All-New Content Slider  
07 May 2013

Our Content Slider feature has gotten a makeover!

• A sleeker and smoother display
• Easily add text/HTML/images to each individual slide
• Easily adjust slide transitions and speed
• ... and much more!

Packing Slip Manufacturer Name Sort Option  
30 April 2013

Packing slip products can now be sorted by manufacturer name, in addition to the existing sort options (Name, Price, etc.)

New Payment Gateway Integration: OmniPayment  
20 April 2013

We're now integrated with the OmniPayment payment gateway.

Cross-Selling Feature Enhanced  
15 April 2013

We've recently refined the algorithm that we use to determine products that should be cross-sold in order to provide a more accurate, and in some cases, more comprehensive list of recommended products for each product. We've updated the cross-sell algorithm to take into account product views and cart additions in addition to orders. This should give customers more choices and better suggestions for products that they might also be interested in.

Easily Add the Pin It Button to your Product Pages  
07 February 2013

Easily add the Pinterest Pin It button to all your product pages from your Feature Activation page. This gives visitors the option to pin your product images to their Pinterest boards and spread the word about your products.

New Payment Gateway Integration: MOLPay  
30 May 2012

We're now integrated with the MOLPay payment gateway.

New Payment Gateway Integration: beanstream  
20 May 2012

We're now integrated with the beanstream payment gateway.

Google Products: Product Variant Support  
15 April 2012

Added support for the Apparel variant, in feeds targeting the US, UK, DE, FR, and JP.

Google Products: Shipping and Tax Support  
15 September 2011

Feeds generated for Google Products now have shipping and tax information.

Mobile Commerce  
15 August 2011

The days of your customers having to repeatedly pinch at their smartphone screens just to view your store pages just right are over. Tap into the mobile phone revolution with your store by activating our new Mobile Commerce feature and getting your store pages mobile-optimized in under 5 minutes.

View this video to find out how to get started.

The Mobile Commerce feature lets visitors view mobile-optimized versions of your store pages. This makes browsing, navigating and buying at your store using a mobile device, a breeze.

Social Shop by InstanteStore Facebook App  
30 June 2011

Facebook, meet InstanteStore!

InstanteStore's integration with Facebook has now moved beyond "Like" to a full-fledged Facebook application. We're pleased to announce the introduction of our brand-new Social Shop by InstanteStore Facebook app. Now, you can easily post products from your InstanteStore to Facebook. This allows you to leverage the power of Facebook to sell even more of your products.

Your InstanteStore Social Shop on Facebook will be more than just another avenue to promote your store. Used properly, Facebook is an amazing social networking resource that can potentially help you grow your customer reach by leaps and bounds. Your Social Shop can be a showcase for your main products and to draw attention to your store from a whole set of new users (friends of your existing users, friends of their friends, etc.). What's more, unlike the tools produced by our competition, visitors to your store on Facebook will be able to complete their entire purchase without having to leave Facebook. This will help increase sales conversions.

All-New Store Admin Control Panel  
19 April 2011

Introducing our all-new admin control panel: an icon-based experience that gives store administrators a smoother and more intuitive way of accessing important store functions while making it much easier to find and access the full range of InstanteStore's features.

Quick Add to Cart  
09 April 2011

Our new Quick Add to Cart feature allows customers to add products to their shopping carts while continuing to browse your store uninterrupted.

When this is enabled, clicking the Add to Cart button will NOT bring customers to the shopping cart page directly. Instead, an overlay dialog (a smoother and modern pop-up effect) will display with the information of the product that was just added to the cart. The customer can then either choose to Continue Shopping and stay on the same page, or Checkout and head to the shopping cart.

This is useful especially when customers are adding many different products from the same category and don't want to have to keep clicking back from the shopping cart page after adding each product to the cart.

All-New Template System  
01 March 2011

We've completely revamped the template system so that customizing your store template is now more intuitive and easier than ever before. Drag and drop elements where you need them to be on your template. In addition, our design team has also produced 12 brand-new designs that you can use to give your store a completely fresh and modern look. More designs will follow regularly as well.

