UniSquare Major Updates and Upgrades
May 18, 2013
New Updates: Individual Seller Social Network Links - Coupon Codes and SEO changes
We've made a few recent changes over the past few weeks or so. One major feature upgrade is the ability to allow sellers to add their own social network links to their Facebook page, Twitter page, Google Plus page and LinkedIn pages. To add these, please login, visit My Square and edit your account preferences. These links will appear on your store homepage and your member information page! They will appear in small symbol blocks that visitors can view and click: 
Due to feedback, we've made an additional feature for coupon codes. When you add or edit your coupon/promo codes, you can now make them appear and display live on all of your listing pages. This was due to concerns about trying to market the codes and let potential buyers know about them. Although, we also made a clear option to hide these codes (the public ones that apply to everyone at least), so they do not display on the item pages themselves, in case you would like to use them in external marketing campaigns.
Lastly, and due to feedback by those knowledgeable in SEO, we've got around to an SEO change related to individual listing pages and made them look more SEO friendly by inserting the actual title into them. In addition, the old and short original URLs still work. So you can still send the short numerical item ID URLs to people, while the SEO-friendly URLs will provide one more boost in the search engines!
March 16, 2013
New Updates: Watch List, Save Sellers, Save Searches and more
Due to feedback and suggestions, we've added a few new features at UniSquare. The first main feature we added was a Watch List. While logged in, you can now add any item to a watch list and view it from the Summary page or "Watch List" page inside of "My Square" to keep an eye on it. Members can watch an unlimited number of items here and remove them at will.
In addition, we added two more tabs to "My Square" called "Saved Sellers" and "Saved Searches". Members can now add a member to their "Saved Sellers" list. This is handy if you want to keep track of high quality sellers or simply keep track of your favorite members on UniSquare. In addition, you can leave up to 1000 characters note on that seller that only you can see. To add sellers to your list, simply view a page that has an item for sale by that member and click the "Save this seller" link, or visit their member page and click "Add to favorite sellers". Again, you can keep track of an unlimited number of sellers here and they can be deleted at any time.
Lastly, we added a "Save Searches" feature that allows you to save search terms and configurations. To do this, login and simply perform a search in the search bar. When the results come up, a new button will appear called "Click here to save this search in My Square". Click this and it will be saved. This feature will keep track of your search terms and bring you back to the exact search results. The feature even keeps track of price ranges, search in specific categories, best offers, free shipping, specific items, specific members, sold items, bidders and any other advanced criteria!
As always, please report any glitches and bugs with new feature updates. We'll continue to fine-tune these features as time goes on, especially if we missed something. One thing we fine-tuned is the bidding history, members can now bid anonymously and hide their name from the public. We've also patched up a few other minor, elusive bugs on the site which are generally in the background, and we've also done backend work to make pages load faster and more efficiently. This should make things smoother in those areas.
March 1, 2013
Transitioning to a 100% free marketplace
Due to feedback, marketability and business strategy, we've decided to transition UniSquare into a 100% free online marketplace and online auction house. Before, there were no listing fees, no registration fees, no monthly fees of any kind - only a 2% seller commission or final value fee. Now we've eliminated the commission fee so that it is 0%, so no more commission fees and final value fees. Instead, UniSquare now has no fees of any kind! Please tell everyone you know about the new changes and link to our site from your personal websites and resource sites!
As always with our major updates, please let us know if there are any bugs or glitches related to this new update. Particularly, please let us know if you still experience any messages or billing notification related to the our old 2% fee system.
January 20, 2013
New Books, DVDs and Movies Categories - Small Bug Fixes
Due to feedback, we've greatly expanded our books marketplace and added over 6000 new categories. The categories are now inspired by Amazon's book structure, so listings will no longer be in categories that are too general and vague. The benefits of this is now sellers will have a much richer, wider range of categories to list almost any kind of book in. This ranges from audio books (cassettes, CDs, MP3 CD), new and used textbooks, fiction and non-fiction categories and A LOT more. In addition, we added genres for the DVDs and Movies categories, so it should make things easier for listing new and used DVDs, VHS, Laserdisc, UMD, films and other formats.
