IndieCommerce Launches Mobile Theme, Givex Gift Cards for E-books, and More

Smartphone users who visit a bookstore’s IndieCommerce website will now see a special, mobile-optimized version of each page. The store site will automatically detect the customer’s device and render each page using the mobile theme if appropriate.

By default, the mobile theme focuses on book/e-book searches and purchases. A special, text-only list of upcoming store events is also provided. Users are presented with the option to switch back to the regular version of the store website if they prefer not to use the mobile theme.

IndieCommerce stores don’t need to configure or change anything to activate the mobile theme; the update is automatically in effect for all stores. However, it is possible to customize many aspects of the mobile theme. ABA staff will soon post documentation explaining how to do this to IndieCommerce.com.

QR codes in stores work great with the mobile theme.

Givex Gift Card Purchasing for Google eBooks ™

Customers can now purchase Google eBooks using Givex gift cards. If there is not enough balance on the gift card to cover the e-book purchase, the customer will be prompted to enter a credit card as well.

For IndieCommerce stores that are not using Givex, ABA staff is working on a website gift code module that will allow the store to generate gift certificate codes, which can be redeemed for e-books and other products on the store site. Customers would also be able to buy gift certificate codes for each other. Although there is currently no set time for the module’s launch, it is expected to be ready well in advance of the holidays this year.

Additional Improvements

Other recent improvements to IndieCommerce sites include:

• The appearance of the ‘add to cart’ button alongside search results in both the regular and mobile themes

• Book/E-book cover images now appear on the shopping cart page when customers go to check out.  Due to screen size constraints, book images do not appear in the mobile theme.

• It is now possible to hide the number of books on-hand for inventory synced with the website.

IndieCommerce staff is busy working on more improvements to come.