Features

Features

Everything You'll Ever Need.

Dashboard

  • Revenue - Snapshot of current revenue, broken down by day, week, month, year or custom date, with comparison and percent change.

  • Orders - Amount of orders displayed for the current day, week, month, year or custom date. Select a specific piece of data for a side-by-side comparison.

  • Visitors - Track your visitor activity for the current day, week, month, year or custom date, with the ability to compare it with past data.

  • Conversion - A glimpse into how many site visitors were converted to paying customers. Choose to view conversion rate by current day, week, month, year or custom date.

  • Average Order Value (AOV) - The average amount of each order placed displayed with previous average and percentage change. Choose to view AOV by day, week, month, year or a custom date.

  • Live Activity by Device - Get a live look into active users on your site, with the percentage broken down by preferred device.

  • Sales Trend - Interactive chart that compares revenue with visitor activity, by current day, week, month, year or custom date, giving you a visual look into conversion rate.

  • Top Searches - Learn the top 5 keywords that are used by visitors and leading them to your website. The number of times a keyword is searched is also displayed next to each keyword.

  • Order Trend - Interactive chart that compares the average order monetary value with the amount of orders placed, broken down by date.

  • Traffic - An interactive chart giving you an insight into how many site visitors were converted into paying customers, broken down by date.

  • Top Products - The top 10 products being purchased from your site, with statistics on revenue and percentage change. View the product detail page by clicking directly on the product.

Orders

  • Summary - Breakdown of orders placed by date, with the ability to view customer information, edit orders, change status and provide tracking information.

  • Advanced Filtering - Reduce the amount of orders being displaying with the ability to filter by status (placed, shipped, etc.) or by date the order was placed.

  • Search - Jump to specific orders by choosing to search for certain criteria, like Customer Name, Order ID or status.

  • Status - View color-coded messages for instant notifications of an order’s status. Choose to arrange orders by status, grouping all those with the same status together.

  • Order Log - Detailed summary with date, time and message of an order’s activity. Interact with customers by sending them a message regarding their order status.

  • Shipment - Provide detailed shipping information to client like carrier, method, estimated delivery and tracking codes.

  • Order Edit - Add messages, change quantities, prices, addresses, statuses etc. on customer orders.

Customers

  • Summary - Breakdown of each individual customer account, with information on last login, date and time account was created, etc.

  • Search - Quickly find specific customers by searching for their name, email address or a part of their name.

  • Log In As - Ability to login as a specific customer and change information, locate an item or place an order on their behalf.

  • Add Customer - Create a profile for a customer if they are unable to do so themselves. Once the profile is created, customer login information can than be sent and the customer can change their password, if desired.

  • Edit Customer - Edit customer information or make edits to any placed orders on their behalf. Track any activity that was done for a specific customer by a user within the admin.

  • Address Book - Detailed list of any and all addresses that were saved by the customer. Customers can set a default address, if desired.

  • Order History - All current and past orders chronologically sorted with order number, date, status, quantity, total and tracking code.

Promotions

  • Summary - Detailed summary of all active and inactive promotions, which can be easily sorted via a drag and drop capability.

  • Scheduling - Schedule a specific start and end date for an upcoming promotion. Once promotion is over it will be automatically removed from the front end of the site.

  • Single Use Codes - Choose an amount of single-use codes to generate or upload a CSV file with existing codes to implement.

  • Multi Use Codes - Create a code unique to a specific promotion that can be used multiple times, until the code is removed from the admin.

  • Conditions - Set conditions for certain products that don’t meet promotion criteria, for instance if an order is above or below a certain amount, or for an item that is or is not on sale.

  • Effects - Add promotion specifications such as free shipping, buy x get y free, percent discounts, tiered discounts, fixed discounts, etc.

  • Reporting - View promotion statistics through detailed reports that show total times a promotion has been used, the total amount discounted and the average discount each customer has received.

Returns

  • Summary - Detailed list of all returns, with the capability of being filtered by return status or date. Returns are listed chronologically, with the most recent return date being listed first.

  • ERP Integration - Our platform is designed to integrate with your ERP system, so returns can be easily tracked and managed.

  • Shipping Carrier Integration - Integrate your preferred shipping carrier (UPS, USPS, FedEx) directly into the platform with ease.