All-New Product Page Layouts  
19 January 2011

An attractive and appealing product page can be the difference between making a sale or having a customer pass and go elsewhere. This is why we've come up with 3 all-new, modern and streamlined product page layouts. Spruce up your products with a new look today!

Facebook and Twitter Bookmark your Product Pages  
07 December 2010

Easily add Facebook (Like) and Twitter (Tweet) bookmark buttons to all your product pages from your Feature Activation page. These buttons make it really easy for your customers to help you generate buzz about your store and products by liking and tweeting your products on Facebook and Twitter.

Google Checkout: Use Own Tax Tables/Charts  
24 November 2010

Google Checkout merchants now have the option of using their own Google Checkout tax tables/charts instead of passing your store's tax settings.

Configure Payment Pages Revamped  
23 November 2010

We've revamped and re-designed the layout and flow of the Configure Payment pages to be clearer, easier and more intuitive to use.

Free Shipping Discount Coupon Upgrades  
15 November 2010

Free shipping discount coupons now can have minimum order value and shipping zone restrictions. This means that you can use discount coupons to offer free shipping to specific locations for orders of a certain minimum value. This is useful for promotions that will offer free shipping, but only to certain places and not others.

Premium Live Chat Enhancement  
10 November 2010

Premium Live Chat now allows you to customize customer information. This is useful for personalizing messages that you initiate to customers via pro-active chats.

Doba Account Integration is Free  
25 October 2010

If you have an existing Doba account and want to use it with your InstanteStore, integration is now FREE!

Activate/Deactivate Product Options  
18 October 2010

It's now possible to activate or deactivate individual product options.

New Payment Gateway Integrated  
25 September 2010

We're now integrated with the Secure Hosting payment gateway

Live Chat History  
15 August 2010

Live Chat messages are now stored for up to 24 hours for easy resumption of chat sessions.

Premium Live Chat Upgrades  
15 August 2010

InstanteStore Premium Live Chat has gotten even better!

• Operator-to-operator chat: operators can now chat with each other using the live chat software itself
• Operators can now transfer a customer chat session to another operator. This is useful if an operator needs to take over a chat session from a colleague.

Product Option Stock Notification   
19 July 2010

The Stock Notification feature now works with product options as well. You can now choose to let customers request stock notification updates if individual product options are out of stock.

Content Slider Generator  
01 July 2010

A Content Slider is a great way to draw your customers' attention to your store and products. With our new Content Slider Generator feature, generating a Content Slider of your own for your front page or any of your product or category pages is as easy as 1-2-3.

Revamped: Add/Modify Product Interface  
03 June 2010

Check out your new add/modify product interface. We've made things simpler and more intuitive so that adding and making changes to your products is now easier than ever.

Just click to add a new product or modify an existing product to see your new interface.

We're sure you'll like how you can now add product options & immediately preview how it looks BEFORE adding your product. Super cool.

Login to your store & check it out now.

If you don't have a store with us, just click on the "Free Trial" button above to start a free trial account.

Choose Your Own Template Background  
26 May 2010

Stores with fixed-width templates can now easily apply template backgrounds to their templates. Choose from a selection of ready-to-go backgrounds or upload your own.

Display Subcategories on Your Store Template  
26 May 2010

You can now easily display all your subcategories on the Product Categories menu that appears on all your store pages.

Introducing Premium Live Chat  
15 April 2010

Premium Live Chat is now available with additional features that include:

• up to 9 sub-operators
• canned messages
• automatically-triggered chats (based on predefined conditions)
• the ability for operators to initiate chats with clients on your site (pro-active chats)

Introducing the Search Engine Traffic Conversion Booster  
22 February 2010

OK, this new feature's name is quite a mouthful, but it's extremely easy to set up, and is potentially effective when it comes to increasing conversion rates of visitors who've come to your store (whether it's your main page or a product or a category page or any page at all) via search engine results (Google, Yahoo and Bing for starters).

