As of today, we are officially 71.42% of the way through 2019! And when you hit a big milestone like that, it’s time to celebrate.
So let’s celebrate in style, and countdown the 24 biggest updates that have hit your SamCart Marketplace so far this year. No spoilers, but #7 is going to BLOW YOUR MIND!!
Ok, not really. Unless you really, really love UTM Tracking. Then sure…#7 will blow your mind.
But this countdown is for the “Big Time Updates”. This is not where you’ll hear about the every day stuff; bug fixes, small styling tweaks, new columns on a report or something. These are the thoroughbreds, the blue chip updates.
So let’s kick off our countdown with #24, a critical security update for anyone doing business in the EU…
#24: SCA Compliance
If you are selling in the EU (or to EU based customers!), then you likely know all about the latest Secure Customer Authentication (aka “SCA”) regulation that came into effect just a few days ago.
As of September 14th, every single online payment in the EU will require some sort of two-step authentication before a charge is made. There are a bunch of exceptions and fine print here, but if you are currently processing your payments on a platform that is not “SCA” ready, you’re in trouble.
Wether your customer is buying a $10 book or a $1,000 piece of furniture, the payment will require special authentication from the customer…or it won’t go through.
Our team has been preparing for months, and we’re thrilled to say that every SamCart charge is completely compliant with the latest SCA regulations. So rest easy! Your payments will be going through without a hitch. Your subscriptions will continue to charge perfectly.
If you’re on SamCart, we have you covered.
#23: Email Confirmation
Ever had this happen to you? Customer comes in + completes their order. They are thrilled, you are thrilled. A successful transaction.
But silently, a disaster strikes…they have a typo in their email! It happens to the best of us. Typing “gmall.com” is such an easy mistake. But that one little mistake can derail the entire process…
Because of the typo, the customer gets no receipt, no email confirmation, no access to your Member’s Area. All they know is their credit card has been charged, and they come knocking on your Customer Support door looking for answers.
That simple, pleasant order is now in jeopardy. Fixing the problem takes your time and attention. It takes effort from your team. And every back and forth communication just adds up more lost time. Your customer’s trust in your brand is dropping with every minute that goes by.
All of this is a thing of the past when you use SamCart’s new Email Confirmations. Ensure that every customer gets exactly what they need, exactly when they need it. No more typos costing you sales!
This feature is built right into SamCart, available anytime you need it at the click of a button. Your sales are too important. Let SamCart Email Confirmation eliminate typos, and keep your customers as happy as ever.
#22: Pay What You Want
If you haven’t tested Pay What You Want Pricing yet, you are missing out on the simplest way to acquire new customers that exists online. Pay What You Want boosts your conversions by letting customers have a choice in what they pay you.
For anyone running paid traffic, your next test needs to include Pay What You Want Pricing. If you are looking for some ideas of how this can boost your conversions, check out this post from a few months back, “4 Ways To Boost Customer Acquisition With Pay What You Want”.
#21: Digital File Delivery Over 1GB
Want to ditch your Membership Tool? Well if you’re delivering digital files smaller than 1 Gigabyte, now you can!
Package up your video course, PDFs, audio files, podcasts, live event recordings, custom designs, and whatever else you’re selling and let SamCart securely deliver everything straight to your customer!
Upload any and all files to SamCart, and after an order is completed, SamCart will take care of providing a secure way for your customers to download what they need.
SamCart even protects your premium files from being passed around the internet! A customer’s download link expires automatically, meaning your most valuable content is protected from theft.
#20: User Roles
With more and more teams calling SamCart “Home” every single day, we added a new way for you to get the help you need, while also keeping your business protected.
Your SamCart Account comes with unlimited users. Now those users can have one of three different roles…
- Admin
- Support
- Read-Only
Don’t want your Support Team to have access to your Integrations? Add them as Support Users! Don’t want your new virtual assistant to mess with your Payment Processors? Let them in as a Read-Only User.
Get the most out of your team, while ensuring the most important parts of your business are under your control.
#19: Custom Domains
Want to have your SamCart Sales Pages on your own URL? Now you can.
Add your own Domain Names to your SamCart account, and bring your most important pages even closer to your brand. With SamCart, you can add unlimited Custom Domains, and choose which product(s) belong to which domain.
Tons of flexibility. All with SamCart’s signature simplicity.
#18: Integration Engine
You know why SamCart Users sell so much more of their own consulting services, live event tickets, kid’s toys, tennis training, adventure vacation packages, gym memberships, fitness bootcamps, and everything in-between?
SamCart Sellers crush it because of in-depth features like the SamCart Integration Engine. You can connect SamCart to dozens of different tools for email marketing, membership sites, product fulfillment, etc. and use the Integration Engine to perform custom actions anytime someone…
- Places A New Order
- Refunds A Charge
- Starts A Subscription
- Has A Subscription Charge
- Cancels A Subscription
- Accepts A One Click Upsell
- Has A Declined Charge
- Has A Declined Subscription Payment
And the list keeps going. Automatically enroll new customers into a course in your membership tool. Add a tag anytime a customer has a declined charge. Shoot out a text when a customer’s subscription is charged.
Make all of your favorite tools even more powerful. Create custom rules with the SamCart Integration Engine today, and automate more of your core business.
#17: Custom Fields On Upsells
You know all about Custom Fields. Don’t you?
Custom Fields help you collect unique information from your customers like dates, time, size, color, gender, special notes, and whatever else you can dream up!