  • My Account - User has the ability to initiate a return and track the return status when signed in under their account. Once return has been initiated, the user can login to check updates and messages on that return.

  • Status - Useful for admin personnel, the status page includes a detailed summary with order number, reason for return and any user comments.

  • Approve or Reject - Site managers or anyone with access to edit returns has the ability to choose to approve or reject pending returns.

  • Issue Refund - Capability to refund the customer with the full amount or a partial refund, depending on the individual order circumstances.

  • Message for Customer - Site managers can create a custom message for each customer regarding their return, including reasons why a return may not have been accepted.

Gift Cards

  • Summary - List of all active and inactive gift card designs, which can be easily sorted via a drag and drop capability.

  • ERP Integration - Our platform is designed to integrate with your ERP system, so gift cards can be easily tracked and managed.

  • Gift Card Designs - Create and upload a variety of gift card designs, giving customers the ability to choose a personalized card depending on the occasion.

  • Sorting - Users can drag and drop gift card designs according to the order they will be displayed for customers in on the website.

  • Account Balance - With the account balance feature, you can choose to edit account balances on new or existing gift cards.

  • Reporting - View current and past gift card activity through detailed reports and graphs.

Shipping

  • Summary - List of all active and inactive shipping methods, which can be easily added, edited and sorted via a drag and drop capability.

  • Multiple Carriers - Integrate as many shipping carriers as desired. Carriers like FedEx, UPS and USPS are all capable of being integrated into the platform.

  • Multiple Methods - Users can add various shipping methods (Ground, 3 Day Air, Priority Mail and First Class) to the platform.

  • Sorting - Drag and drop various shipping methods according to the order they will be displayed for customers in on the website.

  • Dynamic Real Time Rates - Real time rate quote provided by specified shipping carrier, based on the customer’s location.

  • Fixed Rates - Upload a table within the admin with standard, fixed shipping rates based on customer’s method of choice.

  • Tiered Rates - Users have the ability to have their shipping rates be tiered, which would change depending on the size of their order.

  • Country and Locality Segmenting - Choose to allow shipping methods to only be available in specific countries and regions.

  • Free Shipping - When the free shipping method is implemented, your customers can enjoy free shipping on any product throughout the site.

Products

  • Summary - A quick overview of all active and inactive products, with product name, image, category and inventory. Edit a specific product or view it on the front end directly from the dashboard.

  • Advanced Filtering - Find specific products with advanced filtering options like availability, category descriptions, or image availability.

  • Bulk Actions - Choose to update multiple products at once with the bulk actions tool, saving you time and the extra hassle of updating each item individually.

  • Force Inventory Update - Manually sync SIDE-Commerce with preferred ERP system for an instant inventory update, which appears directly on dashboard.

  • Force Product Update - Manually sync SIDE-Commerce with preferred ERP system for an instant product update, which appears directly on dashboard.

  • Import / Export - Bulk update all your products by choosing to import an existing csv/tsv/json file or choose to export your current list of products to a new csv/tsv/json file.

  • Active / Inactive - Quickly make a product active/inactive by the simple check of a box. When a product is inactive, it won’t show on the front end and be greyed out in the back end.

  • New Flag - “New” products are flagged and highlighted by the simple check of a box, so that they stand out to customers on the product wall.

  • Multiple-Category Assignment - Assign products to multiple categories at once, saving time and repetitive entries.

  • Product Types - Categorize products by a list of attributes, like materials or fit, which can also be filtered by product type on the front end.

  • Custom Search Keywords - Create additional ways for a product to be found by including possible keywords searched for by customers.

  • Weight For Shipping Calculation - Add product weights for each individual product in order for customer to estimate shipping cost.

  • Colors - Configure various colorways available, with price, custom color name and quantity breakdown for each individual product.

  • Sizes - Configure various sizes available, with price and quantity breakdown for each individual product.

  • Single Image Upload via Admin - Upload an image instantly from your computer or use our built-in drag and drop capability.

  • Bulk Image Upload via FTP - Upload multiple images for various products through your preferred FTP server, saving you time and repetitive work.

  • Videos - Add YouTube or Vimeo URLS to instantly upload videos to any product. Main images are automatically grabbed for each video uploaded.

  • Drag and Drop Merchandising - Keep customers shopping carts full by using built-in merchandising tools (like Related Items) to manually select specific products you want to upsell.

