What's New in SureCart

After 10 months of development, 2 months of beta testing, 100’s of sites upgraded, it’s time to release SureCart 3 to the world.

This is a MAJOR update, and we are asking all merchants to proceed thoughtfully. Depending on how you use SureCart, some elements on the front end of your store may visually look a little different. Everything will function as expected, but there may be slight changes in spacing and font sizes.

We have created an upgrade guide as well as a video guide where we upgrade a store from version 2 to version 3.

Please view the guide and video here: https://surecart.com/docs/upgrading-to-surecart-v3/

Here is a breakdown of all the new features and capabilities in SureCart 3.

The main focus was to give merchants more speed and more customization options. And to lay the groundwork for page builder integrations and pro workflows.

We rebuilt the shop page, product pages, collection pages, and the cart, from the ground up.

Custom Post Type & Custom Fields

SureCart products now have their own custom post type that 3rd party plugins can see.

You can also now add custom fields to your products to vastly expand what you can build with SureCart.

• ACF and Metabox support
• Use your custom loop builders
• Compatibility with SEO plugins

Local Media Library

SureCart now works with the native WordPress media library to store and display your product images.

• All images now load from your media library
• Variation specific images

Customization, Interactivity API, Shadow DOM

We rebuilt many of our blocks from the ground up, to enable merchants to design a truly unique store, without code.

In doing this we have also implemented the Interactivity API, a JavaScript library that allows developers to add interactive elements to the front end of their WordPress blocks.

This basically means everything has been made faster.

In rebuilding these blocks, we have also removed the Shadow DOM which was causing some challenges for merchants that wanted to add custom CSS to our blocks. This is going to make it vastly easier to write custom CSS.

• Our blocks are more customizable
• You can use 3rd party blocks now
• New product list block
• New product list templates
• Huge speed improvements

Bricks Builder Integration

Introducing our first native page builder integration for Bricks Builder.

We chose Bricks Builder because it was highly requested by our users. Bricks Builder also has a very enthusiastic agency/developer user base which is the group we want to cater to.

• Native Bricks Builder Elements
• Dynamic content
• Product loop
• Template Collections
• Template Product page
• Automatic CSS support

What’s Next For SureCart

With this major release finally out, our focus will shift to the following.

Elementor Pro Integration

Elementor Pro is next up for a native integration. We are excited to announce that most of the work there is already done.

Due to Elementor only offering the display dynamic content and their theme builder for templates, this page builder integration will be dependent on their Pro version.

New Checkout And Customer Area

We are planning on how we will rebuild our checkout forms and customer area. They currently rely on the Shadow DOM, which we are getting away with.

Also, we have been listening to customer feedback on how to improve the options that we offer, so we are taking that into consideration as well.

Right now we are in the planning stage to make decisions on how to approach this.

Multi-currency

Merchants that sell globally have been wanting us to make it so they can show prices in local currencies.

With SureCart 3 now released, we can work on tackling multi-currency.

SureCart Everywhere

We love WordPress and SureCart on WordPress will always offer the most customizable experience; our merchants have made it clear that they want to use SureCart everywhere.

There is also a new generation of ecommerce sellers that just have social media and no website at all.

We want SureCart to work on any website building platform, this would include Webflow, Framer, SquareSpace, Wix, Laravel, etc.

We also want SureCart to work if you don’t have a website at all. Where the checkout and customer area are hosted by us.

We are going to tackle this in phases.

Phase 1 would enable all merchants to manage their store on the platform. This is going to be a game changer for agencies because it will deliver a better store management experience where their clients don’t have to log into WordPress to manage products, orders, etc.

Phase 2 will make the customer dashboard hosted or embeddable into any website.

Phase 3 will offer hosted or embeddable checkout.

Full Changlog

New:

• New: Completely rebuilt Shop, Product, and Cart systems using the Interactivity API for better performance and customization.
• New: Variant images – automatically show/hide images based on the selected variation.
• New: Bricks Builder integration.
• New: Advanced Custom Fields integration.
• New: Meta Box integration.
• New: Product now sync with custom post types for better compatibility with other plugins.
• New: Products now use the WP Media Library for images.
• New: 1-click shop page patterns/templates for easy styles.

Improvement:

• Improvement: More customizable product, shop and cart templates.
• Improvement: Preload pagination and filter links on shop page.
• Improvement: More performant loading of shop and product pages due to server side rendering of state. – Improvement: Realtime search of products on shop page.
• Improvement: Slide out cart traps focus for better accessibility.
• Improvement: Quick view icon to view product from edit product page.
• Improvement: Upsells are not out of beta.
• Improvement: Move SureCart admin menu to further up to help with navigation, due to the number of submenu items.

We’re excited to announce SureCart 2.40, which introduces our most requested feature, Payable Invoices.

And of course we made a video on it.

On the surface you may think “oh another invoicing solution”. And you wouldn’t be wrong.

But when you understand how much more profitable invoices can be when you wrap the SureCart feature set around them, then you will understand why we built this.

It can be a true game changer for your business!

New:

• New: Invoicing – Create and send invoices to customers!

