I just created a half dozen new categories and about 25 sub-categories from them.  I usually don't use the drag and drop editor, but this time I felt like I could do it faster that way.

The bug creates one CATEGORY record for every record in the PRODUCT OPTION table. The tell-tale sign is the ghost categories have no "Last Mod. By" or "Last Modified" info and all have numbers sequentially higher than the last real category you created.

This is not an ongoing bug -- just one that I saw tonight, (I'm sure if it was going on longer more people would have complained and they'd fix it).

Had I been doing an upload / import I would have blamed myself for uploading the wrong table or something -- because that's what this error looks like.

The facts: (Tonight) The Drag & Drop Editor has a serious problem, (confirmed by Customer Support Rep "Viet" who tested it on his own store at approx 3:00AM on Dec. 3, 2010).

Check your CATEGORIES database if you've been working on that database.

Here's the steps to check and see if you have any extra categories that you did not create:

• goto Admin
• click Categories
• click List All

• if "Last Modified" column is not visible:
  • click Customize
  • check off "Last Modified"
  • click Save
  • (return to List All screen)

• click the little arrow next to "Last Modified" column heading
  • (click again to reverse sort order)

What you are looking for is categories with no "Last Modified" date, (or Last Mod. By info), and which have numbers higher than your last created category, and are named like your product options...

Make sure the bug is fixed before deleting all the extra categories... they just come back with higher numbers in the state the bug is in.

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Maybe you've read a little about Volusion's MultiChildAddToCart function -- or gotten daring and tried it.

What it does is allow you to build a dummy product, and then make several (or all) other products as child products of the dummy product.  This results in a product page where a table with quantity fields and check boxes appear next to each product name, so a customer can order several different products from one page.

Like most of the other automatic functions in Volusion, there is little to no control over the visual or functional appearance of MultiChildAddToCart grids.   They offer one hack, (inserting a tiny comment tag into each child product's name field, e.g.- <!001>, <!456>, <!999>, etc, and the software will sort the grid based on the hidden tag), but it means junking up your products database.

Worse, if you don't get it right the first time, or need to add, edit or delete some child products, after Volusion has generated all the  child product data into your PRODUCT database, you need to manually clean up the mess and start over (creating that parent and group of child products).

Of course there is a better way...

How would you like to be able to create a page with a table of products  arranged into groups, with dividers and headings about each group, areas for special instructions or comments, and the ability to allow customers to order from any or all products you sell in a single page? [READ MORE...]

While working on a customer's Volusion site, I needed to log in as a test customer who was set at one Discount_Price_Level, then log out, and see if the same code worked for customers who were not logged in.

Since the code I was testing involved displaying prices to customers based on level.  It should have displayed and calculated orders using the retail prices only to anyone who wasn't logged in.  The same code should have displayed a discounted price to logged in users who had a discount price level set.

There was a problem. After being logged in as a user with a discount price level set,  I logged out using the link at the bottom of the My Account page labeled:

"I'm done managing my account, log me out."

...but, this doesn't completely log the user it out.   Clicking the link tells you you're logged out -- but if the store has set the config setting: [READ MORE...]

While developing a Volusion online store for a customer, I was looking over some reports in SmarterStats and ran across an interesting URL I'd never seen before --- so I popped it into the address bar of my browser and found a nice, yet undocumented Volusion feature.

If you'd like to see what your template looks like without any Volusion generated content on the page, you can use: [READ MORE...]

Along with providing ecommerce software, Volusion Inc., now offers search engine optimization, (SEO), and search engine marketing, (SEM), services to store owners using their shopping cart software.

Volusion offers these online marketing services as their "Fast Traffic" and their "Search Engine Marketing", plans. Each offer several levels of traffic and additional services staged at varying price points. The price range goes from about a hundred bucks a month to six-thousand plus per month -- plus setup fees.

Volusion's "Fast Traffic" plans appear to be little more [READ MORE...]