We’re so excited to share our new website with you guys! I know what you’re thinking – it doesn’t look all that different! However, we hope that you’ll check out the short video below to see some of the new features we’ve been implementing, as well as what we have in store for the DC community for the rest of this year.
A look at what’s new at Design Cuts:
The site is running much faster
After upgrading our main website platform, tweaking various backend/front features, and many more technical aspects that are firmly in the realm of Matt/Darren (and well over my head!), you’ll notice that our website is now running considerably faster. This is great news, as your bundle pages, tutorials and everything else should be much quicker to access now.
The checkout page is more reliable
A major perk of our new platform is that the checkout process appears to be more reliable. It always frustrated us to know that checkout issues were often outside of our control, but the new system looks considerably better, and we’ve noticed an instant drop in Design Cutters experiencing issues at checkout.
Your account area has been improved – with proper invoices!
We’ve long realised that our old invoicing system wasn’t up to scratch. Not only does your new account area offer you a proper list of orders, order dates and other useful details, but you can download comprehensive pdf invoices for your records, with all of your relevant details on them.
These invoices should also reach you in an improved order confirmation email, which lists all of your order details, and includes the pdf guide as an attachment, to save you time.
If you ever need to update your personal or company details, you can also do this within the new account page tabs, and these changes will be automatically updated within your invoice documents. Handy right?
We’ve introduced a shopping cart
If you’re ever looking to purchase more than one item easily, we’ve now introduced a shopping cart area, which you’ll see a link to in the top menu. Whether you want to grab a deal that’s being re-run, alongside your main bundle, or you perhaps want to add an item from our store, you can now do all this in a single order, and easily manage your cart items in the process!
Browsing your bundle items just got a WHOLE lot easier!
This is a big one folks! It’s probably the single biggest question that we get asked:
“How can I browse and navigate my Design Cuts bundle items more easily?”
We’ve been listening hard, and teamed up with community members Janeen and Julie to undertake a HUGE project to help you guys. We asked for your feedback on Facebook, refined our browsing guides, and then worked together to provide both an improved PDF browsing guide, and an invaluable image gallery option.
In short, these browsing guides will let you:
- See a complete overview of what’s included in your bundle
- Jump to specific sections of your bundle, using a handy, hyperlinked table of contents
- See a full product description/preview images of each item within your bundle
- Allow you to use search functionality to search for specific items, designers etc…
- See every single individual item within each of the wider packs in your bundle, and browse/search for these
We’ve added the updated PDF guide and image gallery to our latest bundle. We’re also working to add these guides to every single past bundle, and anticipate this process to be completed within the next 2 weeks. Of course we’ll also be including these improved guides for all future bundles too.
If you’re wanting a sample of how awesome these new guides are, please click the link or image below to download a sample:
Download your sample updated browsing guides
We’ve incorporated VAT into our checkout process for EU customers
This has been a tough one for us, as whilst we hate having to pass any tax onto our customers, earlier this year, it became a legal requirement for all online businesses to do so. If you’re based in the EU, you will see the addition of VAT onto your order.
We do realise that many of our community weren’t anticipating this change, and to be honest, neither were we. However, in line with regulations, we’ve had to fall in line, and can only promise to be as transparent and honest about why this is with you guys.
If you click here, you can see a useful article, with more details about this VAT regulation, and how it’s effecting online businesses all over the world.
The good news is that these tax details are automatically included within your invoice documents and order receipts, which should make your personal and company records a little easier to keep. Also, if you do have an EU VAT number, inputting this at checkout will remove the VAT from your order.
Finally, we have a new blog
We’re really excited because this site update brings with it a brand new, redesigned blog area. This year we’ll be focusing much more on bringing you guys the latest site updates, news and other fun content via our blog, and we hope that it’ll be a fantastic hub for the DC community.
This is only the beginning!
What’s really exciting for us is that this site relaunch is only the beginning. We have literally hundreds of awesome new features and improvements lined up for you guys, and until we’d updated our main site platform, we just weren’t able to push forwards with these.
Now that we’ve reached Design Cuts V2.0, you’ll see regular improvements happening around the site, all of which will be done to benefit the amazing community here. We’ll be documenting all of them right here on the new blog, so you won’t miss a trick.
We’d absolutely love to know what you think about these new features, and the future direction of Design Cuts. We can’t wait to share what we have planned for you guys, and thank you as ever for your amazing feedback, loyalty and support!
– Tom, Matt, Darren, Tina, Carol and Edita (The Design Cuts Team, a.k.a the Creative Geeks).
awesome work, team!
Hey Andria,
Thanks for the comment!
It has been a hectic time getting everything organised for the relaunch but it is so worth it! We are so happy that everyone is loving the new features :).
Absolutely brilliant! Sending out a huge sigh of relief to you across the pond because of the pdf browsing guide…I can’t tell you how much that will help! Thank you, you guys are the best!!!
They’re finally here Peggy!!
We are echoing your sigh of relief ourselves over this side of the water!
You are very welcome and we are beyond happy that you are enjoying them :).
The PDF Guide is invaluable! Thanks so much. Love. Love. Love DC!
Hey Erin,
Thanks for your feedback on the PDF guides- we are so pleased you love them as much as we do!
We really hope that they make using your resources a whole lot easier :).
LOVE it! Being a website designer and closet developer I know just how much planning and work must have gone into the changes for you guys! Kudos to you! You identified problem areas for your fairly fanatic fans and are going well beyond the basics in ensuring you both addressed those AND left a TON of room to grow! Well done!
My resources from Design Cuts have literally overtaken my own resource library (which is massive!) … I turn to those resources daily and more frequently than I do any other these days because my Design Cuts resources are high-quality and able to be customized for mine and my client’s personalities and branding needs in ways others just don’t come close to.
LOVE my Design Cuts. Yep. You’re mine. Not letting go and no one can make me! :D
Hey Katrina,
Thanks so much for such amazing feedback! There has been a lot of long days and sleepless nights to get the website up and relaunched and we’ve been extremely caffeinated lol but when we get feedback like your Katrina- it makes it all worthwhile! Thank you!
We love you right back and are so happy that you get to utilise your resources so much! Super glad to be yours :).
What about the buyers (within the eu) who provide an VAT ID? Will VAT be charged?
Hey there,
Thanks for the comment and the question. If you provide your VAT ID at checkout, it will remove the VAT for you!
I hope this helps, and please don’t hesitate to contact me should you have any other questions.