Our group buying software has grown into a powerful ecommerce platform that can be used to meet various needs such as selling digital goods, selling physical products or selling daily deals. As the daily deal business continues to evolve so will the sales models that daily deal sites employ to attract customers and merchants. Compared to hosted daily deal solutions and other group buying software providers which take a cookie cutter approach, we have developed a versatile ecommerce software solution that allows you to create a unique website and utilize any of these sales concepts.

Standard Model

The merchant partners with a daily deal site to offer a product or service for 50% off the regular price. All payments go directly to the daily deal site and later the admin pays out the merchant after assessing their fees which are typically 30% to 50% of the total sales. There are no hard settings built into GBS when it comes to paying out merchants so you have total freedom in deciding when merchants are paid and how much. You can use the Live Sales Stats add-on to enter the percentage share you’ve arranged with each merchant to automatically calculate the payment due to them.

Shared Model

The daily deal site sells vouchers at a very low price ($1-$5) and the buyer takes the voucher to the merchant’s place of business to purchase the discounted product/service directly from the merchant. GBS allows you to enter a comma separated list of custom codes (provided by merchant) into the voucher serials field for each deal as well. This allows the voucher to be redeemed online at the merchant’s website as long as the merchant’s site possesses the ability to receive unique discount codes for purchases. With this model, both the deal publisher and the merchant receive 100% of all the sales that occur on their own website. If the merchant’s site doesn’t possess the ability to receive discount codes, the merchant will have to manually reimburse the customer for the discount amount after the purchase is completed.

Subscription Model

Instead of taking a standard percentage of every sale that’s generated for a merchant, the deal site simply charges the merchant a recurring monthly or yearly fee. The deal site could also offer various pricing plans for the number of deals a merchant can offer on a monthly or yearly basis. A simple way of offering this is to create a subscription option through your payment gateway account (e.g. PayPal, Authorize.net, etc.) and require the user to complete the purchase before they can become a merchant. If they unsubscribe, you can demote them so they can no longer submit deals or access their account.

Flat Rate Model

In contrast to a monthly or yearly subscription, the deal site owner may want to charge the merchant a one-time fee for each deal they offer. This similar to the standard sales model for selling daily deals but the merchant is paying a flat amount and not a percentage of the total sales generated. Incorporating pricing plans that give merchants better rates for running multiple offers could be a great option for converting those merchants into return customers. Collecting payments for this model is easy, you simply payout the merchant minus the fee you charge for each deal they offer.

Freemium Model

Giving something away for free is a great way to get clients to try your products and services. Many online service providers have found tremendous success with the freemium model. The challenge with this model lies in the ability to offer desirable upgrade options for which merchants are willing to pay. For example, you could create a featured deals page where paying merchants’ deals are listed in a more prominent place throughout your daily deal site. Another upgrade option to offer merchants might be entering custom codes for them so buyers can pay at the merchant’s website directly.

Cash Back Model

Offering cash back on purchases is a terrific way to increase customer loyalty and obtain return purchases. Traditional daily deals simply offer a huge discount for a given merchant’s product or service. Instead of offering the entire discount to the customer in the form of a lower price, the site owner could completely, or partially, reimburse the buyer by awarding credit to his or her account using the GBS cashback rewards add-on. For example, the daily deal site owner could negotiate with the merchant to offer a product/service for 55% off the regular price of $100 but display the deal as 50% off with a 5% cash back reward. To sweeten the deal the site owner could offer additional credit to newly registered users via the Registration Rewards add-on. Integrating these options acts to differentiate your site, help convert visitors into registered users and offer customers incentive to return for another purchase.

Flash Sales Model

Flash sales sites, also known as private sales sites, serve discounted deals that can only be accessed by members of their site for a short period of time. Our group buying software allows you to not only run a private, member based site but you can also offer alternative pricing to members via the Membership and Member Pricing add-ons, respectively.

Each one of these daily deal sales models has its own advantages and disadvantages from the perspective of the deal publisher and the merchant. The key to success is to discover which options work best for you and your clients’ needs. Keep in mind that you can also combine any of these models, or offer more than just one to address the specific needs of each merchant. Offering customers additional perks like cash back for purchases and referral rewards are just a few of the many GBS add-ons and features that are available with our group buying software platform.

Group Buying Software For Multiple Daily Deal Sales Models is a post from: Group Buying Site

Our group buying software has grown into a powerful ecommerce platform that can be used to meet various needs such as selling digital goods, selling physical products or selling daily deals. As the daily deal business continues to evolve so will the sales models that daily deal sites employ to attract customers and merchants. Compared to hosted daily deal solutions and other group buying software providers which take a cookie cutter approach, we have developed a versatile ecommerce software solution that allows you to create a unique website and utilize any of these sales concepts.