  • Google Shopping Integration - Generate or override current information, like product category and product type, being sent to Google’s product feed.

  • Metadata Override - SIDE-Commerce’s metadata override capability allows users to override current Meta Title and Description.

  • Related Items / Upsells - Manually select the products you want to upsell or fall back to a variety of system defaults such as best-selling over a specific time period, most viewed, products in a similar category, etc.

  • Attributes - Create attributes, like materials or fit, to add to a product’s description in order for customers to gain an insight into detailed product characteristics.

  • Features - Set your product apart by creating detailed features, with the ability to add icons, descriptions and option of being filtered within the product wall.

Category

  • Summary - Organize your sites multiple products with SIDE-Commerce’s category feature. Drag and drop ability allows you to structure categories quicker.

  • Category Tree - Build out categories in a tree like structure with multiple tiers. Drag and drop ability allows you to organize categories and sub categories with ease.

  • Platform - Preview icon allows users to get a glimpse into what the category looks like on the front end of the website, ensuring changes on the backend look as they are meant to for customers.

  • Description - Create a description to explain a category in further detail to customers on the front end or to brand managers accessing the admin.

  • Sorting - Drag and drop categories around to easily change the order and tier. All products stay within each category and move with category when re-ordered.

  • Active/Inactive - Make a product active or inactive with the simple click of a button. Red and green color-coded buttons make it easy to see if a product is active or inactive.

  • Multi-Tier - Build out your category tree more efficiently with SIDE-Commerce’s multi-tier option. Organize multiple tier levels effortlessly with drag and drop capability.

  • Merchandising - Organize products within a category quickly with SIDE-Commerce’s visual sorting feature. Drag and drop products to merchandise product walls or select multiple products to move all at once. All sorting is done through a mirror view of the front end, allowing users to see how their customers will view any changes made.

  • Image Assistant - Add and organize images to your category instantly. You can drag single or multiple images directly from your desktop onto your browser window.

  • Custom Search Keywords - Create additional ways for customers to find a category by including a list of keywords that would locate a specific category.

  • Related Items - Organize multiple items within a category at once. Choose to add mantles, team members, features and image blocks, all associated to that specific category.

  • Custom Metadata - Use SIDE-Commerce’s built in capability to override current Meta Title and Description for any category.

Content Management

  • Asset Library - A central area used to upload and manage all digital assets such as banners, mantles and blocks. The media only needs to be uploaded once and can be associated to a multitude of areas throughout the site.

  • Blocks - Versatile media, typically consisting of images and text or videos, that link to a specific section on the site. Can be used in many places on the site, but are typically located below main headers (mantles).

  • Mantles - Main header/focal point of the site, usually located at the top of the page and consist of images and text or videos. A title, subtitle and description can be easily created or changed for any mantle, as well as links to specific sections on the site.

  • Scheduling - Schedule specific publish dates across a wide variety of content and assets. Choose a start and end date and time for any media, like homepage promotion banners or blog posts, to go live to the world.

  • Customizable Themes - Make changes to styles on specific mantles, such as font or color. Use themes to also set certain text layouts on chosen mantles.

  • Categories - Organize blog posts by specific categories. Drag and drop ability allows you to structure your category tree quicker and more efficiently. Make a category (and all posts within that category) active or inactive with the simple click of a button.

  • Posts - Our platform makes it easy for anyone to add a post, even if they don’t have any coding experience. Change styles, text and add images and videos with our unique WYSIWYG editor.

  • Merchandising/Sorting - Give more exposure to a specific post by checking the ‘featured’ box and sending the post to the top of the page.

  • Excerpts - Give readers a glimpse into the story they are about to read with SIDE-Commerce’s Excerpt capability.

  • Status - Choose to save a post as a draft before it gets published to the front end of the site. If a post gets published, it can easily be changed back to a draft, removing it from the live site.

  • WYSIWYG - SIDE-Commerce’s ‘What You See Is What You Get’ editor makes it easy for anyone to add a post, even if they don’t have any coding experience.

  • Image Drag & Drop - Add and organize your images instantly. You can drag single or multiple images directly from your desktop onto your browser window. Posts can be added to one or multiple categories or be scheduled to publish on a specific date.

  • Relations - Cross promotion is made easy with our Related Items section. Link relatable content, specific products or team members to keep customers engaged.