Visitors who arrive at your store via search engine results probably already have a pretty good idea of the type of products they're looking to check out or purchase. What this feature does is immediately show these visitors your store's Top 10 product search results for what they searched for at the search engine.

How does this help? Well, it immediately offers these visitors relevant product suggestions that are tailored to their specific search. This saves the visitor the additional step of having to run the same search again at your store and could make the difference between a potential customer and another bounced visitor.

InstanteStore Live Chat Software  
01 February 2010

You asked and we listened. You can now chat live with your website customers for absolutely free. Courtesy of InstanteStore. Use the free InstanteStore Live Chat software to boost sales, increase customer loyalty and engage with your website visitors.

Product Image Zoom Tool  
21 January 2010

Now available: a product image zoom tool that allows customers to hover over and zoom in on product page images, letting them have a more detailed view of products.

New Product Page Layout  
26 November 2009

We asked for your feedback earlier this month about new product page layouts, and we're happy to introduce the layout that was the most popular choice. We've also bundled this layout with a brand-new customization function that lets you choose from 4 preset themes, and allows you to pick the colors that you find most suitable for your store.

Support for Google Analytics Ecommerce Tracking  
02 July 2009

InstanteStore has added support for Google Analytics Ecommerce Tracking (tracking e-commerce transactions via Google Analytics). Once you've set up your Google Analytics account to track e-commerce transactions and enabled Google Analytics Ecommerce Tracking at your InstanteStore, your store will pass Google Analytics the necessary order information to track e-commerce transactions when customers reach the final payment/thank you page at your store.

Support for "Inclusive" Tax Handling  
10 June 2009

InstanteStore now supports "inclusive" tax models such as VAT-type taxes (taxes that are already factored into product prices). If "inclusive" taxes are configured and apply, your store will automatically calculate and display the correct tax amount based on the product prices in an order.

Show Available Payment Methods at Shopping Cart  
03 June 2009

This handy little feature will display a list of available payment methods to customers when they hover over the checkout button at the shopping cart. This helps customers know their available payment options even before they initiate the checkout process.

Tell A Friend  
26 May 2009

InstanteStore merchants can now take advantage of the Tell A Friend feature which lets visitors and customers tell their friends about any store page. This is a great viral marketing tool that allows store visitors to spread good word of mouth about your store and its products. This feature also includes options for customers to promote products that they've just purchased themselves, as well as the option of rewarding customers who recommend your store to friends with discounts or other rewards.

Sort Product Options  
18 May 2009

Product Options can now be sorted and re-arranged using the convenient Sort Options function.

Product Option Dependency Rules  
18 May 2009

The Product Option Dependency Rules function is a really useful option that will help your customers choose their customization options for a product.

Let's take for example a T-shirt. Your store's all about choice, so your T-shirt comes in multiple sizes (Small, Medium, Large) and colors (Red, White, Blue). However, let's say your store doesn't actually carry any Large Blue T-shirts. You can use Product Option Dependency Rules to exclude Large Blue T-shirts as a selectable option.

So when a customer selects the "Large" size, only the "Red" and "White" colors are available. When they select any other size, all 3 colors are available.

Store Product Brochures  
14 May 2009

InstanteStore merchants can now easily generate product catalogs/brochures of all/selected store products in PDF format. There are a number of available standard template layouts, which include order forms (useful for printed product brochures and ordering offline). Merchants can also upload their own fully-customizable HTML templates.

Order Archival Function  
06 May 2009

The Order Archival function enables merchants to archive older orders that are no longer frequently needed in order to make order processing of current orders more efficient and convenient. This function is available on an order-by-order or batch basis.

Automatically Generate/Update Store Google Base Feed  
23 March 2009

Instead of having to manually submit your products to Google Base, Google Base can download your product feed from your store. InstanteStore merchants can now choose to automatically generate and update the Google Base feed for their store, which will be available at a static URL. Merchants can then schedule updates by Google Base to continually update their product catalog.

