The Return of Zoom

Howdy, iStockers,

It's been a busy few weeks in the Dev shop, and a couple of the big deliverables reached the site this week. Our customers will now see PayPal integrated into the Cash Sales purchase flow, and we made the shopping cart persistent (items added while logged out are merged into the cart when the user logs in). These updates continue the work we've been doing over the last several months to ensure that users experience minimal friction when they're trying to buy our high-quality media.

And now for some more good news: we'll be restoring basic zoom functionality next week (Dec 10 - 14). The exact date is dependent on the release schedule, but we're sure it'll be available during the work week. In January we'll be releasing some performance improvements and additional features to the zoom tool, so that should be something to look forward to after the New Year.

Cheers,


Jay


Updated: 09JAN13:



(Edited on 2013-01-09 15:38:33 by kelvinjay)

And so it begins!


Thank you Jay

Good news. Thanks Jay.

Jay, you just make my day...!

Hurray!

Great news! Panoramic shots rejoice everywhere!

Certainly is some good news!

Let's all hope for a smooth, bug free roll out.

Yeah, no kidding. 

iStock community,
 
I wanted to provide some additional details for you about our new features launched this week!
 
Earlier this fall, we launched a brand new way for iStockphoto customers to download content (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=346495&page=1).
 
We have identified a few features that will help increase sales via this a la carte purchasing method, and I am pleased to announce several new features that we launched this week:
 
-          Paypal – When we launched the New Way to Pay, customers could use major credit cards to download files. However, we know from past experience in accepting Paypal for iStock Credits sales, that many customers prefer to only use Paypal. Starting today, customers can now also use Paypal when downloading files a la carte.



-          Persistent Shopping Cart – We built a Shopping Cart for customers to pre-select files they want to download a la carte – similar to how some customers use Lightboxes before downloading files. Many of these customers want to download and pay for these files on another day or from another computer. Now they can! The files that iStockphoto visitors add to their cart will remain in their Shopping Cart until they download or remove them. Just remember, you have to be signed in for your cart to be “remembered” when you return to the site next time!
 
We hope you enjoy these new features!
 
For those who are highly anticipating the re-launch of the Zoom feature, we are in the final stages of developing it – and are bringing it back newer and better than before.
 
Please know that we have been reviewing lots of data, conducting usability studies of how customers are using the site – and reviewing the forums – amongst other activities –  in order to prioritize the launch of all of our new features. Thank you very much for your patience and urgency.
 
Thanks for all of your business and passion in iStock’s evolution.
 
Kris,
Ecommerce Team

Excellent, keep it up.

Great news! Keep it up!

Very exciting to see communication coming from lots of people at iStock!! Thank you!! And these changes sound great. (though on a sad note, this was the worst week of sales I've had in years)

Great to hear, keep up with the good work!

Thank you! I'm very happy to hear this.

great news for the new year

Great! Thanks!

Hi, TechVeep and KingCash!


You should be aware that this forum is used mainly by contributors, and that not very many buyers bother to visit or look here. It's great that you're keeping us informed of new and soon-to-be stuff (Thanks!), but it would be better if iStock sent out an email newsletter to everyone so that all buyers knew of the improvements, too.

(Edited on 2012-12-07 19:49:49 by sharply_done)

Good to hear.


"...zoom, zoom..."

I'm sure there'll be a strong marketing push... when the features are all implemented and working fine. It doesn't make sense to reach out to anyone who left in frustration unless the site is back in tip-top shape.


What a day. It feels like dialogue has finally resumed. I was hoping that since the zoom had to be rewritten from scratch it would come back improved. I can't wait to see it. It can potentially be a strong selling point. Really great news.