We’ve been hard at work on FoxyCart since our last release, and we’re happy to announce our v1.1 release (full changelog) which brings a few new alternate payment methods to FoxyCart. We’re calling them “alternate” because for the majority of the history of ecommerce, payments have traditionally been through credit and debit cards, processed through traditional payment gateways (like Authorize.net or Chase Paymentech, or any of the 50+ gateways we support). This has been a great option, but, as entrepreneurs ourselves, we’re excited about new payment methods that offer flexibility to the customer and lower fees (or a variety of other perks) to the merchant.
The payment methods that are initially available in the v1.1 launch are:
- Dwolla, which allows bank transfers in a quick an easy manner. And at only 25¢, it’s a great new way to accept payments. (Unfortunately, it’s currently limited to US merchants and customers.)
- Amazon FPS, which allows customers to pay using their Amazon accounts. (US merchants only, but international customers.)
- Bitcoin (BTC, currently available through Bitpay.com) is “is a decentralized digital currency based on an open-source, peer-to-peer internet protocol” (to quote Wikipedia). We’re actually pretty excited about the possibilities Bitcoin presents, particularly with our users selling to increasingly global markets. (The absence of chargebacks and low fees make Bitcoin an attractive option for merchants to receive payments in.)
- iDEAL (through Ogone) is a popular bank transfer payment method for The Netherlands.
- DIBS supports netbank payments, also for Europe.
Perhaps more importantly than these particular new payment methods, however, is that this payment methods are built on top of new functionality that will allow us to add more alternate payment methods. On the radar are Google Checkout, 2co, and other Bitcoin providers. As always, please vote for new payment methods on our request board. We can’t make any promises about timeframes, but we do try to meet the greatest needs of our community.
Speaking of new features…
If you’ve ever asked us, you know that we never give release dates for future functionality, but we would like to let you know that we’re currently focusing on…
- a new fully responsive default theme for the cart and checkout (with some other slick improvements that should increase conversion rates),
- the Hypermedia API, and
- a new shipping platform. (We know we’ve been working on this one for a long time, so we’ll forgive you if you consider it vaporware until it’s released. But we’re continuing to work on it.)
We’re very (very) excited about the future, and we sincerely appreciate your support. As always, we take any and all feedback seriously. We know some of our community has been waiting a long time for new features, and we’re working hard to make FoxyCart even more powerful, easier to implement, and higher-converting than ever before.