New Product Newsletter Broadcast  
10 February 2009

The New Product Newsletter Broadcast function is a quick and easy way to broadcast news and information about new products to newsletter subscribers. Merchants can either send out broadcasts manually "on-demand", or set it up to send automatic periodic broadcasts. This way, merchants can keep subscribers informed of new products conveniently and on a regular basis.

Product Page Enhancements  
13 January 2009

Product page prices can now be automatically re-calculated and updated without customers having to click on the Recalculate button (when selecting options with price offsets, or for bulk quantity discounts). Important product page headers and elements have also been made more prominent.

On Sale Enhancements  
22 December 2008

We've recently enhanced the On Sale feature so that products that are On Sale are now much more prominent. Products that are On Sale will be tagged with very visible On Sale images. We've also tweaked the product, category, and On Sale pages to provide more sale information to customers. Customers will be able to see how much they're saving for each Sale product, as well as how many days are left in the Sale, all at a glance. These changes will allow you to have more effective Sale periods at your store.

Product RSS Feeds  
15 December 2008

InstanteStore now provides RSS feeds for customers to subscribe to the latest product updates. RSS feeds are available for new, most popular, and/or Sale products. The feeds are also available by category. This is a useful tool that RSS-savvy visitors and customers, especially, can use to keep themselves continually informed about store products.

INTRODUCING DOBA!  
20 November 2008

We're extremely pleased to announce our integration with Doba. Through Doba, you'll have access to a large selection of products provided by Doba's extensive list of suppliers. These suppliers will drop ship products directly to your customers so you will not have to worry about shipping and order fulfillment. If you have trouble finding suppliers for your products or don't want to worry about fulfilling your orders, our integration with Doba may just be the ideal solution for you.

Captcha Options on Registration and Contact Us Pages  
17 November 2008

Tired of phantom registrations and spam contact us inquiries? InstanteStore now provides the option of enabling captchas that need to be correctly entered before visitors can register or make inquiries at your store.

Easy Social Bookmarking  
06 November 2008

Social networking sites like Facebook, myspace, and twitter are extremely popular, with more and more people joining by the day. Our Easy Social Bookmarking tool lets visitors to your store easily add bookmarks to your store products to their social site accounts, where they can be viewed by their online friends. This opens up a potentially huge new audience for your products.

New Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Features  
02 May 2008

We've just introduced 3 new SEO features that will make it much easier for you to boost your store's SEO. If you weren't sure about how to get your pages ranked well before, these new tools will help guide you along your way with useful and focused SEO recommendations.

SEO Wizard
The SEO Wizard feature provides important keyword statistics and SEO Best Practice recommendations on how to get each of your pages to rank well. It will provide suggestions on how to use your keywords correctly, and help you keep SEO considerations in mind as you add and modify your store pages. The SEO Wizard feature has been activated by default, and is active on all Add and Modify Product, Category, and Custom Page interfaces.

Quick Internal Linking
Activate this feature to add a link to your store's main URL at your store border, so that every page of your store will automatically link back to your store's main/front page, using your targeted keyword. Your store's main page will now automatically have a whole new set of links to it using your primary keyword, which is an instant SEO boost.

Automatic Cross-Linking
Cross-linking pages can help boost your store's SEO. This feature makes creating cross-links a lot easier by creating cross-links to other pages that make use of the appropriate keywords automatically.

Automatic Wish List Reminder Email  
28 April 2008

When activated, the Automatic Wish List Reminder Email will automatically send out customizable email reminders to customers who have items in their wish lists that have been there for 2 weeks. This tool can help potentially convert customer interest in products into sales.

New Discount Coupon Enhancements  
18 April 2008

We've just added two neat new features to the Discount Coupon feature.

1. Automatic Coupon URL
   We've added a second method of distributing discount coupons: as special Automatic Coupon URLs. With this enabled, customers won't have to enter the discount coupon code at the shopping cart. Instead, when they visit the store via the Automatic Coupon URL, the discount coupon will automatically be applied to their shopping carts.
2. Personal Wholesale Pricing Discount Type
   We've also introduced a new discount type: the Personal Wholesale Pricing discount. Only stores with the Personal Wholesale Pricing wholesale configuration activated will be able to use this discount type. Customers who use this discount will be able to buy items at different (cheaper) price levels.

