Below are several new site features. The  DCS team is currently working on a few enhanced features to be released before wintertime.

1. Corporate Service Block: meets the increasing demand of franchise brand signs

2. Mousing-over to preview an image provides more detailed information

3.  Intuitive sign-making system; see preview instantly

4. Large sign preview available at any stage of the ordering process

5. Clear statement at the Shopping Cart

6. Easy re-ordering process.

Background Introduction:

WeNeedSigns.com was first introduced in 2008.  It began the novel idea of an online sign store with full-blown online designing and ordering features.  Shoppers choose their template first, then create with their own design with an online drawing board.

Over the same period of time, DCS worked on a parallel project for the sign vendor of the Alain Pinel Real Estate company.  Designed for 1500+ agents from 30+ offices,  it used a less flexible online sign ordering system.  Still, it delivered what our client expected in terms of productivity and profitability.

By early June 2010, the DCS team started developing the new version of WeNeedSigns.com.  Our goal: to leverage the existing assets and to bring in higher quality user experience in an Online Custom Sign Order system.

X-Cart Simple Gallery System

• A basic one-page image gallery system.
• Uses pagination if you have loads of images.
• Easily upload your images using the X-Cart file system, or by FTP.

X-Cart Rotating Flash Banners

• Easy method to display rotating image banners/buttons.
• Customisable banner size, transition speed, link target etc.
• Image data pulled from XML file.
• Could be used as a simple slideshow.

X-Cart RSS Feeds Displayer

• Display multiple random RSS feeds around your site.
• Relevant keyword content may help with SEO.
• Uses Google AJAX feed API.

X-Cart ShadowBox Integration

• The ultimate ‘lightbox’ style mod.
• Forget lightbox, thickbox, mediabox, slimbox etc. this one beats them all.
• Cleanly coded, cross-platform and standards based.
• Mod includes detailed product images and up to 3 product videos.

X-Cart Simple FAQ System

• Q & A’s in language variables.
• Up to 20 Questions and Answers.

X-Cart Simple Gallery System

• A basic one-page image gallery system.
• Uses pagination if you have loads of images.
• Easily upload your images using the X-Cart file system, or by FTP.

X-Cart Simple Sitemap

• A basic sitemap, lists all products alphabetically.
• Optional product descriptions, static pages and speedbar items.
• This will be adequate for most stores, not recommended for large stores!
• To generate a Google/Yahoo sitemap

X-Cart Store Locations

• Simple and effective way to add a store locator
• Uses Google Maps API
• Can use HTML in the balloon popups
• Note: ‘allow_url_fopen’ needs to be ON.

X-Cart AJAX Dynamic Product Search

• Shows a list of products according to what you type in the search box.
• Similar to autocomplete in Internet Explorer, but dynamically lists your products from your database using Ajax.
• Similar to Google Suggest.
• Replaces the regular X-Cart search box.
• Works well with the HTML catalog.
• Dropdown box style can be customised with separate CSS file.
• Cross browser compatible.

X-Cart AJAX Password Strength Meter

• Ensures that your administrators and customers register with a strong password.
• Dynamic visual indication of password strength.
• Add your own unsafe passwords.
• Set minimum length etc.

X-Cart AJAX Username Checker

• Checks if your customer’s desired username is available, on the registration page, without page reloading.
• Suggests alternatives if the usernames are not available.
• Often one of the main fields that snags up the registration process.
• Great for stores with loads of customers.

X-Cart Direct Product Enquiry Form

• Displays a direct product enquiry form on each product page.
• Sends an email to admin with product name, product link, name, email, telephone, enquiries, browser and IP address.
• Speeds up enquiry responses.
• Fully customisable with language variables.
• Validated form fields.
• CAPTCHA image for greater security (GDLib required)
• IP address and ’stop words’ filters.