Standard Model

The merchant partners with a daily deal site to offer a product or service for 50% off the regular price. All payments go directly to the daily deal site and later the admin pays out the merchant after assessing their fees which are typically 30% to 50% of the total sales. There are no hard settings built into GBS when it comes to paying out merchants so you have total freedom in deciding when merchants are paid and how much. You can use the Live Sales Stats add-on to enter the percentage share you've arranged with each merchant to automatically calculate the payment due to them.

Shared Model

The daily deal site sells vouchers at a very low price ($1-$5) and the buyer takes the voucher to the merchant's place of business to purchase the discounted product/service directly from the merchant. GBS allows you to enter a comma separated list of custom codes (provided by merchant) into the voucher serials field for each deal as well. This allows the voucher to be redeemed online at the merchant's website as long as the merchant's site possesses the ability to receive unique discount codes for purchases. With this model, both the deal publisher and the merchant receive 100% of all the sales that occur on their own website. If the merchant's site doesn't possess the ability to receive discount codes, the merchant will have to manually reimburse the customer for the discount amount after the purchase is completed.

Subscription Model

Instead of taking a standard percentage of every sale that's generated for a merchant, the deal site simply charges the merchant a recurring monthly or yearly fee. The deal site could also offer various pricing plans for the number of deals a merchant can offer on a monthly or yearly basis. A simple way of offering this is to create a subscription option through your payment gateway account (e.g. PayPal, Authorize.net, etc.) and require the user to complete the purchase before they can become a merchant. If they unsubscribe, you can demote them so they can no longer submit deals or access their account.

Flat Rate Model

In contrast to a monthly or yearly subscription, the deal site owner may want to charge the merchant a one-time fee for each deal they offer. This similar to the standard sales model for selling daily deals but the merchant is paying a flat amount and not a percentage of the total sales generated. Incorporating pricing plans that give merchants better rates for running multiple offers could be a great option for converting those merchants into return customers. Collecting payments for this model is easy, you simply payout the merchant minus the fee you charge for each deal they offer.

Freemium Model

Giving something away for free is a great way to get clients to try your products and services. Many online service providers have found tremendous success with the freemium model. The challenge with this model lies in the ability to offer desirable upgrade options for which merchants are willing to pay. For example, you could create a featured deals page where paying merchants' deals are listed in a more prominent place throughout your daily deal site. Another upgrade option to offer merchants might be entering custom codes for them so buyers can pay at the merchant's website directly.

Cash Back Model

Offering cash back on purchases is a terrific way to increase customer loyalty and obtain return purchases. Traditional daily deals simply offer a huge discount for a given merchant's product or service. Instead of offering the entire discount to the customer in the form of a lower price, the site owner could completely, or partially, reimburse the buyer by awarding credit to his or her account using the GBS cashback rewards add-on. For example, the daily deal site owner could negotiate with the merchant to offer a product/service for 55% off the regular price of $100 but display the deal as 50% off with a 5% cash back reward. To sweeten the deal the site owner could offer additional credit to newly registered users via the Registration Rewards add-on. Integrating these options acts to differentiate your site, help convert visitors into registered users and offer customers incentive to return for another purchase.

Flash Sales Model

Flash sales sites, also known as private sales sites, serve discounted deals that can only be accessed by members of their site for a short period of time. Our group buying software allows you to not only run a private, member based site but you can also offer alternative pricing to members via the Membership and Member Pricing add-ons, respectively.

Each one of these daily deal sales models has its own advantages and disadvantages from the perspective of the deal publisher and the merchant. The key to success is to discover which options work best for you and your clients' needs. Keep in mind that you can also combine any of these models, or offer more than just one to address the specific needs of each merchant. Offering customers additional perks like cash back for purchases and referral rewards are just a few of the many GBS add-ons and features that are available with our group buying software platform.

Some fantastic new add-ons are now available in the GBS marketplace! These new additions offer some great options to help increase traffic to your site, receive special messages from customers upon checking out, as well as display upcoming deals to your customers. If you’re an existing GBS member and you have any questions about these add-ons, please post them to the add-on’s forum and the developer will address them as soon as possible.

