Nothing says fall like popcorn, and the best way to satisfy that craving is a trip to the recently upgraded Popcornopolis.com. When Varien was approached for the redesign of the site, we focused on optimizing the architecture of the catalog to make it easier than ever to find that perfect gourmet kernel.

In the old site, customers had to not only search for the desired flavor, but were forced to drill down into the catalog to find the exact product that they wanted to purchase. Popcornopolis’ new site design improves all of this, featuring a leftside navigation that makes it easy for the customer to browse the store’s catalog by flavor, collection or gift. The product images were also upgraded to newer versions that will make your mouth water.

This navigation change makes the shopping experience much more streamlined, allowing customers to first choose a flavor, then choose the popcorn’s container. Displaying the container options and prices on the product page enables the customer to make faster choices and creates an up-sell opportunity.

We’ve also added a tool that allows the store owner to easily upload promotional containers for holidays or special occasions, which encourages customers to buy popcorn for themselves and as gifts (especially when coupled with the site’s Ship to Multiple Address functionality).

Take a look around, and experience the new shopping experience for yourself. We’d love to hear what you think about it in the comments!”

If you’re in need of a great-looking new bag to protect your laptop, camera or other electronics, check out Varien’s newest site release, Skooba Design. Built on Varien’s high-end backend, Skooba Design includes a variety of custom features on both the front and backend.

By implementing a Quickview feature on the product listing pages using AJAX, customers can view the product, select the product’s options, and add to cart without having to go to the product info page. The site also features an AJAX shopping cart, allowing customers to add items to the cart and review the cart without ever disrupting the shopping experience. The shopping cart also includes an upsell feature for further product promotion. When a customer needs to check out, they have the option to check out as a guest using the site’s guest checkout.

To make it easier for customers to browse, we’ve included a lightbox slideshow for product photos, allowing customers to easily click through multiple images on a product’s page. We also developed a custom Laptop Bag Finder for the site, allowing customers to input their laptop’s dimensions and easily find products in the store that fit their laptop.

If a customer wishes to buy offline, a custom store locator tool will help them find the closest brick and mortar outlet to do so.

The site features an Affiliate System as well, allowing Skooba to give a product link to an affiliate and then track orders coming from that affiliate. Along with this detailed Affiliate Report, Varien has included a variety of useful reports including one to track cart abandonment. The site’s backend also includes the ability to create custom promotions, including free shipping coupons, buy X get Y free (for example, “Buy 2 get 1 free”), and gift certificate functionality.

So if you’re looking for a laptop bag or simply want to see some of these great features in action, visit Skooba Design and tell us what you think!

We are proud to announce Magento’s inaugural preview version 0.6 is now available for Download. With the beta release of the product, a new community site is now online … and the long awaited demo store. A few of the community highlights include a user forum, knowledge base, wiki, and more. We’ve also released a series of screencasts showcasing Magento in action.

We’re excited to hear what you think! Feel free to leave a note in the comments or contact us. This is an exciting time for Varien, and we want you to be a part of it!

We thought we’d give you all a heads up that Varien has another eCommerce article online, this time over at Vitamin, outlining the basics of copywriting for eCommerce. We’re really excited about it, so check out the excerpt below and see the entire article here. Tell us what you think in the article’s comments!

“It’s important to understand your products’ target audience before you begin writing. Who, exactly, are you writing for? Grandmothers? Artists? Technophiles? For example, a store that wants to become the ultimate gear source for teenage snowboarders wouldn’t use the formal writing style of a site that appeals to middle-aged businessmen. You’re always writing for someone else, and you’ll keep your copy focused by not forgetting who they are. Once you’ve identified your copy’s target audience, decide how to appeal to that audience. Here’s where your company’s personality has a chance to shine through, setting you apart from your competitors. Remember, even though your competitors sell similar products, they aren’t you.”

The release of Magento is approaching quickly, and we’re getting more and more excited. For any of you that haven’t been keeping up with the Magento blog, we thought we’d give an update on what we’ve been showcasing lately.

First Magento Chat a Success!
Magento’s first community chat was a great success, with the eCommerce conversation flowing quickly along. The discussion centered around US Taxes, Coupons/Promotions and Taxonomies in the eCommerce sphere, and everyone had a lot to say. See the transcript of part of the chat here!

