Smartstore 6.4 – more performance, better legal certainty & smarter shop processes

With Smartstore 6.4, we are consistently continuing the ongoing development of the version 6 series: more performance through the update to .NET 10, new features for cancellation and warranty, enhanced AI tools, improvements in the shopping cart, optimized checkout processes as well as numerous detailed improvements in administration, marketing, payment, theming and stability.

Handle cancellations directly online

With the new commercial cancellation plug-in, customers can submit cancellations for eligible orders and items directly online. This significantly simplifies the process for both shop customers and merchants.

For Smartstore shop operators, this means: less manual communication, clearer processes, and better traceability. At the same time, the plug-in supports compliance with EU requirements for digital cancellation and thus ensures greater legal certainty in online retail.

New warranty plug-in for EU-compliant labeling

Also new is the commercial warranty plug-in. It enables the configuration and display of harmonized EU labels for the statutory warranty as well as for commercial durability guarantees. This allows merchants to present important warranty information more transparently and inform customers more clearly even before purchase.

This is an important contribution to trust, transparency and compliance, especially for complex, higher-value or durable products.

Enhanced AI functions: HTML markup and image generation

The AI functions in Smartstore are also being further expanded with version 6.4. New features include an HTML optimization command “Organize”, which improves document structures and cleans up HTML markup. This makes it possible to prepare content in a cleaner, more structured and more readable way.

In the media manager, new images can also be created. During image generation, quality levels such as low, medium or high can be selected – provided the respective AI provider supports this. This gives shop operators more control over result quality, speed and possible costs.

Another exciting feature is the automatic generation of an llms.txt. This further modernizes Smartstore with regard to AI-based discoverability and structured information delivery.

Structured data as the basis for AI commerce

Structured data are evolving from a classic SEO tool into a central infrastructure for digital commerce. They enable search engines, AI systems and future shopping agents to clearly understand and classify products, categories and brands. This creates the basis for better visibility, smarter product recommendations, generative search results and new commerce scenarios. For modern e-commerce platforms, they are therefore becoming a decisive competitive factor.

Improvements to mandatory products

Mandatory products are integrated much better into the shopping cart process in Smartstore 6.4. Automatically added mandatory products can now no longer be removed separately from the shopping cart. In addition, their quantity can be synchronized with the main product. This is especially helpful for product sets, accessories, deposit items, service packages or other items that necessarily belong to a main product.

In addition, there is a new setting that allows the prices of automatically added mandatory products to be displayed below the main product price. This creates more transparency for customers and reduces misunderstandings in the shopping cart.

More transparency in registration and customer data

During customer registration, the password policy is now displayed directly and validated live. Customers therefore immediately see what requirements a password must meet. This reduces input errors and improves the user experience when creating an account.

There are also helpful detailed improvements in the administration area: on the order processing page, the name of an applied discount is displayed, and the email address now also appears next to the customer name. This makes order processing easier and provides a better overview in day-to-day business.

Reward points for newsletter subscriptions

Smartstore 6.4 expands the bonus system: reward points can now also be awarded for subscribing to the newsletter. This gives shop operators an additional way to make newsletter sign-ups more attractive and strengthen customer loyalty to the shop. Especially in combination with promotions, coupons and personalized campaigns, this creates a practical tool for customer retention and marketing automation.

New options for wallet credit

The wallet system has also been expanded. Wallet credit can now be placed in the shopping cart via a PageBuilder block at any location. In addition, there is an option to display credit amounts as buttons during purchase. This makes purchasing credit more convenient and opens up new possibilities for gift credit, customer accounts, prepaid models or internal budget solutions.

Better display on mobile devices

There are important improvements in theming for mobile users. On devices below the medium breakpoint size, central product information such as brand, product title, short description, badges and rating summary is now displayed above the image gallery. This allows customers on smartphones to access the most important information more quickly without first having to scroll past the product gallery.

In addition, available color options and other variants in product lists are now displayed by default on touch devices. This improves orientation and makes product variety more visible on mobile as well.

