After nearly 2 years in development, the brand new version of Sunshine Photo Cart is now available. This new version features a whole new vision from the ground up to modernize and improve the client gallery experience for you as a photographer and your customers.
What's New in Sunshine Photo Cart 3
PREVIOUS PRO FEATURES NOW IN FREE!
- Masonry & Mosaic thumbnail styles are now part of the free plugin!
- Stripe and Square are available to free users!5% Platform Fee will be applied to each payment accepted, paid Stripe add-on and Plus/Pro users will not have a Platform fee as always
NEW CORE FEATURES
- Store view! Let customers view list of available products for a gallery and make adding multiple images to cart much easier
- New Cover theme! A whole new theme within Sunshine for your galleries with a large cover photo
- Multiple pagination styles: Numbered, "load more" button, automatic infinite scrolling
- Multiple tax rates with options down to the postal/zip code
- Unlimited flat rate shipping methods available at different price points
- Distraction free checkout experience for better checkout optimization and higher conversions
- Test payment method for easier set up and testing
- Improved email content customization
NEW ADD-ONS
- Multi-Image Products: Products, like picture boxes or albums, that let customers select many photos
- Advanced Shipping: Restrict flat rate shipping options based on many criteria for more complex shipping options
SIGNIFICANTLY UPDATED ADD-ONS
- Packages: Brand new UI for how customers assign images in their package that is much more user-friendly
- Advanced Analytics: More charts/reports about your sales and the new Customer Timeline so you can see exactly how customers interact with your galleries
- Volume Galleries: Finally out of beta, easily create many galleries at once - great for sports and schools
- Digital Downloads: More customization options for free downloads in galleries and digital download products
- Lightbox: Whole new lightbox layout with even more customization options
- Product Options: Improved UI for easier product option selection
- Exports: More options for which orders to export and now also export customer data
How to Upgrade
In the WordPress admin, you should now see the upgrade options for the core Sunshine Photo Cart plugin and any installed add-ons.
Two very important notes:
- Update on a test/staging site first if you can. If this is not an option for you, update during a slow time of day.
- Please update the core plugin and every add-on at the same time to reduce any issues with the upgrade process.
After updating the plugins, you will be immediately redirected to an upgrade page in your WordPress admin. There you will be able to initiate the data upgrade process which will automatically walk through each order, gallery, image, etc and update them as needed. You must let this process fully finish and could take a while if you have a lot of data and images.
Update payment methods
If you are using PayPal, Stripe, or Square, there is a whole new way of connecting these to your site with Sunshine Photo Cart to help make use of new features that cannot be migrated from existing settings. You will need to go to the Payment settings page and re-connect.
Confirm all your settings and test
Once the updates are completed, confirm your settings such as shipping, tax, etc are accurate. Then test your site and make sure you can still view galleries, add to cart, and submit orders (there is a new Test Payment method you can enable to help test).
The Best Client Photo Galleries Solution for Photographers
With this update I feel very strongly that Sunshine Photo Cart is the best WordPress plugin for photographers to use when selling photos to their clients. From portraits to volume photographers, you won't find more features and better support. This is just the beginning of a new era of even more growth to continually working with you and photographers around the world to help make more money in sales and grow your photography business.