Improvement:

• Improvement: Allow editing of order name, address, and tax information in the admin.
• Improvement: Rework caching architecture for cached resources.
• Improvement: Improve warning message when deleting a customer record.
• Improvement: Remove unnecessary order expansions on the customer list page to improve performance.
• Improvement: Better error message for when the subscription period end is earlier than the start date.

Fix:

• Fix: Change “Setup” to “Set Up” on the onboarding page.
• Fix: Issue where currency was sometimes wrong on affiliate commission, adding variants, and upsell discounts.
• Fix: Missing WordPress php filter for surecart/request/model.

We’re excited to announce SureCart 2.30, bringing more subscription selling and management abilities.

Boost your recurring revenue with long-term subscriptions! 

Now you can set subscription intervals for up to 10 years, giving your customers the freedom to choose the payment frequency that best suits their needs. This opens up new possibilities for high-value products and services, allowing you to capture long-term customer loyalty.

Never miss a beat with expired card notifications! 

We’ve added a new email notification that automatically sends email reminders to customers when their payment method is about to expire. This proactive approach helps you prevent missed payments and ensure a smooth subscription experience for your customers.

New:

• New: Allow subscription intervals up to 10 years.
• New: Card expired email notification

Fix:

• Fix: Issue preventing cancellation of paused subscriptions.
• Fix: Translate url going to incorrect location.
• Fix: Site url change notice missing some styles.

We just released the biggest update to SureCart which took 8 months of effort.

The main focus was to give merchants more speed and more customization options. And to lay the groundwork for page builder integrations and pro workflows.

We rebuilt the shop page, product pages, collection pages, and the cart, from the ground up.

Custom Post Type & Custom Fields

SureCart products now have their own custom post type that 3rd party plugins can see.

You can also now add custom fields to your products to vastly expand what you can build with SureCart.

• ACF and Metabox support
• Use your custom loop builders
• Compatibility with SEO plugins

Local Media Library

SureCart now works with the native WordPress media library to store and display your product images.

• All images now load from your media library
• Variation specific images

Customization, Interactivity API, Shadow DOM

We rebuilt many of our blocks from the ground up, to enable merchants to design a truly unique store, without code.

In doing this we have also implemented the Interactivity API, a JavaScript library that allows developers to add interactive elements to the front end of their WordPress blocks.

This basically means everything has been made faster.

In rebuilding these blocks, we have also removed the Shadow DOM which was causing some challenges for merchants that wanted to add custom CSS to our blocks. This is going to make it vastly easier to write custom CSS.

• Our blocks are more customizable
• You can use 3rd party blocks now
• New product list block
• New product list templates
• Huge speed improvements

Bricks Builder Integration

Introducing our first native page builder integration for Bricks Builder.

We chose Bricks Builder because it was highly requested by our users. Bricks Builder also has a very enthusiastic agency/developer user base which is the group we want to cater to.

• Native Bricks Builder Elements
• Dynamic content
• Product loop
• Template Collections
• Template Product page
• Automatic CSS support

How To Get The Beta

We will upload the latest beta to the WordPress plugin directory.

Here is a direct link to the Beta 1 download.

For future beta updates, you can visit our plugin listings advanced page. Then scroll down to the bottom to download the latest version.

Here is a direct link to the advanced page.

This is a beta, so future beta updates will have to be manually added to your website. This is explained in the video.

Even though it is a beta, we have already done extensive testing with many stores and many users.

We are happy to announce that SureCart is now powering over 30k websites.

That’s 50% growth in just 78 days 👏!

What’s even more exciting is how fast we have arrived here.

Here is a brief snapshot of our growth milestones:

• July 20th 2022 – SureCart Launched
• December 21st 2023 – Powering 10k Websites, which took 591 days
• April 30th 2024 – Powering 20k Websites, which took 124 days
• July 17th 2024 – Powering 30k Websites, which took 78 days

While the entire SureCart team is proud when we hit these milestones, we know that our work has just begun.

Let’s face the facts, we know we are the underdogs here. But that is where we thrive.

It is fun being the fastest growing ecommerce plugin for WordPress though.

Everyone loves an underdog!

P.S. Stay tuned for SureCart 3, the first beta will release this month.

We’re excited to announce SureCart 2.29, bringing you more control over free trials and preventing customers from taking advantage of multiple free trial offers.

Stop Free Trial Abuse

Have you ever worried about customers repeatedly signing up for free trials? This latest update gives you the power to say “no more”! You can now restrict customers from purchasing multiple free trials, ensuring a fairer system for everyone.

To enable this feature simply go to Settings > Subscriptions > Scroll to Purchase Behavior > Enable the option.

New:

• New: Subscription setting to prevent customers from purchasing multiple free trials.

Fix:

• Fix: Instructions sometimes not showing in popup for manual payment methods.
• Fix: “Not Found” error when adding a cart icon to a menu and showing it even when there are no items in the cart.
• Fix: Auto-fulfill not working for test processor.
• Fix: Products, product collection, and upsells missing trailing slash causing canonical url issues in some cases.
• Fix: SureCart form shortcode not saving in Thrive Architect for some users.
• Fix: Aria-label strings are not translated properly.
• Fix: Remove product caching on admin product list page to prevent stale inventory data.
• Fix: Ensure product sku or id is present in product microdata for better facebook support.