Optimized checkout and more stable payment processes

The checkout has been further streamlined. After successful payment confirmation on a third-party page, customers are redirected directly to the completion page; the intermediate step via the confirmation page is omitted.

There are also improvements with payment providers. Payever has been optimized in the checkout flow for Zinia financing, Santander instant payment has been reactivated, and the processing of webhook messages has been improved for PostFinance and Skrill. In addition, the renaming of Zinia to Openbank has been taken into account.

In addition, the TSE functionality of the service provider Fiskaly was developed specifically for retail. Please note that this is available from version 6.4 onward.

Protection against bot traffic and better system stability

Smartstore 6.4 is even better at detecting bots and AI agents. Extended heuristic checks reduce unnecessary database entries and help maintain high system quality in the long term.

Captcha functions have also been improved. The fail-safe behavior has been optimized to preserve accessibility as much as possible while at the same time blocking automated abuse. In addition, issues with form submissions in certain special cases have been fixed.

Improved logging and administration

The event log has become significantly more convenient. Identical logs that occur within a time window of ten minutes are now grouped together. In addition, stack frame formatting as well as tools for copying to the clipboard and for wrapping long texts have been added.

Improvements for Google Merchant Center and search engines

There are new settings and improvements for Google Merchant Center. Products can now be exported selectively only if Google data is stored. In addition, when deleting rows in the Google grid, the associated product data is also taken into account.

In addition, shipping details are output as structured metadata for search engines on the product detail page. This can help make product information easier for search engines to understand and improve the display in search results.

Brevo mailing list synchronization

Smartstore 6.4 also adds a commercial Brevo mailing list synchronization. This expands Smartstore’s capabilities in the areas of newsletters, marketing and customer communication. For merchants who use Brevo for email marketing, the connection between shop data and campaign management becomes more convenient.

Update to .NET 10

Smartstore 6.4 is based on .NET 10 and thus brings the platform technically up to date. The update ensures higher overall performance and strengthens the technological foundation for modern, scalable e-commerce projects.

Further improvements in everyday use

In addition to the major innovations, Smartstore 6.4 brings many practical detailed improvements. These include, among other things, a new shopping cart rule for products with specific delivery times, a rate limiter for email queues to prevent overload during email peaks, improvements to downloadable products and additional options for full-width topic pages.

Sorting in the shopping cart has also been improved: selected items are now always listed before unselected items. Reward points for purchases will in future be calculated on the basis of the net subtotal instead of the gross total amount.

Developers benefit from new APIs and adjustments

Smartstore 6.4 also brings important changes for developers. New among other things is JsonLdBuilder with JsonLdFragment in Smartstore.Json, a fluent, fragment-based API for outputting structured schema.org JSON-LD data from views, partials and components.

In addition, the event system has been improved: consumer methods can now also be declared for a base class or an interface instead of having to use exactly the published type. This makes extensions more flexible and reduces unnecessary coupling.

Important for developers: Smartstore 6.4 also contains breaking changes. Among other things, AsyncTo*() extension methods have been removed, IPaymentMethod.PaymentMethodType has been replaced, and the entity and database table ReturnRequest has been renamed to ReturnCase.

Smartstore 6.3 – more accessibility, AI power & legal certainty

With Smartstore 6.3, we are further expanding the strengths of version 6: more accessibility according to WCAG, even more powerful AI support directly in the media manager, a new convenient payment method for higher-priced purchases, GDPR-compliant captchas as well as numerous optimizations in product management, marketing, performance and stability.

Accessibility & compliance further expanded

Smartstore 6.3 continues the ongoing improvements in WCAG accessibility. The shop interface has been further optimized so that content is better structured, screen reader users can navigate more easily, and keyboard operation works even more smoothly.

For merchants, this means: their shops become more usable for people with disabilities and meet the requirements of modern accessibility standards even more consistently – an important factor especially for public institutions and larger companies with clear compliance requirements.