This makes it much easier for buyers to browse and find what they are looking for immediately. In addition, your items pages will now contain the specific category links, which displays rich, specific keywords. This should definitely boost the SEO benefits in the search engines with more specific keywords showing up in you rankings and search listings. The end result is you should receive more visitors and potential sales.
Lastly, we fixed up a few bugs in our Bundle Builder "Make An Offer" feature as well as contact forms and other forms. Please let us know if you experience any further issues with these new changes.
December 23, 2012
New Features: Advanced Search, Reply to Feedback and Bid History
We've made a few more feature upgrades to UniSquare. The first major upgrade is the addition of Advanced Search. There is now a new "Advanced" link just next to the search button. This will allow members to search for items based on specific item numbers, search for specific members and their items (along with keyword defining of those items), search for bidders and their recent bidding history, search for recently sold items based on keywords, specific member usernames or both. The general advanced search will allow visitors to search for items based on the regular keywords and price ranges as well as by "Best Offers" or "Free Shipping", or by item conditions: All, New, Used and Refurbished. In addition, the general search will also show items from specific members based on those above preferences, or even exclude a selected username from the search.
In addition, members can now write a reply to any kind of feedback or offer some kind of counter-feedback. As for the auction listings, we've now come up with a better system for bid history to display a list of the current bidders, their bids, bidding time and other related statistics. Note, we will not show the maximum bid for members on the bid history screen, that will stay hidden. As always, please let us know if you come across any bugs and glitches with these new feature updates.
December 20, 2012
Contact Email and Payment Statuses Fixes - Bulk Import/Upload Beta Testing
Our biggest news right now is that UniSquare is close to releasing a full-fledged bulk importer/exporter due to extremely high member demand. It's all set to go, but we will try getting some beta testing done with it and work out any bugs first. This new feature will allow members to upload 10,000 items at a time. In addition, members can export all items for bulk editing purposes or for marking items for deletion. After all items are imported, members can create smaller files to add new items, edit existing ones or delete items all at the same time during import. Users will be able to upload tab-delimited txt files or comma-delimited csv files. In addition, we've done some major restructuring on the database, mostly back-end stuff. We will announce more information soon. As always, please let us know if you spot any issues, bugs and glitches!
In addition, we have received messages about email notifications being delayed or not sent, and issues with payment status confusion. We've also heard reports that members have tried contacting us through the Contact Us form and we never received these messages. We worked with the server and believe the email problem should be fixed, so members should be receiving notifications of when items are sold and etc. As for the payment statuses, the new default payment status on invoices are now "Marked as Unpaid" instead of "Marked as Paid". PayPal lets us know when a payment is actually made, so the status will change automatically to "Marked as Paid". As for Google Checkout, Checks, Money Orders and Payment upon Pickup payment methods, the seller must verify that a payment was actually made and then manually select "Marked as Paid" on the invoice. This should help clear up any confusions... Supposedly, the world is supposed to end tomorrow (December 21st, 2012), so we wanted to make sure these fixes were done before then.
September 19, 2012
Make an Offer Feature - 1st Year Anniversary
UniSquare has just added a major brand new feature called "Make an Offer". Sellers may now have the option to accept offers on any Buy It Now (BIN) fixed priced items. This will add a "Make an Offer" button to your item page. Buyers may click this and add an item to their "My Offers" cart. In fact, buyers can not only make an offer on just one item, they can also continue to add items into this separate cart and make one large bundle offer. A list of offers you've made or received can be found in your account Activity page. When an offer is accepted, it is instantly turned into an invoice with the shipping address and all. It's simple and very convenient!
