Innovative Store Designs Flourish with New Interface of ProStores 8.0

Release date: March 20, 2007  /  Print This

SAN JOSE, Calif., March 20, 2007 – ProStores, a full-featured customizable online store solution for small- and medium-size businesses, released its newest software upgrade, version 8.0. The most significant upgrade since mid-2006, the latest version features a new user interface and a complete redesign of the Store Design Hub allowing merchants using ProStores software to set up and customize the design of their online stores more easily. Demonstrating the commitment to continually evolving and updating the merchant experience, ProStores 8.0 is the sixth upgrade ProStores introduced since the launch of ProStores as an eBay Company in 2005.

“Based on extensive feedback from our merchant community and valuable usability testing, we’ve created a new Store Design Hub that is simple and intuitive for store designers at any level,” said Eric Shoup, director of ProStores. “Merchants spend a significant amount of time working on their ProStores web site design; in fact, half make design updates to their site at least once a week. The new features and functionality in ProStores 8.0 will help our merchants quickly and easily revise their stores to provide the best customer experience possible.”

Easier Setup and Design

The ProStores 8.0 Store Design Hub is a centralized location that provides design recommendations, easy comparison of available store design themes, customizable view settings, improved navigation between advanced design tools, and a redesigned help module. Merchants now can easily apply edits across multiple page templates with the new Page Template manager and make quick content and design updates to their store information pages with a new “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) Page Text editor that does not require knowledge of HTML coding.

Customer Log-in for Business Tier

The upgrade allows Business tier subscribers the option for customer log-in, providing smooth check-out and access to account information and order history for repeat customers. The customer log-in feature was previously only available in the Advanced and Enterprise tiers.

Version 8.0, as with all other versions of ProStores, requires no downloading or copying of files. Existing merchants are automatically upgraded to the new version.

ProStores offers four e-commerce tiers: Express, Business, Advanced, and Enterprise. The ProStores solution enables merchants to set up a complete online store with the many of the same features and the sophistication found on the Web sites of larger retailers, including full shopping-cart capability with online checkout and integration with major payment gateways and shippers.

Subscription fees for ProStores sites start at $6.95 per month for the Express tier, with a 1.5 percent successful transaction fee. The other three tiers are ProStores Business, the most popular tier at $29.95 per month, Advanced at $74.95 per month, and Enterprise at $249.95 per month, each tier with a 0.5 percent successful transaction fee.

About ProStores

ProStores, an eBay Company, allows small- and medium-sized businesses to create professional online stores, customized with their own branding and domain name. ProStores was incorporated as an eBay Company in November 2004, followed by eBay’s acquisition of Kurant’s StoreSense technology in January 2005. ProStores launched its full-service e-commerce solution to merchants in June 2005. For more information about ProStores visit www.prostores.com.

About eBay Inc.

Founded in 1995, eBay pioneers communities built on commerce, sustained by trust and inspired by opportunity. eBay enables e-commerce on a local, national and international basis with an array of Web sites – including the eBay marketplace, PayPal, Kijiji, Rent.com and Shopping.com – that bring together millions of buyers and sellers every day.