We’re thrilled to announce SureCart 2.28, which brings updates to streamline your checkout process and give you more control over your subscriptions!

Empowering Your Customers

• Payment Flexibility: Customers can now remove their default payment method, giving them greater control over their checkout experience.
• Simplified Checkout: Collect both billing and shipping addresses directly at checkout, making it even easier for your customers to complete their purchases.

Effortless Subscription Management

• Seamless Price Updates: Merchants can now manually update subscriptions to the latest price version with ease, ensuring a smooth transition for both you and your subscribers when pricing changes occur.
• Clearer Trial Language: We’ve updated “Free Trial” to simply “Trial” throughout the plugin, accommodating both free and paid trial periods for greater clarity.

Plus, we’ve made several improvements and fixes to enhance the overall performance of SureCart.

New:

• New: Added a setting that allows customers to remove their default payment method.
• New: Added the ability to collect both billing and shipping addresses at checkout.

Improvement:

• Improvement: Users can now manually update a subscription to the latest price version in the event of a pricing change.
• Improvement: Change Free Trial default text throughout plugin to “Trial” to account for paid trials.

Fix:

• Fix: Update processor setting url.
• Fix: Resolved an issue where creating new prices did not clear the form when the drawer was closed.
• Fix: Fixed placeholder images for slide-out cart line items in the admin interface.
• Fix: Fixed an issue where a modal was incorrectly triggered when an item quantity was out of stock on the checkout page in certain instances.
• Fix: Fixed an issue where some shortcodes did not work with 0 instead of false for some attributes.

We are pleased to announce SureCart 2.27, which adds the most requested improvements to our Affiliate Platform, overrides.

When you create an affiliate program for your store, there are 3 main options you set for all affiliates:

• Commission rate
• Recurring commission length, if selling subscriptions
• Lifetime commissions

These are all set globally, but what if you want to:

• Give certain affiliates a different commission rate?
• Give certain affiliates recurring commissions or lifetime commissions?
• Give certain affiliates a different rate on specific products?

All the above and more are now possible with affiliate overrides.

The best part is that you don’t need to learn anything new to use these options. The Affiliate Platform is integrated into your store and has the same user interface that you already use.

Visit a specific product to override the 3 main options for that product.

Visit an affiliate profile to override their options or to give unique options for specific products.

It’s all very easy and seamless.

New:

• New: Individual product commission rates.
• New: Individual affiliate commission rates.
• New: Affiliate + product combination commission rates.

Improvement:

• Improvement: Conditional form block and order bumps block now allowed on free accounts.
• Improvement: Remove nonce from order confirm page GET request to allow dynamic linking.

Fix:

• Fix: Issue with abandoned checkout stats sometimes incorrectly defaulting to USD.
• Fix: Ensure order bump display condition rule field is required to prevent misconfiguration.
• Fix: Attaching and affiliate to a product was not working for affiliates without a last name.
• Fix: Ensure post types have correct capitalization in admin.

Last year we sent out a user survey to all the merchants using SureCart. We wanted to know what matters to them and what they want to see in SureCart.

Most of the results were expected because we truly make an effort to listen to all of our users and take action. After all, we are making SureCart for you.

For the past 6 months we have been working on your feedback, and we plan to release SureCart v3 this summer.

What Is SureCart v3?

The main goals that we aim to achieve are:

• Extensive no-code visual customization options, so you can effortlessly achieve any design you can imagine
• Significant speed improvements leveraging new technologies recently added to WordPress
• Pave the way for native page builder integrations for Bricks Builder first, and maybe Elementor second

A lot will change under the hood for v3, and we want to release it all at the same time.

We will have an extended beta period because if you have custom CSS changing the style of SureCart components, you may need to adjust your custom CSS.

We are moving away from the Shadow DOM. This will make a lot of things easier, but it could introduce some styling conflicts with your theme and plugins. So we need to proceed carefully.

What the release will include:

• Convert the product pages to a custom post type. This will open up the floodgates to custom fields, custom query loops, and so much more
• Shop page converted to the Interactivity API, and eliminating the Shadow DOM. The product list block will be all new with expanded customization options and child components.
• Product page converted to the Interactivity API, and eliminating the Shadow DOM. All blocks are all new with expanded customization options.
• Cart converted to the Interactivity API, and eliminating the Shadow DOM.

The checkout and customer area will not be converted just yet. This will happen later in the year. We just need some time to rethink both.

To understand the depth, these conversions basically mean we have rebuilt everything from scratch for performance and customizability.

The benefits will be:

• Massive speed improvements
• Massive customization options improvements
• Paves the way for us to build page builder integrations
• And so much more…

The wait will be worth it.

And here is the first sneak peek of this new version of SureCart.

You will see the unique layouts and designs you can accomplish as well as the instant load time.

These are some layouts the team quickly put together to test how far you can go customizing the design.

We can’t wait to see what our merchants build.