Meet the All-New Admin
- 4 August 2017
- ByMatt Wigham
- 13 min read
Over the last two years, Big Cartel has rolled out a brand new version of our store admin, redesigned and rebuilt from the ground up.
After releasing it section by section, improving and refining it based on your feedback, the time has come to go out with the old, and in with the new.
The old admin will be shut down on October 4th, 2017!
Nobody likes when a service they use surprises them with a totally different design to learn, which is why we slowly let you try out the new updates with the safety net of switching back to the familiar format, and why we're giving you so much advance notice on the official switch. We think you'll love the new admin, but after reading this if you still have questions or concerns, please let us know.
If you've already switched to using the new admin everyday, or if you've only recently signed up in the last month or two and had no idea there even was an "old" admin, then you don't have to do anything!
For anyone else still using the old admin, here's what we suggest:
Read this article to learn what's changed in the new admin.
Click Switch to the new admin from your old admin to begin using it.
Feel free to use either admin before the old admin is shut down on Oct. 4.
And as always, we're here to answer any questions you have, just let us know.
If you're one of the few who still hasn't made the plunge into the new admin yet, we're here to catch you up. You'll learn why we decided to take a fresh approach to the admin, and we'll walk you through everything that has improved or changed so you're prepared for October 4th. Here's what we'll cover:
Big Cartel has worked with more than a million artists over the last dozen years, and they've taught us an awful lot. We've learned what it takes to build a store from scratch, to establish a unique brand, and to manage a creative business. Now, we're excited to have taken everything we've learned and put it to use in a brand new, redesigned, and rebuilt admin area for your store.
Of course, Big Cartel's biggest feature has always been its simplicity, and that remained our top priority when building these new tools. But we're also taking this opportunity to lay a new foundation, built on modern designs and technologies, that can grow and adapt along with the makers, designers, and creatives we work for.
The new Dashboard has been completely reimagined, giving you the ideal way to see your shop's activity at a glance. It's the place many of you check most frequently, so we wanted to make it worthy of your attention.
By popular demand, your new Dashboard is filled with order stats. And now, visitor stats are available on all plans, too! We've made it beautifully simple to visualize yours stats across different time periods, so you can see the natural ebb and flow of your business.
Now that order and visitor stats are under one roof, we can show you a conversion rate to answer the all-important question: What percentage of people visiting your shop actually place an order? With that knowledge, you can adjust your marketing plan or improve your product listings to convert more browsers into customers.
Hard numbers are great - 100 visitors yesterday, whoo! - but to really keep your finger on the pulse of your shop, you need to see trends. Getting more visitors this week than last? Sell more this month? How's the conversion rate improved this year? The new Dashboard will tell you.
We've taken all-time product stats to the next level by breaking down how many times each product's been viewed, sold, and for how much. You can now sort by those different metrics, expand to see how the numbers look by product option, and see which categories sell best.
Savvy sellers will notice we no longer include search and referrer stats. Instead, we're focusing on what we do best and letting advanced stats platforms (like Google Analytics) do what they do best. Want to see who's linking to you, what people search for, which browsers they're on, and much more? Try our Google Analytics integration on for size.
Orders are the lifeblood of your shop, but can be a lot to manage. Our new design makes it easy to see what was ordered, what’s been shipped, and if something needs to be addressed by you.
If you have "shipping days" where you send out a batch of orders at a time, you no longer need to check them off one-by-one in your admin. Select the Unshipped tab, click Mark all shipped, and watch them all fade away.
For you Excel nerds out there, or for times when you want to send a spreadsheet of your order history to an outside bookkeeper or service, you can download your order data by clicking Download CSV. Searches and filters even work!
Our search feature helps you quickly find a needle in a haystack. Search results show both shipped and unshipped orders, let you click to toggle shipping status or view the full details, and will remember where you left off. Handy!
