Available immediately to early adopters and on general release in late August, version 2017r2 of Taopix’s eponymous platform includes the first of a number of changes for the Desktop Designer. 

The shopping cart has been redesigned to make it easier for end-users to order multiple products in one go, while licensees will be able to view live pricing and customised disclaimers in the ‘designer’ window as well as in the product selector and shopping cart.

Additionally the developer has added a new zoom tool to the Quick Designer, in Taopix Online Designer, with the ability to rotate pictures independently of the picture box while licensees will be able to link their logos to specific web pages to help customers navigate more easily.

Other new features include a single template, for similar specification photobooks with multiple pages, where different page count configurations can be applied as well as an update to the ‘Send to a Friend’ feature making it more realistic and interactive, according to the developer.

Taopix sales director Dianne Moralee said the latest platform update was a series of smaller improvements, rather than "a big flashy announcement", that was chiefly targetting improved conversion rates for users.

"This is more about making subtle changes that make all the difference when it comes to clients completing the purchase journey.

"It's incredible how people have adopted mobiles devices as the way of buying things now and that is what is really driving the continual improvements and upgrades for us. We need to be thinking: 'What are the mobile, laptop and desktop users doing?'. We can't afford to leave anybody behind; we have three different types of user journey to consider and this latest update really looked at ensuring all of the different user types are buying more and coming back for more," she added.

The 10-year old software developer has now sold 570 licences globally for its product and Moralee said key to its continual development was feedback and input from customers and end users as well as research from its R&D division. 

Moralee said the next "big" update, which will focus on the "single-print new user journey" was currently in the prototyping stage and was slated for release by the end of the year.