Well now, you can add Custom Fields to your one click upsells. So your customers can place their order as quickly as possible, and you’re still free to collect whatever extra information you need on the next page!
#15 + 16: Affiliate Center Upgrades
Ok SamCart Premium users (I see you over there, making your millions), this one is for you.
The first update to SamCart’s Affiliate Center helps your Affiliates track their sales! As of earlier this year, all SamCart Affiliate Links allow for UTM Tracking.
Which means your affiliates can track where their own sales are coming from! How many sales came did I get from that one email broadcast? How many are coming from social media? How many are coming from my Facebook Ad campaign?
Use UTM tracking on any SamCart Affiliate link, and give your affiliates another tool to help sell more of your products!
Number #15 in our countdown is the ability for you to grant an affiliate a one-time commission. So if you want to pay someone $50 flat fee commission every time they bring you a new free trial, but not pay out on any of the future recurring charges, you can!
This is incredibly useful for anyone selling subscriptions of any kind. Reward your affiliates with a one-time commission, and keep the ongoing subscriptions charges for yourself.
#14-11: Product Organization
With unlimited products, subscriptions, payment plans, free trials, and paid trials, things can get a little chaotic inside of SamCart from time to time. Enter the new ways you can keep your products nice and orderly…
Archive older products that are no longer being sold, without deleting valuable data like conversion rates or split-tests.
Add Product Tags to group any related products together.
Use Internal Names to help differentiate between products, without showing your customers how you keep everything organized.
Product Filters help quickly sort products by price, created date, last edited, and more.
#10: Deeper Integrations
The more flexibility you have, the better. If you can pass more of your customer’s information back to tools like Stripe, ConvertKit, Zapier, or Intercom, then you can create smarter marketing.
SamCart now passes more data than ever through each of our integrations. Wether you are looking for more data inside of Stripe’s, or want to use a customer’s lifetime value in ConvertKit, SamCart helps you get more out of all the tools you use in your business.
#9: Pre-Applied Coupons
Coupons are a powerful tool for boosting conversions. So we thought, wouldn’t it be killer if you could automatically apply coupons for your customers?
Add a few short characters to your sales page’s URL, and you can send your visitors to a page with a coupon discount already applied! Think that would increase sales from your next email broadcast?
You’re dang right it will. Click here to see a real page in action, with a 10% discount automatically applied without you typing in anything.
#8: Customer Self-Cancellation
Your customers can now handle their own subscription cancellation, so you can automate even more of your day to day activities.
Turn on Self-Cancellation, and your customers can see and manage their own subscription (including cancelling all on their own) right from their receipt.
Anyone with hundreds of subscribers should check this out, and see what sort of time they can save by allowing customers to handle their own billing!
#7-5: New Reports
Stats are so critical to your success. SamCart makes it easy to get the critical stats you need, so you can keep making educated decisions that grow your business. We are always improving the stats and analytics that SamCart provides, and here are the new reports we launched in 2019 to make that happen..
The Failed Charges Report gives you access to any and all declined charges, with added information about why the customer’s charge did not go through. Use this report to help save more of your at-risk payments!
The Future Subscription Revenue Report gives you a look into the future to see exactly when to expect your subscription revenue to be hitting your bank account. Plan your cash-flow easier than ever by finally knowing when your sales will roll in.
The Customer Page tells you exactly where your sales are coming in from. Using UTM tracking? Open any customer and see a break down of exactly what UTM tags brought in that customer! Export everything to see which emails, social media posts, sidebar images, ad campaigns, or anything else are generating the most revenue.
#4: Checkout Delays
Ever heard of a “Delayed Checkout”? With SamCart’s Checkout Delay, you can hide your payment fields until a customer is ready to see them, and place their order!
This is perfect for any sales page where you want a chance to walk visitors through your pitch before revealing your price and closing the sale. Time up your Checkout Delay with your next video sales letter, and look like a magician as the checkout fields appear at the exact moment your video prompts everyone to place their order.
#3: Smart Conversion Tracking
Maybe the most powerful update on this countdown, SamCart’s Smart Conversion Tracking helps you to track every single dollar of your revenue back to your campaigns on Facebook, Google, or wherever else you need!
Our Smart Conversion Tracking knows exactly what products each individual customer buys, and can send back specific information to Facebook and Google.
Don’t settle for just tracking initial sales either. Our Smart Conversion Tracking will track sales made from your sales page, order bumps, one click upsells, and even subscription revenue!
#2: New Templates
Number two on our countdown is back to our bread & butter. In 2019 we have released a number of new beautiful templates. With plenty more on the way, including a brand new “2-step” checkout that may be live in every SamCart account by this time next week.
Every template is designed to maximize your conversions, while keep your brand looking professional and polished.
#1: Our Biggest Update Of 2019
The #1 item on our countdown is an update that we have been quietly working on for months inside of the SamCart Office, and after months of planning, development, and testing…it’s finally here.
As SamCart’s Sellers have grown, you all have asked for more flexibility, more customization. To this point, SamCart Pages haven’t been the easiest to make your own. But we’ve built a new way for you to build, customize, and publish your sales pages with SamCart.
It’s called The Content Builder.
This new feature is a game-changer for all SamCart users who want their product to start flying off the shelves faster than ever.
It’s available to all SamCart users right now, so go check it out or grab a free trial if you don’t already have an account.