PayPal Express Checkout  
17 April 2008

InstanteStore now supports payments via PayPal Express Checkout in addition to PayPal Standard and PayPal Website Payments Pro.

Store Standard Diskspace Doubled  
09 April 2008

We've doubled the store standard diskspace. Each InstanteStore now comes with 200MB free diskspace.

Manage Banned IP Addresses  
26 March 2008

You can now block the IP addresses of questionable visitors using the new Ban IP interface. This interface allows you to ban specific IPs as well as a range of IPs.

Improved Questions/FAQ Page  
26 March 2008

We've upgraded and streamlined the existing Questions/FAQ page so that you can now easily add and edit questions on the page. With this upgrade, you can add sections to your FAQ page in order to group sets of similar questions together.

Google Checkout Integration Upgrade  
25 March 2008

Our Google Checkout integration now support customers from all over the world, not just the US or the UK.

Secure Administrator Login  
12 March 2008

All Administrator Login pages are now secure HTTPS pages.

Easy Google Analytics and Google AdWords Order Conversion Tracking Integration  
28 February 2008

We've made it easier to integrate website statistic tracking of InstanteStores via Google Analytics by providing an easy-to-use interface where merchants can just paste the relevant code in the space provided, and start tracking their stores immediately. We've also made it easy to switch between Google Analytics tracking and our in-house Urchin website statistics package. Additionally, we've provided a convenient interface for merchants to enter Google AdWord Order Conversion Tracking Code.

eBay Integration Enhancements  
12 February 2008

The Post Items to eBay integration has been streamlined and updated to make this module more intuitive and easier to use.

ShopSafeHere.com Online Shopping Directory Launched  
15 January 2008

ShopSafeHere.com is the latest online shopping directory from the people behind InstanteStore.com. ShopSafeHere.com currently features over 100 InstanteStores, and counting. InstanteStore merchants can currently list their stores and feature up to 2 products on ShopSafeHere.com's main page for FREE. It also features a cool Visitors' Activity Map feature that gives potential shoppers the feel of a virtual mall by being able to view what other shoppers are looking at and buying. Listing on ShopSafeHere.com's online directory also gives InstanteStore merchants access to free traffic as well as links that will boost SEO.

New Product Layouts  
28 November 2007

We've introduced 2 brand new product layouts. It's now possible to choose and switch between layouts instead of being stuck with just the one product layout. Each layout has been designed to cater for different types of products, and we've optimized the placement of all the product elements to make the product pages as attractive and efficient as possible. In addition, we've also spruced up blow-up image viewing to give it a fresh, modern look.

UPS WorldShip Integration  
19 October 2007

Great news for UPS WorldShip users: we now feature integration with UPS WorldShip. You can now:

• Export orders from your InstanteStore to UPS WorldShip: this saves you from having to manually re-enter your order information at WorldShip
• Re-import package tracking numbers from WorldShip back into your InstanteStore: this lets you update your customer order tracking information more conveniently
• Export customer information from InstanteStore orders to the UPS WorldShip Addressbook

Feature Products on Store Front Page: Add Own Thumbnails  
27 September 2007

We've updated the Feature Products on Store Front Page function ('Products & Categories -> Specials -> Front Page') so that you can now upload your own thumbnail images to be displayed with your front page products, instead of having to use the existing product thumbnail images.

Enhanced Order Listing Search  
05 September 2007

We've enhanced the order listing search function so that it's now possible to search for orders across multiple sections (New, Pending, and Completed) instead of searching each section separately. Search results are color-coded to match the sections that they belong to, so that they can be easily differentiated.

Block Unwanted Customers by E-mail Domain Feature  
03 September 2007

You can now choose to block unwanted customers by their e-mail domains. This will prevent anyone from these domains from registering or making orders at your store.

View Orders Enhancement: Additional Customer IP Information  
03 September 2007

We've added a quick link for you to get more information about customers who have made orders at your store. You can now click on the Check the IP location link next to the customer IP Address when viewing orders at your store in order to get more information about the customer.