Embeddable Widgets

The Promotional Deals Widget and Embeds add-on allows you to place widgets on your GBS site as well as permit customers and merchants to add them to their own websites. This is a terrific way for merchants to promote their deals and send more traffic to your site. What’s more, the embeddable widgets take advantage of the built in credit system GBS offers so that customers may earn account credits for each sale they generate for you! Plans are under way to add even more additional features such as user customizations (e.g. colors, location, etc.) and integration with the GBS syndication server.

Checkout Notes

The Checkout Notes add-on displays a field on the checkout page so your customers may insert special instructions on the purchase and voucher reports. If you’re using the GBS attributes feature there is an option to add a textarea next to the add-to-cart fields as well. This is a great way for your clients to customize their purchases or provide special shipping instructions.

Upcoming Deals

The Upcoming Deals add-on provides an easy to use widget that you can place in any sidebar to quickly display upcoming deals that you have scheduled. Customization options available for the widget include the following:

• Display the featured image and title only
• Display the featured image, title and scheduled date
• Display the featured image, title, scheduled date, and the deal information

New Add-ons: Checkout Notes, Embeddable Widgets, Upcoming Deals is a post from: Group Buying Site

Some fantastic new add-ons are now available in the GBS marketplace! These new additions offer some great options to help increase traffic to your site, receive special messages from customers upon checking out, as well as display upcoming deals to your customers. If you're an existing GBS member and you have any questions about these add-ons, please post them to the add-on's forum and the developer will address them as soon as possible.

Embeddable Widgets

The Promotional Deals Widget and Embeds add-on allows you to place widgets on your GBS site as well as permit customers and merchants to add them to their own websites. This is a terrific way for merchants to promote their deals and send more traffic to your site. What's more, the embeddable widgets take advantage of the built in credit system GBS offers so that customers may earn account credits for each sale they generate for you! Plans are under way to add even more additional features such as user customizations (e.g. colors, location, etc.) and integration with the GBS syndication server.

Checkout Notes

The Checkout Notes add-on displays a field on the checkout page so your customers may insert special instructions on the purchase and voucher reports. If you're using the GBS attributes feature there is an option to add a textarea next to the add-to-cart fields as well. This is a great way for your clients to customize their purchases or provide special shipping instructions.

Upcoming Deals

The Upcoming Deals add-on provides an easy to use widget that you can place in any sidebar to quickly display upcoming deals that you have scheduled. Customization options available for the widget include the following:

• Display the featured image and title only
• Display the featured image, title and scheduled date
• Display the featured image, title, scheduled date, and the deal information

GBS v3.7 focuses on incorporating new administrator panels to assist with the management of vouchers, purchases, payments, orders, gifts and accounts. Administrators may now search by the identification number for a given account, voucher, deal, or purchase to assist them in locating associated information much faster. Improvements have been extended to customers as well allowing them to mark their vouchers as used and applying filters to separate vouchers as either active or expired.

Improved Voucher Management

You can now filter vouchers based on “Active” and “Pending” status as well as search by Account ID, Purchase ID, Deal ID, and Voucher ID. The option to manually activate a voucher is now available as well. Hovering over a voucher provides quick links to the Deal, Purchase and Purchaser.

New Payments Panel

Payments is a new administrator panel for v3.7 that provides detailed information regarding each payment. Like the new vouchers area, we’ve integrated new search and filter options that can be found at the top of the page. Upon hovering over a payment you will find the Order (Purchase), Accounts, User (WP user) and Transaction Data. Clicking on the transaction data results in the full array of data received by your payment gateway. This information is very helpful for quickly identifying things like transaction identification numbers and the status of a payment.

Note: Deal information is not available for any payments made prior to GBS 3.6.5.

New Orders Panel

Orders is a new purchase administration panel that displays payments received for a given order. This is separate from payments since it’s possible, for example, that a customer could complete two payments for a single order by paying with their account credit and Paypal. The new Orders panel also provides new search capabilities and filters. Hovering over an order will provide a link to the order’s payments and buyer. The payments column depicted in the image below has also been updated to include additional information.

New Gifts Panel

Based on user feedback we gave the gifts feature it’s own administrative panel to allow gifts to be more easily managed. This new admin panel offers a snapshot of pending and completed orders that were purchased as gifts. Gifts can be filtered based on the payment status and searched via account ID, deal ID or purchase ID. Like the option admin panels, you can hover your mouse over gift links to quickly identify the order and purchaser. And like past versions, administrators may update the recipient’s email address and/or resend the gift to ensure delivery.

Updated Accounts Panel

The accounts page has also been overhauled to incorporate improvements. Hovering over an account provides links to their Payments, Purchases, Vouchers and Gifts for quick access to related information.

