In the end of quite of bit of research I ended up with CubeCart version 4. Version 3 of the software had been around and was widely used. Version 4 was recently released and the software seemed to be the right mix between features and price.

After almost 2 years on CubeCart 4 my assessment is still the same. It is very solid and has really great features, but there is always room for improvement. A few items were missing, and yes, many of them could be added with “mods”, but I prefer to keep the software as close to original as possible. The reason is for security, upgrades, and support. You start adding and changing code and you could be opening up unknown security issues, and upgrades become a major headache as well.

CubeCart 5 beta has just been announced. I checked out the demo and read about the new features. I am very excitied about this new release. I really re-affirms my original choice to go with CubeCart. The company is not sitting back and watching, they are continuing to improve and innovate. This is exactly what you want your software vendor to be doing. Now I won’t be one of the first to upgrade, I will let the bugs get settled and squashed for a bit, but I am very excited to take the next step with our e-commerce store, and I think CubeCart 5 is going to be a big part of the process again.

• beta.cubecart.com
• CubeCart Developer Blog

Find out if users are reading and responding to your email newsletters. This simple method will determine a direct correlation between newsletter clicks and sales.

Here is a very simple way to track the clicks the result directly from your email marketing newsletter.

Inside your newsletter you are likely going to include links directly to the products you are promoting in your online store. In order to track the links coming directly from the newsletter, we will create a special tracking page on your website to intercept, track, and then direct the link to the product.

The links inside your newsletter will look like:

http://examplestore.com/track.php?id=1

At the end of this link you will notice the id=1, the number 1 in this case will stand for a product page.

Now we will use this URL to track the click and then redirect to the product page.
In the code block below we look for the “id” variable and then set it inside the script as “id”.


$id = 0;
if (isset($_GET['id'])){
$id = $_GET['id'];
}


Next we write the hit to a simple text file, this will become our log file. In this example we use a file names “marketinglog.txt.” Upload a blank file with the file name “marketinglog.txt”, and set the permission to be writable on your web server.

We will write the id number, the IP address, and the date to the log file.


//file stuff
$ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
$the_date = date("Ymd" ,time());
$myFile = "marketinglog.txt";
$fh = fopen($myFile, 'a') or die("can't open file");
fwrite($fh, $id . "," . $ip . "," . $the_date . "\n");
fclose($fh);


The next section is where you place your real links. In the example below you can see the ID to URL relationship we are using.

1 = http://examplestore.com/widget-blue.htm
2= http://examplestore.com/widget-red.htm
3= http://examplestore.com/superwidget-deluxe.htm

Note: you can use any identifier you wish here. Maybe instead of an “id”, you can use a part number or some other internal numbering system which will make it easier to interpret the data later on.

[If the id is 1]
Case 1:
[then redirect to the real product page for blue widgets]
header(‘Location:http://examplestore.com/widget-blue.htm’);
[since we have a match in the id field, we will "break" which will stop processing]
break;

The last line with “default”, means if no id is matched, then redirect to the main page of the website.


switch ($id) {
case 1:
header('Location:http://examplestore.com/widget-blue.htm');
break;
case 2:
header('Location:http://examplestore.com/widget-red.htm');
break;
case 3:
header('Location:http://examplestore.com/superwidget-deluxe.htm');
break;
default:
header('Location: http://examplestore.com');
}
?>


The Full Tracking File


$id = 0;

if (isset($_GET['id'])){
$id = $_GET['id'];
}

//file stuff
$ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
$the_date = date("Ymd" ,time());
$myFile = "marketinglog.txt";
$fh = fopen($myFile, 'a') or die("can't open file");
fwrite($fh, $id . "," . $ip . "," . $the_date . "\n");
fclose($fh);

switch ($id) {
case 1:
header('Location:http://examplestore.com/widget-blue.htm');
break;
case 2:
header('Location:http://examplestore.com/widget-red.htm');
break;
case 3:
header('Location:http://examplestore.com/superwidget-deluxe.htm');
break;

default:
header('Location: http://examplestore.com');
}
?>


Download the php script to view your log file online. (change the extension from txt to php)

I was very impressed by the traffic spike, and sales increase as well. The sales kept on coming strong starting on Thanksgiving and really all the way through “cyber Monday”. Very fun and exciting. We ended up selling out of many items and getting very low on others.

This shows the traffic traffic increase. Traffic was triple a normal day.

Thus our November sales were the best month yet this year. Sales did really dip in the summer time, but this is somewhat normal for the industry we are in.

Overall, I think it should be called maybe “Black Friday Weekend”, because while traffic was highest on that day, the sales came in consistent throughout the entire weekend. Good stuff.

• SEO friendly (keyword, and urls)
• Easy to use (template driven)
• Low cost (under $200)
• Ownership (not leased or rented software)

Then I would recommend using CubeCart. I found this CubeCart review very helpful as well.