Hello everyone,
I'm here to announce that the "Cloud Search" goes free to replace "Instant Search", the latter is being deprecated.
Compared to the "instant Search" module, the "Cloud search" is much more powerful and effective. Taking it into account we took decision to discontinue the development of the former and offer a free plan for the latter. Thus you're getting a better product, and we, instead of supporting two alike features, focus on the other improvements you're all longing for. Below are some clarifications on how this change affects you:
Users of X-Cart 5 ( Business, Business Premium and Free Edition)
- The users of a
Free edition and the
new users of Business Edition are welcome to signup for a free plan of the Cloud search products. This plan is good for up to 100 products, with the unlimited number of search queries per store per month, without access to search statistics. For those, who have 100+ products, or wants to see the search statistics (what your store visitors searched for, what search terms were the most popular and what popular queries returned no results), we offer several paid plans.
- Those
who purchased Business Edition before the announcement, are getting a one-year subscription for the Gold plan of the Cloud search - this plan is the maximum possible one, with the support of up to 50,000 products.
Starting from version 5.2, the Instant search module will not be available for the installation. But as long as you're using a Business Edition of version 5.1, you can find it and install via the built-in Marketplace. You may feel free to use it now, however we recommend that you switch to a much more powerful and effective Cloud Search - in many cases, the free plan, limited to 100 products, will be sufficient, and the paid plans are quite affordable too.
With this announcement we're updating the pack included into the Business edition, so the Instant Search will no longer be included into the premium package for the new users.
Users of X-Cart 4 Classic (Gold, GoldPlus and Platinum)
- For the existing
users of the X-Cart 4 Classic, subscribed for the Cloud Search, nothing changes. The Bronze plan will no longer be available for sale, but the existing users of the Bronze plan will keep using it ( and get search statistics as a bonus) - or please contact us to get switched to a free plan without the statistics.
- Those
X-Cart 4 users who only consider the Cloud Search service, are invited to study the plans and select the most appropriate for their needs.
Please
visit this blog article with side by side comparison, more detailed description of the Cloud Search, as well as screenshots and the interview with a talented developer, product manager Nikita about the past, present and future of the module:
http://blog.x-cart.com/cloud-search-goes-free-to-replace-instant-search.html