Voucher Management For Customers

Customers that purchase deals from your site many now mark their vouchers as used. The Premium and Response theme updates provide new links that process the request via AJAX thereby eliminating the need to refresh the page. Your customers may also filter their vouchers according to the voucher’s “active”, “used” or “expired” status. We’ve incorporated this feature into the core so their accessible through defined URLs (e.g. site.com/vouchers/active, site.com/vouchers/used, and site.com/vouchers/expired). The Premium and Response themes have been updated (versions 1.7) to take advantage of this new functionality.

Below is a screenshot of the new voucher filter links available on the “My Purchases” page (Response Theme) along with an explanation what each link represents.

Expired – Filters vouchers to display only those that have reached their expiration date.
Used – Filters vouchers to display those that are marked as claimed/redeemed.
Active – Filters vouchers to display those not marked as used or that haven’t expired.

And more…

• Core optimizations
• More hooks and filters, including some AJAX actions
• Improved core code documentation
• Developer documentation

v3.7: Improved Management of Vouchers, Gifts, Purchases, Orders, Payments, Accounts is a post from: Group Buying Site

GBS v3.7 focuses on incorporating new administrator panels to assist with the management of vouchers, purchases, payments, orders, gifts and accounts. Administrators may now search by the identification number for a given account, voucher, deal, or purchase to assist them in locating associated information much faster. Improvements have been extended to customers as well allowing them to mark their vouchers as used and applying filters to separate vouchers as either active or expired.

Improved Voucher Management

You can now filter vouchers based on "Active" and "Pending" status as well as search by Account ID, Purchase ID, Deal ID, and Voucher ID. The option to manually activate a voucher is now available as well. Hovering over a voucher provides quick links to the Deal, Purchase and Purchaser.

New Payments Panel

Payments is a new administrator panel for v3.7 that provides detailed information regarding each payment. Like the new vouchers area, we've integrated new search and filter options that can be found at the top of the page. Upon hovering over a payment you will find the Order (Purchase), Accounts, User (WP user) and Transaction Data. Clicking on the transaction data results in the full array of data received by your payment gateway. This information is very helpful for quickly identifying things like transaction identification numbers and the status of a payment.

Note: Deal information is not available for any payments made prior to GBS 3.6.5.

New Orders Panel

Orders is a new purchase administration panel that displays payments received for a given order. This is separate from payments since it's possible, for example, that a customer could complete two payments for a single order by paying with their account credit and Paypal. The new Orders panel also provides new search capabilities and filters. Hovering over an order will provide a link to the order's payments and buyer. The payments column depicted in the image below has also been updated to include additional information.

New Gifts Panel

Based on user feedback we gave the gifts feature it's own administrative panel to allow gifts to be more easily managed. This new admin panel offers a snapshot of pending and completed orders that were purchased as gifts. Gifts can be filtered based on the payment status and searched via account ID, deal ID or purchase ID. Like the option admin panels, you can hover your mouse over gift links to quickly identify the order and purchaser. And like past versions, administrators may update the recipient's email address and/or resend the gift to ensure delivery.

Updated Accounts Panel

The accounts page has also been overhauled to incorporate improvements. Hovering over an account provides links to their Payments, Purchases, Vouchers and Gifts for quick access to related information.

Voucher Management For Customers

Customers that purchase deals from your site many now mark their vouchers as used. The Premium and Response theme updates provide new links that process the request via AJAX thereby eliminating the need to refresh the page. Your customers may also filter their vouchers according to the voucher's “active”, “used” or “expired” status. We've incorporated this feature into the core so their accessible through defined URLs (e.g. site.com/vouchers/active, site.com/vouchers/used, and site.com/vouchers/expired). The Premium and Response themes have been updated (versions 1.7) to take advantage of this new functionality.

Below is a screenshot of the new voucher filter links available on the "My Purchases" page (Response Theme) along with an explanation what each link represents.

Expired - Filters vouchers to display only those that have reached their expiration date. Used - Filters vouchers to display those that are marked as claimed/redeemed. Active - Filters vouchers to display those not marked as used or that haven't expired.

And more...

• Core optimizations
• More hooks and filters, including some AJAX actions
• Improved core code documentation
• Developer documentation

GBS v3.6 offers a streamlined approach for handling customer registrations and purchases. By condensing both into a single shopping cart checkout page, the visitor can register and initiate a purchase in a single step. This new version includes the integration of Bit.ly to shorten lengthy URLs and provide users the ability to track the performance of their referral link when sharing it across Facebook, Twitter, and email. We’re also announcing the addition of four new add-ons now available in the GBS marketplace.