On another note, tomorrow (September 20th, 2012) will be our 1st anniversary of the launch of UniSquare. We've come a long way in the development of many new features and upgrades of the site as well as marketing and getting the word out. We would like to greatly thank our members for spreading the word and linking to our site - We hope this will bring in more deals in return! We've also finally broken out of the "Google Sandbox" effect, which is basically purposely deflated search rankings (very little visitor traffic) imposed on all new sites and imposed for a long time for large new sites like ours. Since about last month when this happened, the growth in traffic has more than doubled (along with sales) and the traffic growth is going to increase very strongly over the next few months.
September 7, 2012
Create and Manage Your Own Coupon Codes / Promo Codes
We've added a new feature which will allow sellers to create customized coupon codes, promo codes and discounts for buyers to use upon checkout. You can manage an unlimited number of codes and this feature is free. Coupons can be applied to all items you have for sale on your store or member page. The type of coupons sellers can now create are free shipping codes, percentage discounts (such as 20% off an order) or fixed price "gift certificate" types of discounts (such as $20 off an order). You can configure the codes to have unlimited uses or be used one-time-only. Also, you can even limit a code to specific members, such as for your most loyal buyers for example. The interface is extremely simple to use and you can promote your codes anywhere on the internet. To create coupons, click the "My Square" link and then the "Account" tab to view your account preferences. Then browse down to the "Coupon Code Management" field and click the "edit" link to begin adding codes!
August 14, 2012
Upgrades: Fixed Registration Bug - IP Logging Security Upgrade - New Features Presentation
We've completed a few upgrades on the site. One major upgrade we've done is enhanced our IP logging system to help reduce known spammers and fraudulent members from creating multiple accounts. We've also connected our banned list with our sister site at USA Coin Book as well to prevent frauds and spammers from coming over there and vice versa. During this upgrade, we've been contacted about a glitch that was preventing some members from registering on the site. This glitch has not been fixed.
In addition, we've also added a new page showcasing some of our major features for buyers and sellers at UniSquare: click here to read more about them. There are many features that members may not even know about or take advantage of, so this was important. A powerful new feature we've recently added was creating product feeds for Google Shopping, Bing Shopping and TheFind.com. Nearly all items added on UniSquare will automatically be listed on these three shopping search engines (which are different than the normal organic search results at Google.com and Bing.com). This has been wildly successful in bringing in major increase in targeted shoppers!
July 23, 2012
New Twitter App: UniSquare Selling Feed
We now have the UniSquare Selling Feed set up on Twitter as an app. Just like the facebook selling feed, sellers can now have all of their new listings automatically announced on twitter in the form of a tweet. This not only informs your followers of new items listed for sale on UniSquare, but anyone searching on twitter may also spot your keywords in the search feature. This will enhance exposure for possible quick buys, especially if someone is searching for the right item at the right time! To install this app, login and click the "My Square" link in the upper left-hand side of the screen. Then click the "Account" tab to view your account preferences. Browse down to the "Social Network Sharing" section and click the edit link. Go down to the Twitter app and click the link to give UniSquare permission to post your new listings on your twitter account. That's it!
July 22, 2012
New Facebook App: UniSquare Stores
We've developed another useful facebook application called UniSquare Stores. If you have a facebook fan page, you can add this app and it will appear as a page tab button just above the timeline. Whenever anyone clicks on this button, they will see all of your UniSquare listings for sale as a store inside of facebook for all of your viewers to view! Visitors can search for items that you have for sale on this page and click through to purchase them as well. To add this app to your fan page, click here.
July 17, 2012
New Facebook App: UniSquare Selling Feed - Share Your Listings on Facebook
We've developed and launched our first facebook app! This app will allow your member listings to automatically post onto your facebook news feed. This will allow all of your facebook friends to see new items for sale at Unisquare. To enable this feature, you must first log into your UniSquare account, click "My Square", then click the Account tab to view your account preferences. Browse down to the "Social Network Sharing" field and click the edit link. You must then click the link to allow UniSquare permission to access your news feed in order to post your listings at any time.