AI & image editing directly in the media manager

• New AI provider: Anthropic Claude AI
  In addition to the existing AI providers, Claude is now also available and expands the possibilities for AI-supported text generation.
• Image editing with ChatGPT or Gemini directly in the media manager
  In the media manager, one or more images can be selected and edited via a free prompt using ChatGPT or Gemini – images can be modified, combined or created completely from scratch. A very powerful tool that makes external image editing programs unnecessary in many cases.
• File-based model management
  AI models can be managed in a more structured way, which makes organizing and using different models in everyday work easier.

This creates a seamless AI workflow directly in Smartstore – from text to image generation – without constantly switching between external tools.

More stable payment processing

• With providers such as Stripe, PostFinance and AmazonPay, stability and error handling have been further improved, ensuring more reliable checkout processes.

GDPR-compliant captchas

For more data protection and legal certainty, Smartstore 6.3 optionally replaces Google reCAPTCHA with two GDPR-compliant alternatives:

• CaptchaFox
• FriendlyCaptcha

Both solutions do without Google services and are therefore ideal for public contracting authorities or companies that place particular value on data protection and compliance.

More efficient product management & marketing

• Visual grouping of product specifications
  Product specifications can be displayed more clearly, which increases readability and comparability for customers.
• Reference prices for variants
  Reference prices can now also be displayed for variants – more price transparency and better sales arguments directly on the product.
• Batch assignment of products to categories
  Products can be assigned to several categories in one step – a major efficiency gain, especially for larger assortment changes.
• Google Merchant Center
  Improved integration with selection of product images and additional shipping data for an optimized presence in Google Shopping campaigns.
• New rules in the Rule Builder
  Additional rules (e.g. shopping cart weight, category membership, newsletter status) open up new possibilities for personalized offers and targeted campaigns.
• Visibility of PageBuilder stories according to shopping cart rules
  Content can be shown or hidden depending on the current shopping cart – ideal for context-related promotions.
• Google review reminder in email marketing
  Automatic email reminders motivate customers to submit reviews on Google and thus strengthen the shop’s visibility and reputation in the long term.

Performance, stability & bug fixes

• Updated JavaScript libraries for more performance and security.
• File manager with language-dependent tabs for better usability.
• Responsive video embedding in the Summernote editor for modern, mobile-capable content.
• Extended eTracker integration and guest creation via the Web API.
• Improved returns processing with optimized handling of statuses and quantities.
• Important bug fixes, including:
  • Fixed an error in image generation in the ChatGPT integration.
  • Corrected display and logic errors in MegaMenu PageBuilder.
  • Stability improvements for payment providers as well as fixes for discount codes and the shopping cart.

Conclusion

With Smartstore 6.3, merchants receive a release that equally strengthens compliance security (WCAG, GDPR-compliant captchas), AI marketing (new AI providers, AI image editing), payment conversion (easyCredit invoice purchase) and stability performance – thus laying the foundation for even better user experiences and higher conversion rates.

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Accessibility according to WCAG – ready for the EAA

From June 28, 2025, the European Accessibility Act (EAA) will come into force – and for the first time it will also affect online retail. For merchants, this means: anyone who does not design their shop to be accessible risks not only legal consequences, but also losing important customer groups.

With Smartstore 6.2, you are perfectly prepared. This is because the current version meets the requirements of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) – and thus also the specifications of the EAA.

What has been optimized?

In Smartstore 6.2, accessibility in the frontend moves into focus. Central areas have been specifically revised:

• Homepage, categories product pages – clearly structured for screen readers

• Search, shopping cart checkout – fully operable with the keyboard

• Customer account, header footer – logically navigable and easy to understand

• Interactive elements such as dialogs or off-canvas pop-ups (e.g. cookie manager) – now with focus trapping for accessible operation

Technical basis for real accessibility

Smartstore relies on clean HTML5, ARIA roles and attributes as well as well-thought-out keyboard navigation. The result: a shop interface that is not only legally compliant, but also future-proof.