Single Page Checkout

In previous GBS versions, the user had register or login separately before they could add a product or deal to their shopping cart and begin the checkout process. By adding the ability to register or login on the checkout page, we’ve made it much easier for a user to join your site and complete a purchase. All the GBS themes (Shop, Response, Premium) now support a single page checkout.

Bit.ly Integration

Each user is given their own unique referral link to share with their friends on Facebook, Twitter or through an email. These referral links can become quite lengthy depending on the item’s title. Bit.ly offers a great solution for shortening those ugly referral links while also providing each user with click statistics.

HTML Support For Meta Fields

This update allows you to input basic HTML into various fields when creating or editing a deal or product. For instance you may want to apply some formatting to emphasize specific words, add a link, or create a numbered list.

Advanced Referral Rewards

GBS provides the option to give users a certain amount of credits for each sale that’s generated through their referral link. The amount of credits is set by the administrator on a site-wide basis. With the Advanced Referral Rewards add-on you can now assign credits on a per deal basis. Doing so allows you to match the reward to the price of each individual deal or product you’re selling.

Cashback Rewards Add-on

This add-on provides a terrific way to effectively reward your customers and provide an incentive for them to become frequent buyers. It will award a number of credits to a user’s account when they purchase a specific deal or product. The amount of credits awarded can vary for each deal or product you offer. Those credits can then be used to purchase other items. Cashback Rewards can also be used to serve as an alternative model to a typical daily deal. For example, instead of offering $40 worth of product or services for $20, you can price the deal at $40 and give the buyer $20 worth of credit instead. The discount is the same in both cases but a user is more likely to return to buy again when their account holds the credit.

Discount Code Add-on

The Checkout Discount Codes add-on create a unique promotional code and assign it to any deals or products on your site. Users can enter the discount code when buying a specific deal or product to obtain the savings the code provides. The administrator may set an expiration date for code, track how many times the code has been used and for what orders, limit how many times the code may be used, or restrict its use in combination with other discount codes.

Membership Club Add-on

The new Membership add-on can be used to offer exclusive deals to VIP members that pay a subscription fee for access. It can also help transform your entire site into a flash sales membership club. Subscription payments are automatically handled via PayPal Standard or PayPal Website Payments Pro. This add-on may be used in combination with the Loyalty Pricing add-on to create alternative pricing levels for members as well.

v3.6: Single Checkout Page, Bit.ly Integration, Cashback, Discounts, Rewards, Membership is a post from: Group Buying Site

GBS v3.6 offers a streamlined approach for handling customer registrations and purchases. By condensing both into a single shopping cart checkout page, the visitor can register and initiate a purchase in a single step. This new version includes the integration of Bit.ly to shorten lengthy URLs and provide users the ability to track the performance of their referral link when sharing it across Facebook, Twitter, and email. We're also announcing the addition of four new add-ons now available in the GBS marketplace.

Single Page Checkout

In previous GBS versions, the user had register or login separately before they could add a product or deal to their shopping cart and begin the checkout process. By adding the ability to register or login on the checkout page, we've made it much easier for a user to join your site and complete a purchase. All the GBS themes (Shop, Response, Premium) now support a single page checkout.

Bit.ly Integration

Each user is given their own unique referral link to share with their friends on Facebook, Twitter or through an email. These referral links can become quite lengthy depending on the item's title. Bit.ly offers a great solution for shortening those ugly referral links while also providing each user with click statistics.

HTML Support For Meta Fields

This update allows you to input basic HTML into various fields when creating or editing a deal or product. For instance you may want to apply some formatting to emphasize specific words, add a link, or create a numbered list.

Advanced Referral Rewards

GBS provides the option to give users a certain amount of credits for each sale that's generated through their referral link. The amount of credits is set by the administrator on a site-wide basis. With the Advanced Referral Rewards add-on you can now assign credits on a per deal basis. Doing so allows you to match the reward to the price of each individual deal or product you're selling.

Cashback Rewards Add-on

This add-on provides a terrific way to effectively reward your customers and provide an incentive for them to become frequent buyers. It will award a number of credits to a user's account when they purchase a specific deal or product. The amount of credits awarded can vary for each deal or product you offer. Those credits can then be used to purchase other items. Cashback Rewards can also be used to serve as an alternative model to a typical daily deal. For example, instead of offering $40 worth of product or services for $20, you can price the deal at $40 and give the buyer $20 worth of credit instead. The discount is the same in both cases but a user is more likely to return to buy again when their account holds the credit.

