Coming Soon: Build a Website AND an Online Store

The biggest upgrade to DesignCMS in its history is coming soon. It's the culmination of years of planning and months of careful development. So what's so great about it? I'm glad you asked:

Revolutionary Interface

There are no confusing dashboards to navigate. With DesignCMS, just browse your site as normal and drop the new "Product Listing" element into any region on any page with a click. One more click, and you'll be setting up your first product. Creating a store has never been so easy.

Robust Product Settings
Though extremely easy-to-use, the LightCMS online store offers powerful features. For each product, you can configure basic information, upload multiple images, create unlimited product variants with customizable options, track product inventory, track weight for shipping, add product tags, and much more.

Seamless, Secure Shopping Cart and Checkout
The user experience for customers is managed by an intuitive, well-designed shopping cart and checkout process that's built into every site. SSL security is automatically ensured. Payment processing can be handled by PayPal, Google Checkout, or Authorize.net.

No Additional Monthly Cost!

That's right! The new online store functionality will be added to all paid DesignCMS websites at no additional monthly cost (free websites will have access to store functionality in test-mode only). This means that all existing paid websites on the DesignCMS system will instantly be able to implement the store.

The only cost for using the DesignCMS online store functionality is a 1% transaction fee (2% on the basic plan) in addition to any fees charged by the payment processor you choose, such as PayPal or Authorize.net.
Plan Limits
The only limitation on the store functionality is the number of product SKUs you can have in your website's store. The SKU limitation for each plan level will be:

• Basic - 100 SKUs
• Plus - 500 SKUs
• Advanced - 2,500 SKUs
• Pro - 10,000 SKUs
• Premier - Unlimited SKUs

Scheduled to Launch June 8, 2011
We're so excited to bring you this update. Our team is working hard on the final details and planning to launch on June 8, 2011. There is no scheduled downtime for this update. At the time of the launch, we'll also be unveiling a completely redesigned DesignCMS website that will include new and improved help resources. More details on this and other store-related information to come, so be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter. 

Laying the groundwork

I want to reiterate that this is a pretty major upgrade, touching nearly every screen in the system. It represents a complete rework of how the system handles administrative screens. But this update is really just a first step in what will be a series of improvements. Think of it as laying the groundwork for many more changes to come. By unifying the administrative interface across all system pages, we offer ourselves the opportunity to bring you even more improvements in features and UI in the future.

New look and feel

The most visible changes are in the look and feel of the top toolbar and the administrative screens you encounter when editing content or adjusting settings. I want to point out that this does not change how our admin controls overlay on top of your website content. Rather, these change only impact the top toolbar and the screen you access when you click to edit content or settings.

The toolbar no longer uses drop down menus. Instead, available functions are listed horizontally as menu items. A new menu item, “content,” provides an easy way to get back to viewing the website with admin controls overlaid. The other menu items should be familiar as they are the same as those that exist currently in our drop down menus.

The settings screens follow familiar conventions, but offer an updated and polished look and feel.