|
View the web version
Hi there, hope you're having a great Friday!
This is Colm and Simon from CommerceGurus, with a handpicked weekly roundup of eCommerce articles.
PS - Due to an overwhelming response to our Community Survey we have extended the deadline until the end of August. So ensure that you have your say on what features we build next!
We have just launched a huge update for Shoptimizer and CommerceKit which has been in the works for some time.
Some highlights from our Shoptimizer update includes:
- You can now display sale badges with the actual value saved, not just the percentage.
- The progress bar labels are now easily adjustable in the customizer, no editing language files.
- The 'Load more' feature on listings pages has been overhauled to make it even better, ideal for large catalogs.
CommerceKit additions includes:
- A fantastic new Reports module, it gives store owners a clearer view of conversion performance all in one place.
- Linked products via swatches. Added image-swatch links between related simple products, helping users move easily between products that share common attributes.
- Now includes an opt-in mobile product gallery powered by native browser scrolling and CSS scroll-snap.
- Free Shipping Notification now supports multi-zone intelligence.
- Abilities API support for WordPress 7.0+.
See the Full Shoptimizer and CommerceKit Changelogs
🎉 Introducing CommerceGurus Turbo!
One plugin. One click. CommerceGurus Turbo is the only performance plugin built purely for WooCommerce stores.
Includes page and edge caching, CSS and JS optimization, lazy loading, Cloudflare image optimization, and preloading — all with safe defaults that work immediately.
Discover CommerceGurus Turbo
|
WordPress 7.1 was released this week, with some substantial improvements to the editing experience.
One of the biggest is responsive styling, which lets you adjust how blocks look at different screen sizes directly in the editor, without having to reach for custom CSS.
You can also style interactive states such as hover and focus.
WordPress can now process more images in the browser, including HEIC, AVIF, WebP and UltraHDR, uploads can automatically retry if the connection drops, and the Media Library now uses infinite scrolling by default.
The admin toolbar also remains visible when moving into the Site and Block Editors, and the command palette has been improved.
The Abilities API continues to expand too, which is particularly interesting as WordPress prepares for deeper integrations with AI agents and external tools.
One thing that didn't make this release is real-time collaborative editing, which remains in development.
As with any major WordPress release, we'd recommend holding off for a week or so before updating live sites.
See What's New In WordPress 7.1
Joost de Valk, founder of Yoast SEO, has written a thought-provoking piece on what websites will look like over the next five years.
His argument is that websites aren't becoming less important. They're becoming the verified, machine-readable home base of a business.
Increasingly, they'll need to serve both humans and AI agents, with trustworthy content that machines can understand and act on.
As AI assistants become a bigger part of shopping, recommendations and purchase decisions will increasingly happen in chat interfaces rather than on search results pages.
That makes your website the canonical source of truth for products, pricing, inventory, and brand information.
Joost also argues that authenticity is becoming the biggest competitive advantage - real expertise, real people, genuine reviews, and a consistent presence across the web will matter far more than mass-produced AI content.
Read About the Future of the Website
Photiu Image Upscaler is a simple online tool for enlarging low-resolution images without the usual loss of quality.
It uses AI to sharpen details, reduce blur, and increase resolution, making it useful for everything from product photos to marketing graphics and old images that need to be reused at a larger size.
I actually had to use it recently when an image was too small for the container it needed to fit in on a website. I ran it through Photiu and was pleasantly surprised by the result - it produced a much larger, sharper version that looked great.
Check out Photiu Image Upscaler
And to round off a busy few weeks of updates, we have also released the latest version of our performance plugin for WooCommerce stores, CommerceGurus Turbo, which keeps going from strength to strength.
The update adds request and taxonomy archive exclusions, improved handling for independent script and style exclusions, and new Weglot compatibility, including enhanced multilingual cache warming.
Dynamic content detection (e.g. "Load more" UX) has also been improved to work correctly out of the box.
The release includes further stability and compatibility improvements, including stronger Elementor exclusions, safer cache drop-in handling, and fixes for Google Translate, wp-admin cache purging, and container bootstrapping.
See the CommerceGurus Turbo Changelog
Our WordPress Products:
Our Shopify Apps:
That's it for this edition. Simply reply to this email if you have any questions or suggestions, we read every message.
You can also take a look at our entire back catalog of newsletters.
Have a great week and best of luck with your projects!
Simon and Colm from CommerceGurus
|