GoogleBase Field Updates  
17 August 2007

Updated the GoogleBase product download with 2 additional fields: UPC (Universal Product Code) and MPN (Manufacturer's Part Number). These fields are required by GoogleBase.

New Generate Product Option Search Panel Feature  
06 August 2007

This is a useful tool that you can use to generate a product option search panel that you can place at your store borders. This will allow your customers to search your store for products that have specific product options, e.g. if you sell clothes, this allows your customer to search for all products in the T-shirts category that have Large sizes available.

Auto Responder Feature Update  
06 August 2007

The Auto Responder feature has been updated so that you now have the option of creating Auto Responder campaigns that automatically subscribe customers. This is a potentially useful tool for following up with your customers after they have made purchases at your store, e.g. to provide them with specific information about the product(s) that they have just purchased.

All-New One-Page Phone Order Module  
17 July 2007

We're to happy to announce that we've just introduced an all-new, re-designed phone order module, Easy Phone Order ™. We've brought all the phone order elements together in a single page, so that the phone order process is more streamlined and phone order operators can now access all the information they need to place orders on behalf of customers.

Introducing One-Page EasyCheckout™  
26 June 2007

We've received a lot of requests for a one-page checkout feature, and we're very pleased to announce that it's now here and ready for you to try, then roll out for your customers. With our new EasyCheckout™ feature, you now have the option of letting your customers check out either using the traditional checkout, or with an all-new convenient one-page checkout process. We've designed the EasyCheckout™ to be as quick and seamless as possible to offer your customers the best possible shopping experience.

Easy Google Adwords Tracking!  
21 June 2007

With the Google Adwords Tracking function, we've introduced a brand new feature that helps you easily add Google Adwords and create advertisement tracking campaigns to track the effectiveness of each of your keywords at the same time.

Cross-sell on Final Payment Page  
07 June 2007

This cool new feature gives you the option of offering your products at discounted prices on your final payment (order confirmation) page. This is a great way for you to be able make exclusive offers to customers who have just completed purchases at your store, who are much more likely to be responsive to such offers.

Autodiscovery of Sitemap  
12 April 2007

The new open-format autodiscovery allows webmasters to specify the location of their sitemaps within their robots.txt file, eliminating the need to submit sitemaps to each search engine separately. We've modified your robots.txt file (if you did not specifically upload one of your own) accordingly to take advantage of this.

Product Video  
09 April 2007

You now have the option of easily adding video to your product pages. We've provided an easy-to-use interface that you can use to quickly add videos that are externally hosted on video hosts to your product pages. We've also provided tools to easily preview and modify the video displays on your product pages. Video adds a whole new dimension to your product pages, and opens up new possibilities for further improving your customers' shopping experience.

Breadcrumbs Display on Shopping Cart, Product, and Wish List pages  
09 April 2007

Breadcrumbs are a trail that represent the pages that your customer previously visited before arriving at the Product, Shopping Cart, or Wish List page that they are currently viewing. They are a useful tool for customers to easily navigate your store and access pages that they just left but want to re-visit. This feature displays up to 5 of your customers' last-viewed pages as links on the Shopping Cart, Product and Wish List pages. This makes navigating your store to find items they want to purchase just that much easier.

Additional Configurable Sections at Top/Bottom of Product/Product Listing Pages  
09 April 2007

We've added additional configurable sections to the top and bottom of the product and product listing pages so that you can now add additional text/descriptions/HTML there using the HTML Editor. This adds a further layer of customization to your product and product listing pages.

Configure Own Product and Category Page Filenames  
09 April 2007

This is a pretty significant update in terms of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) value. Previously, the filenames of your product and category files that would appear in URLs (e.g. "pd_red_tshirt.cfm" or "cat_comic_books.cfm") were always auto-generated. Now, you can choose to retain the auto-generated filenames, or manually configure filenames of your own should you decide they are more suitable for your products and categories. Used properly, this could be potentially very helpful in improving your store's SEO.