We’ve said it many times before and we’ll probably say it again. But we got tired of reinventing the wheel over and over again so we created our first product, Qala. We are always trying to improve, do more and develop our product into the best on the market. Qala is a product, our own e-commerce solution that fulfils the requirements to get started with a successful e-commerce.
Qala is built on third-party functionality from the open source tools WordPress and WooCommerce. But it doesn’t stop there, we have researched what functionality is needed to succeed with their e-commerce and then found existing and even in some cases built our own plugins to give our customers the best conditions for success.
But what happens when sales take off? We’ve already made sure the Qala platform is ready to scale and give you the foundation you need to break into new markets.
What’s new?
Let’s take a look at what’s new in version 2.8.
Qala Global Cart
In the past, the customer journey has been affected by glitches such as when a customer had products in the cart and then switched to another language or market, the cart was emptied. This new feature in version 2.8 ensures that the customer’s experience is not affected with annoyances like looking up the products again when the language or market is changed. It also converts to the correct currency.
Benefits:
Increased customer satisfaction
Fewer interruptions in the customer’s buying journey generates better customer satisfaction.
Reduces bounce rates and improves conversion rates
Customers no longer have to start over by adding products to their basket when they change language or location. This means the customer is less likely to leave the site.
Customisable email plugin:
In this version of Qala, you now have the ability to modify and design your confirmation emails in a way that was previously very limited. This feature makes it possible to change more in the template such as the size of borders, fonts and more. All this to make it easier for you to convey your brand and identity in every detail.
Benefits:
Strengthens brand identity
Customise the look and message to suit your brand.
User-friendly tool
An easy to customise template that reduces dependency on developers and/or designers, saving you time and money.
EU VAT plugin
This plugin allows you to collect and validate EU VAT numbers upon payment to identify B2B transactions. This is perfectly timed for the new EU VAT rules for e-retailers that come into force in July.
Benefits:
Allows registered EU businesses to decide how they want to pay tax in your e-commerce
Simplifies B2B sales – This is in line with general e-commerce trends where more and more B2B sales are conducted online. This is becoming more important with Brexit and COVID-19.
Updated product page
This plugin gives you as an e-retailer almost endless possibilities to showcase your products. With a few clicks of a button, we can design a product page based on your wishes.
Advantages:
Full control over WordPress editing and blocks
Gives CMS users greater ability to control the structure and emphasise product information to your customers.
Enables increased usability
Make your website as user-friendly as possible to reduce bounce rate and increase sales.
Support for Cloudflare Stream
When using moving content, it’s important that the files don’t weigh down the page, in other words slow it down and limit the volume of traffic. The visitor wants a fast, smooth page with non lagging videos. With this new update, we have secured support for the use of Cloudflare Stream, which allows videos to scroll in your header without interference. Cloudflare Stream is an external video platform that customises streaming for a smooth streaming experience.
We at Angry Creative (also Synotio – our infrastructure provider) are big fans of Cloudflare and use us extensively to deliver high performance and security to our clients’ websites.
Read more about Cloudflare Stream and the benefits of using it here.
Benefits:
High-quality video content
You’ve put a lot of resources into your video content, and with this plugin, we make sure it doesn’t go to waste through poor streaming.
Varnish Cache Clear Plugin
It’s very difficult to maintain high performance without a good caching solution but it can also cause problems. In co-operation with Synotio we have now developed a Varnish plugin to improve cache management. This is something that will not be visible to you as a user and the function will work in the background but give a positive effect on the load of the page. Every time someone visits your website, Varnish will examine its own cache to see if it has a copy of the page they want to access, if not it will create one and save it for later.
Benefits:
Improved customer experience
This improves the speed of the page and allows to receive large amounts of traffic without affecting the performance/experience of the visitor. It works in conjunction with Google’s Core Web Vitals to improve the customer experience by delivering a fast page and the customer is less likely to leave the page.
Support for Adyen payment solution
Secure transactions are key when it comes to buying and selling online. Qala 2.8 now supports Adyen, providing a risk-free payment option for both you as a business and the customer.
Benefits:
Secure payments
Protects personal and payment data.
Protects your business from fraud
Detects, prevents and responds to fraud
Manage everything in one place
Monitor fraud, review statistics and optimise risks
Support for reviews
Reviews are important in many aspects. They help you as a business to receive feedback from your customers, it can help search engines to read the activity on your site, as well as the customers’ experience. Using reviews can give a reassuring impression to potential customers and, with the right terms and conditions and privacy policy, they can also be used within your marketing materials.
Benefits:
A user-friendly tool for your customers
Easy for your customers and visitors to both view and leave reviews about your products and services
A great marketing tool
Let your customers’ opinions help you reach further and grow as a business
Support for Billmate’s new, smoother check-out
Billmate offers merchants payment solutions that are exceptionally easy to integrate and manage. As we’ve mentioned before, a secure transaction is a first and foremost need of any business collecting payment online. The new plugin has a flow that is closer to WooCommerce’s standard checkout in terms of how and when the order is created in the ecommerce platform. This makes Billmate Checkout more compatible with other plugins that also extend the functionality of the checkout.
Advantages
More compatible with WooCommerce
Smoother collaboration between WooCommerce and Billmate
Support for Google Shopping Feed (Google Merchant Centre)
Google Shopping Feed allows you to reach those customers at the end of the buying journey who already know what they’re looking for – and gives them an easy way to find your products directly in search results.
Valuable for marketing
Ability to find customers who already know what they want
Reach a wider audience
With the above, you have a greater opportunity to reach a wider audience and other markets
What’s next for you?
We are already working hard on new updates and features for future versions of Qala. For example, we are working on baking in Gutenberg (the new WordPress page editor) which will improve the editing experience and Qala will be able to work in parallel with WordPress. Gutenberg enables a more flexible delivery of combined content, which in turn gives you the opportunity to create a better shopping experience for your customers.
Want to know more about Qala and what we can help you with? Contact us and we will help you on your journey to becoming a more sustainable and efficient e-commerce.