS-Cart has the Call Requests add-on that allows customers to schedule a phone call. It also adds a “Buy now with 1-click” button to the product page in the storefront. When the buyer clicks the button, he needs to leave contact details—name, phone number and email.
Previously, the button behaved differently in different situations:
- When a buyer didn’t leave an email, the button only created a call request.
- When a buyer left an email, then the button also created an order.
This occurred because the “Email” field in CS-Cart used to be mandatory for checkout. Starting from version 4.16.2, “Buy now with 1-click” will always create an order. If the buyer doesn’t leave an email, then—like on checkout—a non-existent address that ends with @example.com will be used.
Additional blocks with products in mobile app
CS-Cart allows you to create blocks with different content anywhere in your online store. For example, when a product is out of stock, a block with similar products (from the same category or for the same price) can prevent customers from leaving empty-handed.
Previously, you could show the “Similar products” and “At the same price” blocks only on the desktop version of the store. In Multi-Vendor 4.16.2, we added support for such blocks to the mobile app. In order for the blocks to appear on the product page, you need to go to “Design > Layouts”, create the “View Product” page in the mobile app layout, and add the necessary blocks to its content. Now you can show related offers to customers not only on the site, but also in the application.
TinyMCE editor can upload files once again
In CS-Cart, you can choose which HTML editor to use in the admin panel to edit content— TinyMCE or Redactor. In version 4.16.1, TinyMCE worked incorrectly: file uploads did not work. Thanks to your reports, we have found the problem and fixed the editor. Now you can use TinyMCE to add images to the product descriptions, etc.
Improved product import and export
Products being imported by vendors no longer appear without moderation
The “Vendor data premoderation” add-on in CS-Cart Multi-Vendor allows administrators to track changes made by vendors in the marketplace. For example, you can approve or reject changes to products before showing them on the storefront.
Previously, when moderation of changes to products was required, vendors’ products could still appear on the storefront for the short time while they were being imported. They did disappear for moderation, but only once the import was complete.
In version 4.16.2, all imported vendor products immediately require moderation and do not appear on the storefront during the import process.
Removed restrictions on products export when there were more than 30 languages
To make it easier for customers to buy products in your shop, give them the choice of which language they prefer to shop in. However, a multilingual store includes translations not only of the interface, but also of the catalog—the names and descriptions of products, categories, options, and other parameters.
Previously, there could be a problem: it was impossible to export products with more than 30 languages. We removed this restriction in 4.16.2, and now you can export products with even more languages.
The full list of changes is in changelog.
The upgrades to version 4.16.2 are already available. As usual, we hand out upgrade packages in limited numbers for the first few weeks after the release. But then we lift that restriction. So if you don’t see this upgrade in your Upgrade Center yet, please check the update page later.
And if you’re using Multi-Vendor No-Code, we’ll handle the upgrade for you. You’ll just find the changes from version 4.16.2 in your cloud marketplace one day.