New E-Commerce Shopping Cart Software Excerpo® Storefront 3.0 Addresses Key Needs of Small and Medium Sized Businesses

AIS Media, developers of Excerpo® Storefront, the e-commerce system designed specifically for the needs of the small and medium sized business (SMB), today announced its newest release of Excerpo® Storefront 3.0, which addresses key online shopping issues for users while expanding on a powerful, business class feature set needed by small- and medium-sized businesses.

“Most of today’s e-commerce solutions have traditionally been engineered by technology professionals who don’t always develop software with business needs in mind. Consequently, most e-commerce technology ignores the concerns of the SMB and its customers,” says AIS Media CEO Thomas Harpointner.

ECommerce business publications have recently reported high levels of dissatisfaction expressed by SMBs with enterprise designed e-commerce systems. Traditional e-commerce systems are plagued by platform instabilities, poor management functionality and security and usability problems that drive shoppers to other sites.

“SMBs using Excerpo® Storefront just don’t have these complaints,” Harpointner said. “We believe it is because, as business people, we engineered our solution to have the management features that SMBs want and the usability features their shoppers demand. And we’re always improving on both.”

On the usability side, Excerpo® Storefront 3.0 delivers a variety of advanced features that online shoppers demand. Shoppers can now use a “wish-list” that saves information on potential purchases for later and issues reminders. Functionality even allows shoppers to set up gift registries for special occasions and email the registry to the gift-givers in their lives.

Excerpo® Storefront 3.0’s improved user management features make it easy for shoppers to manage their passwords, contact information and shipping addresses. An “address book” feature gives shoppers ultimate flexibility in shipping the products they buy online. This, along with a more streamlined checkout process provides shoppers with a more user-friendly environment.

“Sixty percent of shopping cart abandonment occurs at checkout,” Harpointner says. “One of the main reasons people abandon a purchase is because shipping is unclear, too rigid or incalculable and checkout is the place they discover it. We’ve built Excerpo® Storefront 3.0 so the online shopper has greater control over shipping and the options they want for sending out the items they buy.”

An important value for return online shoppers is product based reviews written by consumers. Excerpo® Storefront 3.0 leverages this functionality so shoppers can easily review products, leave feedback and more. The feature comes with administrative controls so retailers can moderate, accept or delete shopper postings.

Excerpo® Storefront 3.0 also puts more control in the retailer’s hands with powerful administrative features. A key user complaint about online shopping is that products are too often poorly displayed and described. With Excerpo® Storefront 3.0 retailers can easily set variable descriptive features like size, color, price and so forth. Products can be easily displayed with multiple thumbnail images that click to enlarge for closer inspection.

Another main concern of online shoppers is that shopping cart interfaces tend to be cluttered and, after a few clicks, it can be difficult for shoppers to determine where they are in a site’s architecture. Excerpo® Storefront 3.0 solves this problem with enhanced category description functionality. Product categories can be easily described so shoppers know at a glance where they are in a site.

Excerpo® Storefront 3.0 also allows retailers to apply discounts on individual products or across multiple products as a percentage. The new version also features detailed sales reporting to help retailers improve their overall store management.

Some 66% of online retailers have shared in surveys that they are generally dissatisfied with the limitations of their e-commerce system platforms. Excerpo® Storefront 3.0 solves this problem because it can be "plugged into" virtually any type of web site, hosted on any type of server and platform, anywhere in the world.


About AIS Media: Founded in 1997, AIS Media, Inc. offers a comprehensive suite of Internet technologies and services both directly to business and through its Certified eBSP® (eBusiness Solutions Provider) Network. AIS Media’s services include mission-critical web hosting, e-commerce systems, transaction processing services, professional web site and web application development, Internet marketing and e-business consulting. The company’s global customer base ranges from small retailers to Fortune 500 corporations. For more information and to locate a local eBSP®, visit: www.aismedia.com.

For further information, please contact:

Jamie Bloomquist
Marketing Communications Manager
AIS Media, Inc.
7000 Central Parkway, Suite 1700
Atlanta, GA 30328 USA
Tel: 770-350-7998
Fax: 770-350-9409
jbloomquist@aismedia.com
www.aismedia.com