Once you have done this, UniSquare will be able to post any of your newly created listings directly to your facebook news page. This will happen whether you are logged into facebook or offline. You can disable this feature at any time from your UniSquare account preferences page. Note, this is a beta version and our first facebook app. Please let us know if you experience any problems or issues getting this app to work. In the future, we will try to build a similar app for automatic Twitter sharing as well!
July 12, 2012
New Facebook page and web marketing guide for getting more visitors.
We've written up a new guide to help members get more traffic and potential buyers. There are simple methods and tips to follow when listing items for sale which can greatly increase your product exposure in major search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask.com and many others. These tips explain certain ways of writing product titles and descriptions, as well as some of the automatic SEO that we built into UniSquare for all listings.
Besides on-page content factors, we also explain off-page factors such as link building to market your store, how to build links and the benefits of building links. Another topic we touched on was facebook, twitter and marketing with social networking. This guide is mainly a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) guide, but it's great for beginners who don't know much about SEO or how the search engines work. How you write your item page can determine whether you no visitors or many visitors (and sales) from search engines, which is why this is an important topic for any online business. To check it out, view our web marketing and SEO guide.
In addition, we created a facebook page for UniSquare, so don't forget to "like" us and spread the word around about UniSquare!
May 7, 2012
New Feature: Block members from bidding on, or buying your items
Based on recent feedback, we created a new feature that allows you to block specific members from bidding or buying your items. You can block a nearly unlimited number of usernames. To edit this feature, login and click the "My Square" link and click the "Account" tab to view your account preferences page. Near the bottom, there is now a new field called "Blocked Members" with an edit link. Click the edit link to edit the blocked members field. This page displays a text block where you can type in the username you want to block. Separate multiple members with a comma. Members will be blocked instantly and they will receive an error message informing them that they have been blocked whenever they try to bid on, or buy your items. Note that these members can still contact you in order to work things out.
To unblock a member, simply delete the username from the list. Don't forget to contact the member and inform them that they have been unblocked and will be able to purchase from you again. As always, please contact us if you notice any bugs or glitches with this new upgrade!
April 17, 2012
New Visitor Counters Feature, Google Analytics and Recent Sales Page
We have added some new upgrades to the site, including this updates and news page! Members can now view and display visitor counters across all item pages. These are simple counters which keep track of how many visitors are viewing your items. To enable this, login and visit your account preferences page under "My Square". Browse down to the "Visitor Counters" field and click the edit link to enable or disable this feature. By default, the counter is disabled, but UniSquare counts all visitors in the background whether the feature is enabled or not. In addition, a visitor's IP address is recorded and is counted as a unique visitor once every 24 hours.
Google Analytics
Last week, we also created a Google Analytics feature as well. Members can sign in to Google Analytics create a tracking ID there first. Then login to "My Square", visit the account preferences page and browse down to the "Google Analytics" field to edit your tracking ID. Once you have inserted your Google Analytics Tracking ID here, Google Analytics will automatically and instantly be integrated into all of your items, your member page, your store page and all of the categories inside your store page. Google Analytics will help keep track of your visitor's behaviors and other useful statistics.
Lastly, we created a new archive record of all previous sales and successful auctions. To view this page, please visit: http://www.unisquare.com/reference-guides/recent-sales/. Members also have the option to view auctions and BIN items separately, see how many bids were made.
As always, let us know if you experience any bugs, glitches or other issues with our new upgrades!
September 20, 2011
In the Beginning...
A quick summary: We originally purchased the domain name UniSquare.com back on June 12, 2011. UniSquare.com had many previous owners and websites before this time in unrelated indusstries. Eventually they abandoned their websites and let the domain name expire and so we decided to purchase the domain name and start from scratch. The site was being constructed and later completed on September 20th, 2011, which is the day we launched publically and officially. Although, we did not begin our marketing push until early January of 2012 since we were concentrating on building many new features including the options with items and the shopping cart where members can buy and sell items with multiple sizes and colors (such as shoes, clothing and etc.). Finally on April 17th, 2012, we decided to build this update page and announce news and important upgrades at UniSquare.