X-Cart FAQ Manager

• Instant knowledge base for your store!
• Easily add/remove/update FAQ categories/questions/answers.
• Uses X-Cart template.
• HTML allowed in answers.
• Customisable HTML header and footer.
• WYSIWYG HTML editors included, with image uploader

X-Cart Featured Products Glider

• Rotating or ‘gliding’ featured products.
• Uses jQuery, highly customisable.

X-Cart Form Builder

• Easily create a dynamic custom form with validation.
• Ideal for quote forms, questionnaires, feedback forms etc. etc.
• Saves you having to hard-code your own.
• Requires little PHP knowledge.

X-Cart Knowledge Base

• Advanced knowledge base / glossary / support ticket system.
• Fully searchable, categories, RSS feeds, rating system, file uploads.
• Most viewed, recent articles, email to friend, comments.

X-Cart QuickFind

• Allows your customers to quickly search, sort and filter your store by various fields.
• Directly add products to the cart.
• Ideal for small-medium sized stores (less than 1000 products).
• Thumbnails and other fields can be disabled to speed up display.
• Useful just for internal use, find products fast if you get telephone queries etc.
• jQuery based.

Teh Lu, IT manager at AMTFcorp.com, a respectful client of DCS, has prepared the updated Zone list and Rate List for California-based X-cart Store owners. I did a few minor modification to make it worked just fine.

=========================================
Complete Zone List after April 1st 2009 in California
= Internal + CA States + USA + 70 CA Zones

Sales Tax rates after April 1st, 2009 in California
= 58 County (tax Zone) + 11 city specified rates + 1 Ca default

Click to download:
CA Sales Tax Rate Apr/1/2009

If you are using the X-cart online store, X-cart has an online manual for instructions on how to set your tax rate:
http://www.x-cart.com/xcart_manual/online/?tax_settings.htm

Whether you are or are not a DCS past or current client, if you need  help in changing the sales tax rate of your X-cart store(s), please fill in this form to get started:

http://www.dcsproduction.com/blog/contact-dcs
Please fill in before March 26th, 2009.
We will announce a uniformed switching time when all requests have been received.

We canNOT teach you how to do it over the phone, thanks for your understanding.

For Consumers, please check how much you should pay from this link:

http://www.geotax.com/USTaxLookup/

+ ExcelTeam.net: SEO project and results
+ ResultsTeam.com: SF Bay Area Real Estate scoop on 2009
+ FiveBranches.edu: korean-program launched
+ VitaMoreUSA.com: Health care tips and dietary supplement ordering

On DCSproduction.com
+ DCS launched its 2009 Portfolio
+ Google Ranking Factors
+ SEO Checklist for New Stores

Forming the strong online presence of your business, school, organization, and the interactive communication with your target audiences, we have the experience and knowledge to share with you.

Urgency to get a good Google ranking? Please follow this LINK

Drawing Board has Ruler and Guidelines

Keep frequently used pictures in online album

All users may use the online Drawing board to design their own signs. Picture shows, in a safety sign design, ruler, and guideline tools are available.

[Drawing Board] – Design your sign on the site with text, picture, clipart, and many drawing tools

Text font style, color, and wrapping options

1000+ ready to use cliparts

Upload and insert pictures to the sign

[My Signs] — Your advance sign management tool

My Signs- allows continuous design improvement

Save your sign design /w or w/o an account

Keep track of ordered signs

category page in AMTFcorp.com

Product page in AMTFcorp.com

Features:

About 2 years ago, we delivered our first built-to-order (customized) computer store project, ITXdepot.com. In this case, due to less requirement demanded, we implemented a more light-weighted Addon: [Global-options] to meet the build-to-order requirements in the store. 2500+ products under 11 categories were uploaded by the spreadsheet-like data sheet.

The client had been in business for over 16 years. They owned an extended email list from past deals. DCS has quickly converted that list to an email newsletter campaign arm.

The client came to DCS with a long list of headache issues on their old website. Problems included difficulty in updating the contents, checking-out was unavailable, there were no ways to organize sales campaigns,…. All issues were resolved with affordable prices and timely solutions. We were glad to have another happy customer.

May 2008