Discount Code Add-on

The Checkout Discount Codes add-on create a unique promotional code and assign it to any deals or products on your site. Users can enter the discount code when buying a specific deal or product to obtain the savings the code provides. The administrator may set an expiration date for code, track how many times the code has been used and for what orders, limit how many times the code may be used, or restrict its use in combination with other discount codes.

Membership Club Add-on

The new Membership add-on can be used to offer exclusive deals to VIP members that pay a subscription fee for access. It can also help transform your entire site into a flash sales membership club. Subscription payments are automatically handled via PayPal Standard or PayPal Website Payments Pro. This add-on may be used in combination with the Loyalty Pricing add-on to create alternative pricing levels for members as well.

Unlike others we don’t charge a referral fee for each sale that is generated nor do we require you to use a specific affiliate software/network to syndicate your deals. Instead, we will simply charge a small monthly service fee to syndicate/aggregate deals and you may use any affiliate software/network you wish for your GBS site. When a sale is generated through an affiliate link, it is handled between the GBS site where the deal/product originated and the affiliate members of that site that are promoting that deal/product.

For the GBS aggregators:

• View the source of the syndicated deal on the deal’s edit page.
• View what affiliate software the syndicating site is using on the deal edit page.
• Add notes for easier URL updating. For example, change the AFFILIATE_ID based on your notes below.

For the GBS syndicators:

• Option to share your affiliate platform and provide a sign-up URL.
• Option to add a query string to your URLs for affiliates to easily enter their tracking code.

As you can see, we are working hard to deliver new features that help our users. This new service offers a great amount of flexibility and freedom of choice. We’ll be adding more features to expand and improve the service based on the feedback we receive during the beta. Please take some time to check it out now while it’s free and send us some feedback in the forums. As always, thanks for being a GBS user!

v3.5.5: GBS Syndication/Aggregation Beta Available is a post from: Group Buying Site

The new GBS v3.5.5 update released today includes improvements for the ability to share deals across the GBS platform. This service will be completely free for the next 60 days during beta testing. Once beta testing ends, you will have the option to signup for the service at a modest monthly charge to syndicate deals through GBS. This service will allow GBS users to reach more potential customers, generate more sales, and grow their email list of subscribers.

Unlike others we don't charge a referral fee for each sale that is generated nor do we require you to use a specific affiliate software/network to syndicate your deals. Instead, we will simply charge a small monthly service fee to syndicate/aggregate deals and you may use any affiliate software/network you wish for your GBS site. When a sale is generated through an affiliate link, it is handled between the GBS site where the deal/product originated and the affiliate members of that site that are promoting that deal/product.

• View the source of the syndicated deal on the deal's edit page.
• View what affiliate software the syndicating site is using on the deal edit page.
• Add notes for easier URL updating. For example, change the AFFILIATE_ID based on your notes below.

• Option to share your affiliate platform and provide a sign-up URL.
• Option to add a query string to your URLs for affiliates to easily enter their tracking code.

As you can see, we are working hard to deliver new features that help our users. This new service offers a great amount of flexibility and freedom of choice. We'll be adding more features to expand and improve the service based on the feedback we receive during the beta. Please take some time to check it out now while it's free and send us some feedback in the forums. As always, thanks for being a GBS user!

Piggy Pro

Piggy Pro for GBS allows you to quickly view the sales data for your site from any mobile device. The add-on requires purchase of the Piggy Pro application. Once installed you can view such things as total sales, averages, and sales performance predictions over various time periods. What’s more, it will instantly update you when a sale is generated on your site through push notifications for your iPhone or iPod Touch.

WPtouch Pro

WPtouch Pro for GBS improves mobile compatibility for the GBS premium theme when viewed on the iPad, Android tablets, iPhone, and Blackberry devices. The add-on requires purchase of the WPtouch Pro theme. WPtouch allows you to easily change the colors, fonts, images, and your logos as well as turn on/off many viewing options like categories and tags.

New Add-ons: Piggy Pro and WP Touch Pro Integration is a post from: Group Buying Site

For GBS members that are using the premium theme, we've released a free add-on to improve mobile device compatibility. This new add-on integrates the popular WPtouch Pro theme to offer your visitors a clean mobile experience on their iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, and Android devices. Our other big news for the day includes an add-on release for Piggy Pro, a web application that allows you to view deal and product sales performance of your GBS-powered site from the comfort of your iOS and Android devices.

Piggy Pro

Piggy Pro for GBS allows you to quickly view the sales data for your site from any mobile device. The add-on requires purchase of the Piggy Pro application. Once installed you can view such things as total sales, averages, and sales performance predictions over various time periods. What's more, it will instantly update you when a sale is generated on your site through push notifications for your iPhone or iPod Touch.