  • Custom Pages - Create an array of pages for any purpose, whether it is a contact page with fillable form or information about specific store policies.

  • Preview - SIDE-Commerce’s instant preview option allows users the ability to preview what a page will look like on the frontend website that is displayed to customers.

  • Custom Metadata - Users have full control over the title and description on every page, assuring that proper metadata is picked up by all search engines.

  • Announcements - Create important announcements and have the ability to choose where they get displayed, whether it be throughout the site, on a specific page or assigned to a certain category. Users also have the ability to schedule a start and end date and time.

  • Reviews - Our completely integrated commenting system gives complete control to the site moderator. Choose to have comments display only when they have been approved and quickly remove possible spam comments in bulk.

Team

  • Categories - Organize team members by specific categories. See what the category looks like on the front end of the site with the view icon.

  • Category Sorting - Drag and drop ability allows you to structure your category tree quicker and more efficiently. Make a category (and all team members within that category) active or inactive with the simple click of a button.

  • Active/Inactive - Make a team member active or inactive with the simple click of a button. Red and green color-coded buttons make it easy to see if a product is active or inactive.

  • Team Members - Give your company advocates a platform to showcase their media. Choose to include quotes, content, social media links, image galleries and more.

  • Featured Team Members - Give more exposure to a specific team member by checking the ‘featured’ box and sending the post to the top of the page.

  • Multiple Category Assignment - Team members can be assigned to one category or multiple categories, effortlessly!

  • Quote - Include a personalized quote specific to each team member within the platform. Quotes typically stand out from the rest of the text via an increase in font size or bold print.

  • Content - Our platform makes it easy for anyone to add information about a team member. Change styles, text and add images and videos with our unique WYSIWYG editor.

  • Excerpt - Provide a short text blurb about a team member with SIDE-Commerce’s Excerpt capability. Excerpt’s can also be used on team member tiles.

  • Hero Image - The first image at the top of the team member page, the Hero Image is a summary of the team member and typically contains their name, social links and a link to their favorite products.

  • Headshot Image - Organize team members by selecting a headshot image for each member to appear on the main page, with links to their individual detail pages.

  • Team Member Gallery - Add and organize images to your team members instantly. You can drag single or multiple images directly from your desktop onto your browser window.

  • Social Accounts - Link team members social accounts instantly by simply adding their username to the platform. The accounts left blank will automatically be hidden from the front end of the site.

  • Team Member Website - Team member websites can be instantly linked to their detail page by simply adding their URL to the platform.

  • Videos - Assign single or multiple videos to team members by simply adding a YouTube or Vimeo link. Once the video is uploaded, users can add custom titles or descriptions and sort the videos according to how they want them to appear on the front end. An image is automatically generated from the video, which can be overwritten if desired.

  • Relations - Cross promotion is made easy with our Related Items section. Relate favorite products to team members, team members to blogs and team members to other team members to gain upsell opportunities, while keeping customers engaged. All media can be easily sorted and merchandised with the platform’s drag and drop capability.

  • Custom Metadata - Users have full control over the title and description on every page, assuring that proper metadata is picked up by all search engines.

Search Engine Optimization

  • Clean URL Structure - All primary pages built on the SIDE-Commerce platform contain clean URLs that are easily indexed and read.

  • Canonical Tagging - SIDE-Commerce generates proper tags to ensure that search engines are displaying the correct versions of your pages when there is content that exists at more than one URL.

  • Custom Search Terms - Create additional ways for customers to find exactly what they’re looking for by including a list of keywords that would locate a specific category.

  • Schema Markup - Built in feature that allows search engines to interpret content like price, imagery and other details, which is than displayed to users within the search results.

  • URL Redirects - Create automatic redirects through SIDE-Commerce to ensure users and search engines are going to the desired domain.

  • Automatic Google Sitemaps - SIDE-Commerce automatically creates and links a specific sitemap.xml to properly index every URL on your site.

  • Dynamic Title & Description Metadata - Users have full control over the title and description on every page, assuring that proper metadata is picked up by all search engines.

  • Metadata Override - SIDE-Commerce’s built in capability allows users to override current Meta Title and Description for any category.

Reporting & Analytics

  • Live Carts - View your customers’ current activity with an insight into their live cart. Active and inactive carts are color coded in the admin and product values are listed so that you can see potential sales activity.

