Blog posts of '2012' 'March'

We dwelve in a vast amount of data every day. No wonder that we search for information all the time in order to find what really concerns us. On the interenet we can use search engines to help us but once we arrive at a web site that interests us,
it is down to this very same web site to make our experience pleasant so we do not waste any time to find our way round it.
We believe that if you are running an ecommerce business, your customers should be able to find what they need instantly and without any effort.

So we are proud to announce the release of a very powerful tool for all online retailers based on nopCommerce - Nop Instant Search for nopCommerce 2.4. This is a brand new to find products in your nopCommerce store. It provides a "search as you type" feature that instantly shows the products that match clients critiria in a box right underneat the search box.

How can Instant Search boost my sales?

Nop Instant Search is a plugin that leads to more searches in you store and thus to more and variegated product views. This is very interactive and your clients will spend more time digging through your site and have a better chance of actually buying products.

How do clients navigate to the products in the serach result dropdown box?

Navigation is integrated in Nop Instant Search plugin. Once the results of a "search as you type" are shown you can either click on a product with your mouse or use your keybord to select a product and press Enter. Then you are automatically navigated to the product details page.

Is Nop Instant Search plugin available on all pages in my store?

Yes, Nop Instant Search is available for your clients all the time as it automatically enchanses the small search box in your nopCommerce store, which is availabe on all pages in the store by default.

I have an existing nopCommerce 2.4 store but I don't want to mess with code changes. Is there an easy way to try the Nop Instant Search plugin?

Integrating Nop Instant Search plugin is as easy as setting a single option from the administration that we call Automatic Integration. You can also manually integrate the plugin by adding a single line in your SearchBox.cshtml file.

Can I limit the number of products that are shown in the dropdwon box?

Yes, you can limit the number of products that are shown in the results box by setting it from the administration.

What if I want my clients to search in the product description?

No problem. There is a setting for searching in the product description, which is again available in the administration of the plugin.

Is there some plugin documentation for the various settings available?

Detailed Nop Instant Search plugin documentation is available online:

http://nop-templates.com/Help/NopInstantSearch/Version_2_4/readme.html

The Nop Instant Search plugin is also included in our Nop Ultimate Plugin Collection.
Like all our plugins Nop Instant Search has a free trial version that you can download and play with.
As always you are more than welcomed to give us your feedback so we can improve our plugins together.
You can take part in shaping our products by giving new ideas and vote for others in the Nop-Templates User Voice Portal.

We are pround to announce the availability of the Nop Ajax Cart plugin for nopCommerce 2.4.
As the name implies the Nop Ajax Cart plugin allows your customers to shop faster and without leaving their current page.
This greatly improves the user experience and gives the customers more time to look for other products instead of redirecting them to the shopping cart and forcing them to leave your web site.

Why do we need the Nop Ajax Cart plugin?

When your clients browse your store they will most probably navigate to a specific category to search for specific products by using the pager or using the Ajax Filters. So when finally they find the products they need, they want to add these products in their shopping cart but once they click on the product or on a Add To Cart button then they are immediately redirected to the shopping cart page and thus they lose their selection of products. This no doubt is frustrating especially when customers are in a hurry and want to shop fast.

How does Nop Ajax Cart help?

With the Nop Ajax Cart plugin customers can add products to their shopping bags directly from the category page or any other product listing page, without leaving the page. The products are automatically added and the shopping cart is refershed in real time. This way customers can add as many products as they like. There is no need to visit the shopping cart page before they are done shopping and would like to checkout.

Is the Nop Ajax Cart plugin available only on the category pages?

No, the Nop Ajax Cart plugin is available on any product listing page in nopCommerce i.e search results pages, manufacturer pages, new products pages etc.

What if customers want to get more than one item of the same product?

No problem as the Nop Ajax Cart allows customers to select the quantity they want from a specific product. This is also configurable and can be enabled and disabled from the Admin panel of the plugin.

What if the product has several attribute options like Color, Size etc?

The Nop Ajax Cart will show a nice popup with the available attributes to be selected should the product have any.

OK, great but is there any documentation available for the Nop Ajax Cart plugin?
 

There is a detailed documentation for the Nop Ajax Cart plugin and it is available online:
http://nop-templates.com/Help/NopInstantSearch/Version_2_4/readme.html 

The Nop Ajax Cart plugin is also included in our Nop Ultimate Plugin Collection.

Like all our plugins Nop Ajax Cart has a free trial version that you can download and play with.

As always you are more than welcomed to give us your feedback so we can improve our plugins together.

Last but not least we would like to thank the nopCommerce community for requesting this plugin from the nopCommerce forums!