WPtouch Pro

Simple Gifting

The simple gifting add-on works by implementing providing an option for your users to specify the recipient’s name on the checkout page. Once the purchase is completed, the voucher will display the gift recipient’s name along with the purchaser’s name (for reference purposes). Users can print the voucher or just email it to the intended recipient. No additional steps are required for the gift recipient to “claim” the gift. No unexpected email links or registration forms are needed; your users simply get more control over their gifts.

Advanced Google Analytics Integration

Google Analytics is a popular website analytics service that’s used by most site owners to merely count how many page views their website receives on any given day. However, Google Analytics can also be used to collect important data about your site such as custom behavior, transactions, and conversions. Just as the name implies, the Advanced Google Analytics Integration add-on offers advanced integration of Google Analytics with GBS to help you identify new opportunities for increasing sales on your site.

Add-on Features:

• Track individual product/deal sales in real time
• Track checkout flow and fallout through conversion funnels
• Fully customized reporting through your Google Analytics account
• Cart data is sent to Google Analytics after every cart completion
• Shopping events include: cart updated, cart loaded, payment page loaded, payment review page loaded, checkout complete, successful gift claim, item removed from cart, and item added to cart
• Engagement events that are also tracked: new registration, voucher printed & new sign-up
• Custom variables are sent along with the above events to get more detail

Here’s some great videos explaining how Google Analytics can work with your GBS-powered site:

New Add-ons: Advanced Google Analytics Integration, Simple Gifting is a post from: Group Buying Site

Simple Gifting

Advanced Google Analytics Integration

• Track individual product/deal sales in real time
• Track checkout flow and fallout through conversion funnels
• Fully customized reporting through your Google Analytics account
• Cart data is sent to Google Analytics after every cart completion
• Shopping events include: cart updated, cart loaded, payment page loaded, payment review page loaded, checkout complete, successful gift claim, item removed from cart, and item added to cart
• Engagement events that are also tracked: new registration, voucher printed & new sign-up
• Custom variables are sent along with the above events to get more detail

We are officially releasing v3.5 today which offers several new feature additions and improvements for your social commerce site. These include such things as voucher and deal previews, free shipping, improved gifting options, and report pagination.

Voucher and deal previews

Administrative Options

Previews for vouchers and deals were a highly requested feature by our users. For all of you who voted up that feature request, you’ll be pleased to see that these new options are built directly into v3.5. When enabled by the administrator, both voucher and deal/product previews can be accessed from the merchant dashboard (see image below using new GBS ecommerce theme for WordPress). To enable this feature, simply select the option to show private previews when editing or creating a new deal/product.

New Merchant Dashboard Section

Free shipping

Per our users’ requests, we’ve expanded the new shipping options released in v3.4 to include free shipping. If your product has a flat rate of $0, the shipping total will now display to the customer during checkout and shipping address will be collected.

Gifting administration

Based on user feedback, we’ve made an improvement to gift purchases. Site administrators now have the ability to resend a gift notification or modify the email address for which a gift was intended.

Report pagination

The more successful your social commerce site becomes, the more sales you make and the larger your reports grow. As the reports get larger, they can add more stress on your server. To address this, we’ve added pagination and defaulted to only display one hundred records at a time. If you’d like to reduce that default amount, you can easily modify the value through GBS’s excellent filtering system.

GBS 3.5: Voucher and Deal Previews, Free Shipping, Gifting Management is a post from: Group Buying Site

Voucher and deal previews

Free shipping

Gifting administration

Report pagination

Today we are excited to announce the official release of a new WordPress ecommerce theme named Shop E-commerce which utilizes GBS v3.5. This ecommerce theme for WordPress (WP) allows you to leverage the social commerce features built into GBS and apply them to selling products rather than traditional daily deals. The Shop WordPress ecommerce theme includes the many new shipping and tax options released in GBS v3.4, new filters, a responsive web design, elegant product sliders, and many more features to help you take your ecommerce site to the next level.

Purchase Theme

Homepage
The homepage displays the latest items for sale on your store while also automatically featuring all the categories through the use of sliders. The main section at the top is fully customizable through the WP page editor and allows for more customization via the WP widget areas.

Products
Products in the shop theme aren’t focused on timed deals, instead the emphasis is on the product’s current price and information. Customers have a quick method of adding multiple products to their cart with the quantity and item selection option located on the product page.