  • Product Inventory - With SIDE-Commerce you have the ability to manage your entire inventory. Track stock and choose to automatically stop selling products when inventory runs out.

  • Product Sales - Analyze and gain insight into your store’s growth, to determine which products are selling and which products are not.

  • Abandoned Cart - Recover lost sales by automatically sending prospective customers an email with a link to their abandoned shopping carts. Customize emails sent with promotions, encouraging them to complete their purchase.

  • Orders Overview - View thorough order information by day, week, month, year or choose a custom date. The orders overview is broken down by tax, shipping and discounts applied for a more detailed insight.

  • Shipment Overview - Learn how orders are getting shipped and which shipping method customers are choosing, so that you know exactly how much customers are paying in shipping costs.

  • Wishlists - Keep customer wishlists activity organized with SIDE-Commerce. Customer names, email addresses, products and values are listed making it easy to send promotions targeted specifically towards that customer.

  • Top 20 Customers - Quickly identify the top 20 customers with the most purchase activity on your site. View their order count, order total, units purchased and average total by day, week, month, year or a specified date.

  • Revenue by Customer - View each customer’s order activity sorted by the customer with the greatest order total down to the least. Choose to see statistics by day, week, month, year or a specified date.

  • Top Searches - Learn how customers are getting to your site with a list of the top searched terms and the amount of times they were searched.

  • Order Locations - See what area most of your sales are coming from with the Order Locations feature. An interactive map shows revenue breakdown by country, highlighting those countries with the most sales.

  • Social Conversions - All SIDE-Commerce websites include insight into customers acquired through social media channels, such as orders placed, conversion rate and revenue gained through each specific platform.

Admin Settings

  • Users - Customer profiles and admin personnel are easily accessible within the admin. Manage permissions or update passwords for customers who need help accessing their account.

  • Filtering - Find users quickly and accurately with SIDE-Commerce’s filtering option. Choose to filter by user status or whether or not their account is active.

  • Status - Quickly make a user active or inactive by turning on/off their status icon. Easy to read color-coded check marks instantly tell you whether or not the user’s account is active.

  • Last Login - Get a glimpse into user activity by being about to view the last day and time a specific user logged in.

  • Edit User - With the ability to edit any existing user, you can create permissions, assign users to groups or change passwords for customers who need help accessing their account.

  • Add User - Create user accounts for admin personnel or new customers from the back end of the system.

  • Groups - Create management groups and add users to those specific groups. Groups like marketing, design, etc. can be made so users and information are better organized.

  • Advanced Permissions - Grant certain access to admin personnel, so that certain data – like products, imagery or content – are hidden.

  • Social Accounts - All SIDE-Commerce websites include social media integration, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr.

  • Company Information - Create a custom page with key company information, like location, hours, interactive map and a fillable contact form.

  • Inventory Threshold - With SIDE-Commerce you have the ability to manage your entire inventory. Track stock and choose to automatically stop selling products when inventory runs out.

  • Payment Options - Integrate PayPal or accept major credit cards, like Visa, MasterCard and American Express the minute you launch your store.

  • Merchant Account - Integrate your merchant account directly into the SIDE-Commerce platform so that you can seamlessly accept payments by credit and debit cards.

  • History Tracking - Track history (like user name, date and action) to see any edits made to specific pieces of content.

Platform Architecture

  • Rackspace - All websites are securely hosted on Rackspace, the #1 managed cloud company that architects and manages not only your website but also the many complex tools and applications that run on top of it.

  • Amazon CDN - Our platform uses Amazon CDN, a tool that allows your site to distribute content to customers with low latency and high data transfer speeds.

  • Python - SIDE-Commerce is developed on Python, a widely used general purpose, high-level programming language.

  • Scalable - All websites created on the SIDE-Commerce platform have the ability to handle different levels of traffic, whether your site has 100 or 100,000 users per day.

  • Secure - Any site built on SIDE-Commerce is backed by our dedicated security team. Customers can buy with confidence, knowing the information they enter, whether it’s a password or credit card number, is protected.

  • 24/7 Monitoring - Rest assured that your SIDE-Commerce site is monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so that no activity is every slipped through the cracks or gone unnoticed.

  • PCI Compliant - Promote to customers that your site is PCI Compliant so that they can shop knowing any personal information they share will be maintained on a secure environment.