Magento: Behind the Scenes
Our newest regular feature, Magento: Behind the Scenes, takes you inside the look and feel of Magento, giving you a look at some of Magento’s wireframes and outlining the layout we’re using for the functionality included. So far, we’ve covered:

Inside Magento:
We’ve continued to show you all the great ways that Magento is going to make life easier for eCommerce retailers. Features like:

Take a look. If you like what you see, sign up for the Magento newsletter or keep up with us on the blog. Magento’s highly anticipated release is right around the corner… don’t miss a thing!

If you head over to the Zend Framework site you will find Magento, Varien’s new eCommerce platform, front and center as a featured example of the Zend Framework in action.

You can also read a case study on Varien’s use of the Zend Framework for development at the site.

Today, we’re excited to introduce our newest site, Kabspo.com, which sells fun and educational products to help “keep America beautiful!” The site is designed and developed by Varien, and we’re also proud to announce that Kabspo.com is the first site of ours to be integrated with Google Checkout! Take a look at some of the site’s features below.

The frontend includes a wishlist functionality for customers, along with a wishlist tagging system to help sort and organize wishlist items for easier access. On the product pages the Store Owner has the option to include multiple images of a product or an enlarged image to let customers examine an item more closely. Each product page also allows a customer to view estimated shipping cost pages from UPS.

The site’s catalog features a Tier Pricing System, allowing customers to get quantity-based discounts. The Store Owner also has the option to implement Group Tier Pricing for certain products. Here’s how it works: On the backend, the Store Owner can assign two different items, item A and item B, to a Tier Pricing group. Now, if a customer buys 100 of item A, and 100 of item B, the price will be the same as if the customer purchased 200 of item A or item B. Since many of the items for sale are customizable, we also added a step in the ordering process that allow customers to upload bot text and images to be featured on the customized product. To give customers a variety of payment options, we’ve included level 2 integration with Google Checkout, a credit card payment system through Payflow Pro and the ability to accept invoice payments.

The backend features an easy-to-use Promotions system, allowing the Store Owner to create a variety of coupons and other marketing incentives. Store Owners can define discount attributes such as “minimum order” or “buy X, get Y free” and then set the promotion as a code, or automatically in the shopping cart.

We also included a robust reporting system, with access to wishlist reports, popular viewed and purchased items, along with the ability to sort by conditions such as coupon codes and purchase date. Additionally, Store Owners can update e-mail templates, change promotional images on the homepage, set permissions and access a shipping calculator for customer service inquiries, all from the backend.

Take a look around and see some of these great features in action. And don’t forget to tell us what you think in the comments!

Today, over at the Magento Blog, we unveiled an exciting new feature called Community Chats in an effort to get our community’s feedback on a variety of eCommerce topics. In these chats, we’re planning on discussing eCommerce-related questions and your experiences in the industry, along with sharing our own. We’re hoping to get as much great input from you as we can. See more detailed information about these chats on the Magento Blog’s announcement.

Hopefully, some of the readers of the eCommerce Cache will join in. Not very familiar with Magento? Don’t worry… we’d love to get your feedback and hear what you have to share regarding your own experiences in eCommerce. The chat’s information is below… hope to see you there!

Community Chat - US Market

Date: August 2nd
Time: 11 AM PST
Sign Up: Interested? Contact us today.

Is your wallet or purse looking a little ragged? Then check out our newest release, Lodis. Varien designed and developed the site and we packed some great features into both the frontend and backend.

The homepage features a rotating promotional area, which allows Lodis to showcase previews of products and categories. On product listing pages, the customer can view the available colors for each product.

Once on the product page the customer has the ability to magnify the product to get a closer look at the color and texture. We’ve also tied the product image and available color drop-down together, allowing the Store Owner to feature images of the product in each color way.

Varien also developed a custom Store Locator functionality, allowing customers to filter results by distance and zip-code, and a separate wholesale section of the site. Once approved by the admin, wholesale customers can view upcoming trade shows, download the wholesale catalog and find sales representatives in their area.

On the backend, we’ve implemented CSV importing capabilities to minimize data entry time. We’ve also included a Content Management System to update parts of the site like the Press Section, FAQ and other customer-facing content like all e-mails. The Store Owner also has the ability to set promotions with expiration dates for any product. So if you need to pick up a new purse or just see more of our newest site, browse Lodis and let us know what you think!

Varien is proud to announce the launch of a totally new Magento site, featuring Magento videos, screen-captures of the new, streamlined Magento backend, and a detailed feature list to get you up to speed on what Magento can do right out-of-the-box in Beta1. For those of you new to the Varien blog, Magento is the open-source eCommerce solution from Varien…

We’re working tirelessly here at Varien to get Magento to you next month. Mark your calendars for August, and explore the site to see why Magento should be your next eCommerce solution!