Filters
The default focus for GBS is “deals” whereas the Shop theme uses product based terminology to transition from “deals” to “products” and “vouchers” to “invoices”. Furthermore, since the shop theme is geared toward a traditional shopping site experience, locations are no longer necessary.

Responsive design
The Shop ecommerce theme for WordPress is a responsive design that’s built to also display well on mobile devices such as iPads and smartphones. In the image below you can see how each device has a different layout while still adhering to the same look and feel of the standard website view. It’s not simply about changing layouts to improve the view; it’s about being responsive to how the user interacts. Consider how you need to select items on an iPhone screen with your finger instead of a mouse which is far less accurate. The Shop theme takes this into account by displaying large action items that are easy to select despite being viewed in a much smaller window.

Many more features
As you’re viewing the Shop theme demo, you can see that the top menu dynamically changes as you scroll down any given page. This allows for the main menu to be viewed at all times by the visitor for easy navigation and cart access. The product and category sliders are prominently displayed throughout the entire ecommerce theme whether you’re viewing the homepage or the shopping cart. We’ve also implemented a new GBS theme page template to easily display all of your categories and most recent products using the convenient and visually appealing sliders.

Purchase Theme

Shop E-Commerce Theme For WordPress is a post from: Group Buying Site

Today we are excited to announce the official release of a new WordPress ecommerce theme named Shop E-commerce which utilizes GBS v3.5. This ecommerce theme for WordPress (WP) allows you to leverage the social commerce features built into GBS and apply them to selling products rather than traditional daily deals. The Shop WordPress ecommerce theme includes the many new shipping and tax options released in GBS v3.4, new filters, a responsive web design, elegant product sliders, and many more features to help you take your ecommerce site to the next level.

Homepage The homepage displays the latest items for sale on your store while also automatically featuring all the categories through the use of sliders. The main section at the top is fully customizable through the WP page editor and allows for more customization via the WP widget areas.

Products Products in the shop theme aren't focused on timed deals, instead the emphasis is on the product's current price and information. Customers have a quick method of adding multiple products to their cart with the quantity and item selection option located on the product page.

Filters The default focus for GBS is "deals" whereas the Shop theme uses product based terminology to transition from "deals" to "products" and "vouchers" to "invoices". Furthermore, since the shop theme is geared toward a traditional shopping site experience, locations are no longer necessary.

Responsive design The Shop ecommerce theme for WordPress is a responsive design that's built to also display well on mobile devices such as iPads and smartphones. In the image below you can see how each device has a different layout while still adhering to the same look and feel of the standard website view. It's not simply about changing layouts to improve the view; it's about being responsive to how the user interacts. Consider how you need to select items on an iPhone screen with your finger instead of a mouse which is far less accurate. The Shop theme takes this into account by displaying large action items that are easy to select despite being viewed in a much smaller window.

Many more features As you're viewing the Shop theme demo, you can see that the top menu dynamically changes as you scroll down any given page. This allows for the main menu to be viewed at all times by the visitor for easy navigation and cart access. The product and category sliders are prominently displayed throughout the entire ecommerce theme whether you're viewing the homepage or the shopping cart. We've also implemented a new GBS theme page template to easily display all of your categories and most recent products using the convenient and visually appealing sliders.

Purchase Theme

The Auto Cart and Widget add-on provides a way for your registered visitors to easily add items to their cart without being redirected to the cart page. After activating this add-on and clicking the standard add-to-cart button, the item will be added to the customer’s cart in the background, a notification will show (same as the default notification), the cart count will increment in the header and if you add the AJAX Cart Widget to the sidebar (included in this add-on) it will be dynamically updated.

Benefits:

• Simple installation
• Works with the Premium theme and Response theme “out of the box”
• Cart Widget dynamically generated via AJAX to reduce load times
• Cart Widget updates after every add-to-cart action
• Filterable for developers

View of cart widget on Response Theme

View of cart widget on Premium Theme

Featured Add-on: Auto Cart and Widget is a post from: Group Buying Site

The Auto Cart and Widget add-on provides a way for your registered visitors to easily add items to their cart without being redirected to the cart page. After activating this add-on and clicking the standard add-to-cart button, the item will be added to the customer's cart in the background, a notification will show (same as the default notification), the cart count will increment in the header and if you add the AJAX Cart Widget to the sidebar (included in this add-on) it will be dynamically updated.

Benefits:

• Simple installation
• Works with the Premium theme and Response theme "out of the box"
• Cart Widget dynamically generated via AJAX to reduce load times
• Cart Widget updates after every add-to-cart action
• Filterable for developers