If it’s not already obvious, we here at LexiConn believe ShopSite is one of the top e-commerce shopping cart systems for small to medium sized businesses. It is a stable commerce platform for both the merchant and shopper, and is continually updated with the latest features and services that merchants desire. That’s why it’s our primary e-commerce offering.

To really get the most out of ShopSite, there are a number of essential add-ons that merchants should consider. We’ll list our top 10 below.

1. Stone Edge Order Manager

Stone Edge’s Order Manager software is a must have for any merchant that processes more than a handful of orders each day. This software, which runs locally on a PC (or group of PCs), integrates seamlessly with ShopSite and can automatically import orders into its management system.

Once imported, the software allows merchants to generate shipping labels, print packing slips, track returns, track inventory, capture funds, generate reports, export accounting data, and more.

2. Quickbooks Order Transfer Module

If your company uses QuickBooks exclusively to manage orders and your business, this add-on module developed by ShopSite makes downloading order data a breeze. The module, which runs locally on a PC, will seamlessly integrate with Quickbooks, and allows a one click importing of orders.

Information that can be imported includes:

• List of all products ordered
• A breakdown of all charges for each order
• full customer billing and shipping information
• full payment information

3. Product Review Module

Offering customer reviews of products is a necessity in today’s ecommerce world. Our Product Review Module integrates seamlessly with ShopSite to be able to easily add reviews, and allows the merchant complete control over the look and content of those reviews. Specific features include:

• Fully templatable for custom look and feel
• One line of code to integrate into ShopSite
• Reviews can be queued for approval or editing
• Optional direct email feature to request reviews after the sale (with links directly to each product ordered or the review page itself)
• Complete control over how many reviews appear, in which order, etc…

4. GoDataFeed

If you use more than Google Search for your comparison shopping services, then GoDataFeed is a must-have service for managing all the feeds. GoDataFeed integrates with ShopSite to extract your product information, format it correctly for all the various comparison engines (Google, Shopzilla, Bing cashback, Amazon, shopping.com to name a few), submit this data automatically, and also allow you to track sales made from these various services.

Plus, they are always adding new features and comparison engines, and have a nice blog as well. 

5. Order Status Module

If you want to cut down on customer calls and emails about the status of their recently placed order, then you need to provide a web based order status system (that also sends email updates). LexiConn’s Order Status Module is another seamless integration with ShopSite, importing all ShopSite orders. Major features include:

• Edit, add or delete an order
• Set a status for each order
• Include tracking numbers linked to the shipper’s website
• Add comments to the customer or for internal purposes
• Email updates to the customer when an order status changes
• Bulk upload status/tracking information
• Allow customers to easily re-order products

6. Chandler Web DropShip Email Notification Module

If you utilize drop ship vendors for fulfillment of orders, then you know it can be difficult to get the order information to the right warehouses. Chandler Web’s DropShip Emails Module integrates with ShopSite as an order API. When an order is completed, the module will combine products for each vendor, and send a separate email to each vendor with a list of the products they ship including:

• Product name, sku, quantity and ordering options
• Shipping address of the customer
• No payment information or prices are included
• Customizable template for the email contents

Chandler Web will even install the module, and help with any customizations you may require.

7. LexiConn Shipping Module

Anyone that has used basic shipping options such as shipping by currency, shipping by weight, flat shipping, etc… knows that if you cannot restrict these options by state, country, or certain products, then invariably customers will choose the wrong shipping time and time again. Our Custom Shipping Module solves this problem by allowing merchants to setup shipping options that can be restricted or allowed by state and/or country, only allow certain products for certain shipping options, or restrict a shipping method if specific products are in the cart.

8. Nextopia Search

Although ShopSite’s built-in search has a number of features and works quite well, if your store has a large number of products and categories, it can be difficult for shoppers to find their exact item quickly. Nextopia offers a custom search solution that integrates easily with ShopSite and allows customers to search by brand, category, price, and a number of other methods. The service provides suggestions when typos or inexact search terms are entered. It also refines the ranking of products over time based on sales and popular searches. Full reporting of customer search behavior is also included.

9. Email Marketing Module

Being able to effectively market to customers and potential customers is crucial for any ecommerce store. Once a customer agrees to receive emails from your company in the future, you’ll need a way to get them into your newsletter system, and then send them customized emails periodically.

We offer an Email Marketing Module that can auto add email addresses to one or more mailing lists, and add extra information such as their name, city, state, etc… Merchants can also setup autoresponders to send automatic followups at custom intervals to thank them for their order and request reviews.

The email system is a fully featured one, including a campaign editor, scheduled sending, complete tracking and statistics, and auto removal of unsubscribes and bounces.

10. Cart Abandonment Module

Being able to monitor cart abandonment is important for a number of reasons. From monitoring overall activity to measuring whether a design change in the cart results in less abandoned carts, the abandonment metric is a good one to know. We offer a Cart Abandonment Module that includes:

• Abandonment rate, including where the cart was abandoned
• top products, coupons, and shipping options
• Individual cart breakdown showing all items in the cart, and steps taken by the shopper
• Custom date range stats (week, month, year)

Did We Miss Anything?

Know of other add-ons for ShopSite you’d recommend? Leave a comment below.