Your advantage as a merchant

• Legal certainty: With Smartstore 6.2, you meet the requirements of the EAA.

• New customer groups: An accessible shop means access for everyone – regardless of limitations.

• Competitive advantage: Merchants who act early secure trust and brand strength.

With version 6.2, you not only make your online shop fit for the legal requirements, but at the same time offer an accessible user experience that pays off.

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After the successful launch of Smartstore 6, we are pleased to present the new features and improvements in Smartstore 6.1. This update brings numerous improvements for shop operators: a revised HTML editor with emoji support, expanded and greatly improved AI functions, and two new AI providers, extensively improved shop searches, new overload protection against bot traffic, and much more!

Highlights of Smartstore 6.1

General: Update to .NET 9

With Smartstore 6.1, we are using Microsoft .NET 9 as the technical foundation. This is primarily a developer topic and has no direct impact on day-to-day operations for shop operators, but it ensures a future-proof and high-performance platform.

Summernote editor - comprehensive revision

The HTML editor in Smartstore 6.1 has been fundamentally revised. We are already presenting the first results of this modernization, which has not yet been completed.

A central new feature is the practical save button directly in the editor (Ctrl+S).

Shop operators no longer have to use the general “Save and continue” button, but can save their text changes directly in the editor. The advantage is obvious: the text is immediately visible in the frontend, which is especially time-saving when testing wording and formatting.

The HTML path of the active element is now also clearly listed. When hovering with the mouse, the corresponding area in the text is automatically highlighted, and clicking an element in the path directly selects the associated text area. This provides a better overview of the HTML structure, especially in complex formatted texts, and makes precise work much easier.

The new editor zoom also makes it possible to adjust the font size individually during editing without changing other text sizes in the backend. This allows every user to choose the most comfortable view and work with less fatigue.

A particularly outstanding innovation is the comprehensive emoji support in the HTML editor. With a Unicode emoji picker that includes more than 1,200 emojis, shop operators can now make their texts more visually appealing. Multi-tone emojis (light skin, dark skin etc.) are also supported, as well as more than 10 languages for names, tags and shortcodes.

Overload protection against bot traffic

In the age of increasing automated access, we provide our customers with effective overload protection. Many shop operators report rising bot traffic, which can not only impair performance, but also pose potential security risks. Our new overload protection offers an easy-to-configure solution directly in the shop configuration, without requiring extensive technical knowledge.

Detailed information on configuration and functions can be found here: Overload protection

Expanded AI functions

The AI tools introduced with version 6.0 have already helped numerous shop operators create, edit and translate product, blog and other texts with ease.

With version 6.1, we are significantly expanding this functionality through the integration of two new AI providers: DeepSeek and Gemini can now be used in addition to the proven ChatGPT support. This not only enables greater flexibility, but also the use of the specific strengths of the various AI models for different types of text, as well as different pricing models of the AIs.

The new “Continue” function is particularly practical, allowing you to instruct the AI to continue writing an existing text from any point. This is ideal for expanding existing content or overcoming writer’s block. For example, you start with a basic product description and let the AI add technical details or usage examples – creative possibilities that noticeably ease everyday work.

The AI tool remains a commercial feature, is an integral part of the Premium Edition, and can also be purchased separately as a plug-in. It offers considerable added value for anyone who regularly creates or maintains content.

Improved search functions

The quality of the shop search plays a decisive role in the success of an online shop. Therefore, in Smartstore 6.1 we have comprehensively optimized the shop search included as standard.

The new flexible sorting of search results is particularly valuable, as it enables shop operators to present the results exactly according to their ideas.

The sorting can now be set as a configuration option so that it corresponds to the sequence defined for the product – a function requested by many customers.

There have also been substantial improvements to the search filters. Category, manufacturer and delivery time search filters can now be arranged individually by the shop operator in order to offer the shop customer an optimal user experience. This represents clear progress compared to the previous version, in which the order was largely predefined and only hiding options were possible.