Just get an email from the guy who ordered your last mug saying he entered the wrong zip code at checkout? Or from the lady who bought your cool tote bag but forgot to mention her apartment number? No problem, fix it for them!
Whether you want to remember to include a special sticker pack in a returning customer's order, or that you exchanged a hoodie for a different size, you can now leave yourself private notes on each order. Back away from the Post-its.
With all that goes into receiving, managing, and fulfilling an order, wouldn't it be nice to see a full history of when it was received, when you shipped it, what changes you've made, and all of the notes you've added? Yes. Yes it would.
Easily view the next and previous order in your list, even if you used a filter or search to get there. So now, if you were just looking at shipped orders, or just searched for a specific customer's email address, the next and previous links remember that.
Finally, for you power users out there, don't take your hand off the comfy keyboard, simply use the ← and → arrow keys to switch orders. Combined with the overall speed boost our team has made, this is a crazy fast way to cruise through orders.
The first thing you'll notice is our new products admin looks very different from the one you use today. It's not just a fresh coat of paint - we've brought your unique product imagery to the forefront, so it feels like it's yours.
The next thing you may notice is a bigger focus on category management. From the new Categories tab, it's now easy to edit your categories all at once, to see which products are in each category, and to add a new product to the list.
Take a glance at your remaining inventory levels with just a click. For shops with inventory tracking enabled, this new feature shows you how many of each product are left in stock, and highlights those that are running low or sold out completely.
Don't wade through a long list of products or pull your hair out trying to find every print that comes in 10x14. Our new search feature allows you to type in any product or option name and quickly find what you're looking for.
No more re-adding the same options and shipping to new products, or re-typing the same price and description, or re-adding the same categories. Hit copy on any existing product, give it a new name, tweak anything else you'd like, and voilà!
When you add a product, we create a URL for it based on its name. But what if its name changes or you want to remove "pre-order" from the URL? We don't automatically update the URL because that would break any links you've already shared, but you can edit the URL yourself if you'd like.
Of course, we gave our new Discounts section that charming new admin style, but we were careful not to mess with a good thing. People really like how understandable our current discount form is, so that remains at its core.
Expired discounts now live in a separate tab, making it easier to focus on your active discounts. We've also given each active discount a progress bar showing how close it is to joining its elderly friends in retirement.
If your last sale was a big hit with customers, run it again! You can copy a discount code to your clipboard in a single click.
If you need to generate a bunch of similar discount codes to hand out, or maybe you just really like the way one turned out, you can now duplicate any discount in your list. Select Copy Discount, give it a new name and code, and you're done!
Everything's now simplified under one roof. You can change your shop name or email, improve your search engine optimization and social sharing by adding a shop description and profile image, choose the right design, update your checkout options and billing plan, and so much more.
As exciting as those features are, the real stars of the show are the new security settings, so you can stay in full control of important changes to your shop, and always be aware of who has access to it. Here's how it all works.
Forget your password? Can't access your email address either?! Geez, you're having a bad day. Well, the good news is you can now link a phone number to your Big Cartel account for just this situation. Once linked, we can text you a pin code to reset your password and get you right back into your admin. Do it now before you forget!
Important changes to your shop, like changing your email, phone number, password, or closing your account, now require your account's password. No one's doing anything without the magic word!
Did you remember to log out that time you checked your dashboard from that coffee shop computer? What about that time you borrowed a friend's phone to update an order? Exorcise your login demons by reviewing all devices that currently have access to your admin, and give any one of them the boot.
Easily keep tabs on all of the apps and integrations you've used to trick out your shop. Whether you're printing shipping labels with ShipStation, selling digital products with Pulley or printing on-demand with Printful, we've got your apps covered.
We've poured a lot of care into this new admin, and we'll keep working to make it even better. If you have issues or ideas, we want to hear about them. With any luck, the improvements will make your life as a shop owner a little bit easier, and let you get back to making new things and doing what you love.
4 August 2017
Words by:Matt Wigham