MegaSearch improvements

Our premium plug-in MegaSearch has also been significantly enhanced for Smartstore 6.1. The already powerful search function, which guides customers precisely to the desired products, now works up to 20% faster. Even on standard hosting, searches through millions of items are delivered in a tenth of a second. This responsiveness is particularly noticeable for shops with extensive product catalogs.

Another important innovation concerns the handling of compound words. The automatic splitting of compound words can optionally be suppressed. As a result, only the compound word is searched for, no longer the separated words, which tends to lead to fewer search results.

Example: the shop customer searches for "wardrobe":

With splitting activated, both "wardrobe" and "cabinet" are searched for, and a large number of matching products are displayed in the search results.

Without splitting activated, only the exact term "wardrobe" is searched for, and the shop customer tends to see fewer but more precise search results.

There are also new options for indexing: meta keywords of products can be ignored if necessary in order to optimize the relevance of the search results.

For shop operators who maintain their products via imports, we have introduced a practical function: product keywords can now be imported via the column name ‘MegaSearch.Product.Keywords’, which considerably simplifies tuning the shop search.

GooglePay available in PayPal

Convenient online payment is a decisive factor in completing a purchase. Accordingly, we are pleased that with Smartstore 6.1, GooglePay is now also available as an additional payment method within the PayPal integration.

As the most widely used online payment method worldwide, PayPal is already a standard in Smartstore shops. The expansion to include GooglePay gives your customers even more flexibility when paying and corresponds to the growing trend toward mobile payment methods.

Setup takes place without additional effort within the existing PayPal integration and enables you to cover an even broader spectrum of your customers’ payment preferences.

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Smartstore 6 Release Highlights

With Release 6, major improvements are coming for shop admins: automatic content creation with AI, integration of the powerful Pixlr image editor, new flexible rules for the visibility of certain product attributes, a greatly improved customer experience in the checkout process with Quick Checkout, MailChimp integration, and hundreds of other improvements.

Content creation with AI

Use AI to generate texts and images directly in Smartstore – simple, fast and to the point. In Smartstore 6, a new AI framework makes its debut, to which any AI providers can be connected. In version 6, this is initially ChatGPT from OpenAI. You can create a paid customer account there and register it in Smartstore. You are then ready to generate texts and images in high quality.

In many places in the shop, the new magic wand symbol appears discreetly to the right of the text input or image upload. Click on it and windows open with which you can develop a new product description or a new content page. You do not have to write so-called AI prompts, but you can. We provide you with simple selections that allow you to generate content in the desired style, mood or environment.

In later versions, we will support additional AIs alongside ChatGPT. Automatic content creation and efficient image generation make your online shop more attractive and efficient. Benefit from the powerful AI features of Smartstore 6.

More information about the AI plug-in in Smartstore at: https://smartstore.com/en/plug-in-smartstore-ai-chatgpt-deepseek-gemini-simplify-content-creation/

Pixlr image editor integration

Now you no longer need an external image editing app such as Photoshop, Affinity or Gimp. Edit your images directly in the media manager with the powerful Pixlr online editor, which is integrated by Smartstore 6. Simply click on "Edit with Pixlr" or "Create new with Pixlr" and get started.

Pixlr is a free, web-based photo and graphic design suite. It offers image editing tools such as quick corrections, AI-based cutouts, effects, as well as advanced edits such as layers, overlays and frames.

The user-friendly interface enables basic editing such as cropping, straightening and resizing as well as color and light adjustments. There are also excellently designed templates for text banners that can easily be reworded.

The best thing: no back and forth with the graphic files. They are automatically saved back to the Smartstore Media Manager when you complete your Pixlr edit. The Smartstore plug-in for Pixlr integration requires a one-time Pixlr registration as well as access data from your Pixlr customer account.

More information about the Pixlr plug-in in Smartstore at: https://smartstore.com/en/plug-in-seamless-image-editing-in-smartstore-using-pixlr/

New EU regulation GPSR (General Product Safety Regulation)

Smartstore prepares shop operators for the upcoming EU regulation on general product safety (GPSR), which will come into force on December 13, 2024. The GPSR aims to make e-commerce safer and more transparent by introducing new obligations for online merchants. These include providing detailed product and manufacturer information, conducting risk analyses and ensuring rapid communication in the event of defects. Smartstore supports this with version 6 and offers a GPSR plug-in that makes compliance easier. This feature will be available free of charge for Premium Flat customers and can be purchased by others as a single license.

More information about the GPSR plug-in in Smartstore at: https://smartstore.com/en/plug-in-smartstore-and-the-gpsr-your-guide-to-the-new-eu-product-safety-regulation/

Conditional product attributes

Control the visibility of product attributes with flexible rules for a customized customer experience. This feature expands the control options for product attributes. Based on the powerful Rule Builder, Smartstore 6 allows you to control the visibility of product attributes via flexible rules.

It is particularly useful for configurable products, such as in the furniture industry, to dynamically show or hide fabric materials exactly when it makes sense for the shop customer.

An example: in the product "sofa", under "Edit attribute", create a new rule for the product attribute "Leather back panel" with the condition that this attribute only appears when the sofa material is leather. Actually quite simple and surprisingly sales-promoting, and previously only possible via external configurators!

More information and instructions on the possible uses of the plug-in can be found at: https://smartstore.com/en/tips-and-tricks-set-visibility-of-individual-product-attributes-with-rules/

Checkout improvements

Smartstore 6 offers numerous improvements in the checkout process, i.e. the process in which the customer completes and pays for an order with their shopping cart.

The innovations include various options that make the ordering process easier for the customer. The standard checkout process has been revised and streamlined in many places, including through the introduction of the Quick Checkout configuration option. When Quick Checkout is activated, the shop customer can order more quickly if they have already made a purchase and can skip selecting the payment method.

Smartstore becomes the PayPal checkout! In addition, the Smartstore checkout can now also be used meaningfully at in-store terminals on a machine or in a retail store. To this end, the standard mode (classic e-commerce checkout) is supplemented by two new modes: "Terminal" mode without payment via Smartstore through the store cash register, and “Terminal with payment” mode, in which payment can be processed, for example, via the PayPal function and other payment methods in Smartstore 6.

This opens up many interesting applications and business models. Store owners can, for example, set up a terminal in their point of sale and offer their customers in the store payment with PayPal, Stripe, Amazon Pay, etc. These innovations in Smartstore 6 make the checkout process not only more efficient, but also more flexible, as it can be adapted to different sales scenarios.

As is customary with Smartstore, all texts and descriptions can be individually adjusted and internationalized directly by the shop operator without programming.

More information about the checkout improvements in Smartstore at: https://smartstore.com/en/quick-checkout-rethinking-the-shopping-experience/

MailChimp integration

Connect your newsletter subscribers seamlessly with your MailChimp campaigns. Smartstore has had the newsletter feature for a long time. Shop customers can sign up here and receive newsletters with advantageous offers by email. These emails can also be sent directly from Smartstore. If the subscriber lists are large, sending them via a specialized service provider such as MailChimp is extremely useful. With Smartstore 6, a current integration is available that supports further mail activities on MailChimp.

More information about the Mailchimp plug-in in Smartstore at: https://smartstore.com/en/mailchimp-in-smartstore-proven-tool-for-effective-email-marketing/

... and much more!

Shop customers and operators alike will experience hundreds if not thousands of smaller and larger improvements with the new Smartstore 6. A complete list can be found on our Github after the release.

How to get Smartstore 6

Smartstore 6 is available in various editions and with manufacturer support.

For shop operators, we recommend our Premium Flat as the ideal entry point. This includes not only the 15 basic plug-ins for optimal shop operation, but also expert phone support, a guaranteed response time of 4 hours, and regular updates within the framework of our Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model – all included in the monthly fee.

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Do you have questions about this topic? Or would you like to send us your feedback? Then you can reach us via the contact form, by email at info@smartstore.com or by phone from Monday to Friday between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. at +4923153350.